"Midnight in Moscow" is the English title of "Podmoskovnye vechera" (Подмосковные вечера), a Soviet patriotic song with music by Vasily Solovyov-Sedoy and lyrics by Mikhail Matusovsky. The song was first written in 1955 as "Leningrad Nights" and renamed "Moscow Nights" at the request of the Soviet Ministry of Culture, with changes to the lyrics. Its original recording, by Vladimir Troshin, a young Moscow Art Theatre actor, dates from 1956 and was made for a scene in a documentary about the Spartakiad; radio broadcasts made it popular. A Finnish version, "Unohtumaton ilta", was recorded by Georg Ots, Eino Grön and Tapio Rautavaara.
In jazz, the song was taken up in 1961 by the Dutch New Orleans Syncopators, in an arrangement by Jan Burgers, and by Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen, who recorded it as "Midnight in Moscow". Kenny Ball's version reached number two on the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100 in 1962. That year the Chad Mitchell Trio sang it with the Russian lyrics. Other versions include those by Ketty Lester, Ivan Rebroff, Mireille Mathieu, James Last, Jan Johansson (a jazz version from 1967) and Gao Ping (2003).
