Minor 'chantey' on the Volga drift:
“We transcribe his account of the following incident. It relates to his voyage down the Volga, from Tchebocsar to Kazan:–
        “At one in the afternoon we commenced our voyage, having a very fine day, and a fresh breeze, which towards evening sunk into a calm, so that we were obliged to take to our oars, with which we proceeded merrily enough, the crew singing their national airs in concert, so as to remind me forcibly of the Canadian boat-song. Our harmony was at length interrupted by an occurrence,…

...When it concluded, the parties betook themselves to rowing and singing, as before.”
[Holman's Travels Through Russia, Meyer's British Chronicle, No.XXII, Vol.II, 1827]


“The sense of rhythm is very strong in peasants. Anyone may have observed when a building is being erected by a whole «artel», or at the loading and unloading of a vessel, the rhythm of the work under the influence of song. The power of joint, rhythmical singing, whilst at work, seems miraculous; enormous weights are moved and hoisted up with the song as it were. I remember once on the Volga, at Kamyshin, the dockers were hauling huge baskets of fish out of the hold. When they lifted a basket up out of the hold and threw it, the weight seemed enormous. Before putting it on the boards, over which the baskets were dragged to the landing, the dockers stood still and beginning the song «It'll go of itself» tried to pull up the basket. One group sang «It'11 go of itself!» the other answered «It does'nt» «It does'nt» up to the moment when by their united efforts they moved the basket from its place with the exclamation «There goes!» Then they all easily and quickly pulled at it in time with the song, drawing it up to the landing stage, where they laid it in a row of similar baskets. Here is the melody of the song.* It is useless to mention that it was constantly varied.

It is difficult to imagine all the animation and energy of this scene, where the song seemed to give the workers the strength of athletes.”
[Peasant Song of Great Russia, Lineff, 1912]
*Note: Includes music & lyrics.