Around The Samovar

A samovar is a metal container traditionally used to boil water for tea. There's a central tube in which you burn coal or wood to heat the water. Many Russian samovars have a konforta, a sing-shaped attachment that holds a teapot filled with tea concentrate. They're often very decorative.

The first reference I ever read misnamed the program, perhaps deliberately. It was in a truly excellent book Poland Under Black Light by Janusz Anderman. My English translated copy is from 1985.

"...a shop trainee showers people standing in line with orangeade and hides, laughing, behind the empty shelves; no one reacts; many newspapers carry reports on the bear that has shown up in the Tatra, it is affectionately referred to as Teddy, and a special correspondent reports on it for the Express; on Polish radio there's a program "Teatime Round the Samovar".

The Program at first seemed not to exist. Then I found the name variation. The was a Russian music program named "Around the Samovar."With the correct name I found multiple references. the most detailed is the March 12th 1934 issue of the Jewish Daily Bulletin in the Kilocycles column by George Field. [SOURCE]

"WEVD presents two other worthwhile programs, at 10:15 p. m. the University of the Air will be in charge of Professor Ernest Sutherland Bates who discusses "Coordination in our Present-day Life" and at 10:30 Zinoida Nicolina, soprano, Simon Philipoff, balalaika artist, Zam's Gypsy orchestra appear on Around the Samovar program."

 A 1930 issue of the Arriba record lists the program on the Columbia System at 9:30 PM Eastern Standard Time. In 1931 the Alabama Digital archives list the program in July of 1931 at 7:00 PM. [SOURCE]  The May 1931 Cincinnati Radio Dial lists the program at 10:30 on WKRC. It gives the impression that the show moved around often in it's first year.  It was some time before I found anything other than listings on radio schedules. 

The February 1931 issue of "What's On air" answers our origin questions. [SOURCE]. Columbia cancelled the program Majestic Curiosity Shop and mailed a misprint of their schedule for that month. Listeners were displeased with the mix up but we now learn that "Around the Samovar" debuted Sunday January 4th, 1931 and got their first earful of Peter Biljo and his Balalaika Orchestra. Purportedly Biljo was born in Leningrad, today called Saint Petersburg in 1893. (They were sometimes also called the Bilji Balalaika Orchastra.)  The Ogdensburg Republican Journal from that same week made note of the change in the Daily radio Highlights column by C. E. Butterfield with the arcane note

That issue of the Cincinnati Radio Dial also lists off more performers: Valia Valentinova, contralto; Eli Spivak, baritone; Eliena Kazanova, violinist, and Peter Biljo, director of the balalaika orchestra.The Radio Pictoral Spring 1931 issue took a stab at describing the program. [SOURCE] It listed the above performers and a very short description: "Around the Samovar" instead of the Curosity Shop, WABC chain at 9, with, the Gauchoa Going on at 10.30."  It included a list of the stations that carried the program: WHEC, WKBW, WEAN, WNAC, WORC, WPG, WJAS, WLBW, WMAL, WCAO, WTAR, WDBJ, and WADC. But the Cincinnati Radio Dial had more description:

"Each broadcast of"Around the Samovar" presents some new and novel phase of Russian music or some charming folk song that introduces the listener to new musical enjoyment. The programs are carefully prepared and rehearsed before going on the air, although they give one an impression of gay spontaneity."

The only problem with that story is that it very clearly appears on a WABC schedule at 9:30 PM, March 22nd 1930. [SOURCE]  It aired between the Nit Wit Hour and the Paramount Publix Hour.  More here on that Nit Wit Hour. [LINK]

The October 3rd, 1929 Brooklyn Times Union also listed the program with a complete song listing, and cited all solo performances.(below)  I had to look up Chankamanka; it appears to be made up or misspelled. Further backing up the 1929 date is a thesis paper by Martin Edmund Kiszko The Origins and Place of the Balalaika in Russian Culture. 

Kiszko goes on to describe the program in more detail then anything else I ever found. [SOURCE] It includes two extracts from a September 22nd 1929 script for the program from the Kasura collection. University of Illinois. (See pages 101 and 102.)

"One of the most popular radio programmes of the late twenties, when recordings of Russian music hit their peak, was Around the Samovar, illustrated here with copies of the original 1929 scripts (document 2). Around the Samovar featured Peter Biljo's Balalaika Orchestra and Soloists. The show's radio scripts of 1929 display a repertoire primarily made up of ballads, gypsy songs, popular Russian dances for orchestra,arrangements of Russian and European art music, and violin solos. Predominant is the use of the baritone or soprano vocalist accompanied by orchestra."

It also appears in a June 1930 WABC schedule in the Radio Digest. It seems clear that seasons of the program aired from Spring of 1929 through 1930. Wireless World even paused to call it "A little Russian Programme" in their Future Features column of 1929. That may be it's actual debut. Also on WABC in 1929 was the program "In a Russian Village." It was already airing weekly in June of 1929 , and debut on the network at 8:00 June 7th. This appear in the Encyclopedia of American Radio, 1920-1960 by Luther Sies. It's short description states that it aired in 1929 and 1930 on CBS, featuring Peter Biljo and his Russian Musicians. It appears to be very similar to the Around the Samovar program lacking only the bevy of vocalists. The 1930 Who is Who in Radio describes Peter as the Director of Russian programs at Columbia Broadcasting.

The book The Ultimate History of Network Radio Programming by Jay Hickerson provides a bit of an Epilogue. In July and August of 1934 Biljo also directed the program Balalaika Orchestra aka Samovar Serenade for CBS. Then Peter Biljo pops up in 1938 advertised along choice liquors in a Russian restaurant advert.Sometime between 1934 and 1938 Peter's radio career came to an end. 

Peter Biljo died in Woodbury, CT in 1963. His earliest 78 was released by Brunswick in 1928. More here. The name of his radio program was borrowed by other musicians for their songs and albums including Leonid Bolotine, Vasily Andreyev even writer Bill Sarnoff.  The earliest appearance of his name is a 1926 issue of Billboard index of "legitimate" stage. This notes a performance of his balalaika Orchestra at Aeolian Hall backing vocalist Nadiejda Plevitzkaia alongside pianist Max Rabinovitch.  In an exciting twist it was later found that Plevitskaya was recruited by the NKVD (soviet secret police) he was arrested and eventually imprisoned for espionage in France. It's the basis of the French film Triple Agent (2004).

But getting back to the start of this query, how did Janusz Anderman hear this program having been born in 1949 in Poland? He's about 75 years old and still writing. His last book was Shaving of Losers published in 2021. He worked at Radio Wolna aka Radio Free Europe in the late 1970s. He also published the radio play "Stadion" in 1989. It's possible he became aware of those early American Russian programs possibly though radio Wolna or the then famous story of Ms. Plevitskaya. He's still alive today... Perhaps I should ask him.