So glad to find this thread, even if several years late. I recently started digitizing my old cassettes and LPs and having reached the Limeliters realized the Web provides a great opportunity to learn the real words and meaning of those songs I've been singing phonetically (and no doubt mangling badly) for decades. Once I think I've got them right I'm replaying the recordings incessantly while singing along to re-train my brain.

This leads me to a couple of comments about Joe Offer's impressive transcription:

1) Joe's second and third lines: [Proschay ty novaya derevnya
Proschay tsyganskaya lyubov]????? I hear only one line here, beginning "Proshchai, ty ..." and continuing with five more syllables, ending with "ya". Could the third word be "gorye" (something to do with mountains)?

2) The second/fourth line of the Russian chorus as I hear it is "Ba, ba ya bog znayet ______ uvizhul'ya tebya." There are fewer filler syllables at the beginning, and another word (or two--two syllables anyway) after "bog znayet." This is a departure from the Bikel version. Sounds to my ear like "tsvoro" but I don't know if that's even a word. Any takers?

3) In the second English verse, "You'll see us all" should, I think, be "You'll see us off". The recording sounds like it could be either, but "off" makes more sense in context.

A thousand thanks, Joe, for shedding light on this mystery that's plagued me for nigh on forty years. And thanks to all the rest at Mudcat. It's good to be here.