Dmitry at Government of Canada "Got Talent" Show (December 2013)

Something Special for December 2023

It was ten years ago. In December of 2013, the Science and Engineering Directorate of the Canada Border Services Agency held the ‘Got Talent’ Show, where the Researchers and Engineers of the Directorate where invited show their talents in front of the festive crowd and the respectable Grand Jury made of four group leaders.

By that time, I was already the founding manager of the Video Surveillance and Biometrics (VSB) section that was created within the Directorate following my transfer from the National Research Council in 2008, the lead and principal investigator for over a million worth DRDC-funded projects and one of the most published GC researchers in the field biometrics and video analytics, supervisor for over twenty students/researchers (over a period of five years), Adjunct Professor at three Canadian Universities (uOttawa, uQuebec, uDalhousie), also the organizer and contributor of multiple social events within the Directorate such lunch-time soccer, children’s Christmas parties, sing-along carol singing.

I felt very welcomed and happy to be able to share with my colleagues some of my passions and memories back from the time when I lived in Edmonton (where I did my PhD) and Kyiv (where I grew up and where my parents lived). Several of my colleagues have recorded it, and finally - 10 years later - I was able to edit and combine those videos in one. Here it is. It tells much about the great atmosphere we had there then.

The audio quality is not be the best, but if you enable closed captions, you'll be able to understand all humour that is there. Additional details about the song and the presentation are provided below.

Additional details:

Below is a photo of the 12-string guitar that I played. Crafted in Lviv, Ukraine, it was directly purchased from the factory in 1998 and journeyed across the Atlantic ocean to Ottawa, my current residence.

This guitar features a "key," a playful reference I made at the start of my presentation. The key is used to adjust the distance between the guitar neck and the strings. Nowadays, guitars are sold without such keys, making it amusing to challenge the audience to identify an instrument with the “key”

Tribute to my mother:

At the conclusion of my presentation, I pay tribute to my mother, Mila, after whom my eldest daughter is named. She is the one performing the instrumental soundtrack of the song for which I choreographed an Ashtanga yoga-inspired gymnastics routine. Recorded in 2001, she played it on a Yamaha piano I had gifted her in Kiev a year earlier, which I had purchased in Edmonton. Sadly, in 2003, my mother passed away at the age of 62 due to Multiple Myeloma, a form of blood cancer linked to radiation exposure from the Chernobyl disaster. She had stayed in Kiev during the aftermath of the 1986 incident to assist in decontamination efforts. Ten years after her passing, in December 2013, she came back to life through her music, playing for me and over a hundred colleagues who watched the presentation.

The Song is called “Christmas morning song” or “First Day of Love". The very process of composing this song is also quite special.

I spontaneously heard it in my head in its entirety (both melody and lyrics in English, as if I’ve heard it already a long time ago and now suddenly recalled it), as I stepped out of Hub Mall (my residence during my studies at UofA) into a beautiful winter morning. It was the day after everyone had finished their exams and left the campus for Christmas. The surroundings were incredibly quiet, with a serene blue sky and few snowflakes gently dancing down from the tree branches.

next day after everyone, having finished all their exams the day before, left the campus for Christmas. It was incredibly quiet there. Not a single soul around. Only blue Edmontonian sky and a few snowflakes gently dancing down from tree branches. Not a single soul around, just the divine beauty of Love, with a capital "L," embracing the planet. I felt this Love distinctly, like never before.

You can listen to the instrumental version of this song on Soundcloud :

You can also listen to it performed with my niece Anastasia, who has a beautiful soprano voice and is a songwriter herself:

Tribute to my father

Interestingly, there is also an Ukrainian version of this song. It was made by my dad, Oleg Gorodnichy (whom my youngest daughter is named after). Being a prominent physicist himself, he also finished 8 years of music school, and could hear and play music like a professional musician. He like it alot, which meant a lot to me. For this reason, he also wanted to make an Ukrainian version of it, which he did.

In 2016, my dad also passed away, also from cancer, at age of 78. He was a dean/chair of Physics department at the University in Kiev,much loved and respected by both students and his colleagues - for his humor and charm and continuing efforts in good quality teaching till the very last days of his life. He waited for me to fly from Ottawa to Kyiv and passed away the very same night when I have arrived, after we spent time together the whole evening that night. Now he is buried together with my mom at the Baikovo cemetery in Kiev - one of the oldest and most known cemeteries in Ukraine, and which happened to be just forty minutes walk from the place where were lived.

I still miss deeply both of my parents. All I could do is to make a monument and museum in their honour and keep the memories alive, and also to follow the example they set for me and my children, their grandchildren…

PS. From family video-tape archives

Gorodnichy family signing - mom, dad, my brother and myself singing a Ukrainian folk song. One of many that we loved to sing.