Evgeny Grinko | Uzun İnce
Evgeny Grinko interprets Aşık Veysel's Turkish classic "Uzun İnce Bir Yoldayım" - a Russian pianist's journey into Anatolian poetry through 158 Turkish concerts and minimalist piano.
Story Behind “Uzun İnce”
The Russian Pianist Who Fell in Love with Turkish Wandering
Sometimes the most profound musical gestures come from unexpected places. In May 2024, Evgeny Grinko, a Russian composer born in the forests outside Moscow, sat down to interpret one of Turkey’s most sacred folk songs. Not as a musical exercise. Not as a cultural appropriation. But as a genuine conversation across continents and generations.
The song was “Uzun İnce Bir Yoldayım”—literally “I’m on a long and narrow road”—composed in the early 20th century by Aşık Veysel, a blind Turkish minstrel and poet who became the voice of Anatolian spirituality. Veysel spent nearly his entire life in the small village of Sivrialan, traveling roads on foot, saz in hand, sharing songs about mortality, loss, and the inexplicable journey of being alive.
Grinko’s connection ran deeper than curiosity. He had performed 158 concerts across Turkey—from Edirne to Van, Hatay to Trabzon. He had walked thousands of kilometers through Turkish landscapes. He had absorbed the country’s music, its poetry, its patience with melancholy. As Grinko explained: “First, the lyrics of this song moved me deeply, and I felt Aşık Veysel’s musical approach close to my own heart. Even though I recorded it instrumentally, the lyrics describe life in such simple yet powerful language.”
That’s the key. Grinko didn’t try to transcend Veysel’s original. He tried to understand it.
Finding Kinship in Melancholy
The backstory matters here. Grinko had previously arranged a Persian folk song—”Jane Maryam”—for his Outtakes album. He was on a pilgrimage through world folk traditions, seeking music that spoke to his own minimalist philosophy. When he encountered Veysel’s work, he recognized something immediate: two artists separated by culture and century who shared the same language of simplicity and sorrow.
Veysel was blind. He sang about wandering. Grinko spent years drumming in noise rock bands before teaching himself piano in 2007, then crafted a career on minimal gestures that carry maximum emotional weight. Both artists understood that you don’t need complexity to touch the human spirit. Sometimes all you need is honesty.
Grinko approached the arrangement methodically. He studied multiple versions of the song—folk interpretations, symphonic arrangements, rock covers. He listened to Fikret Kızılok’s legendary 1969 rock version that became a Turkish chart-topper. He absorbed the tune’s descending melodic patterns, the way Turkish makam music spirals downward like accepting gravity.
But he kept his version spare. A piano. Delicate phrasing. Space. The same minimalist restraint that defined his earlier work like “Valse” and “Serenade.”
“Uzun İnce” Recording and Production Details
A Truck Bed in Anatolia, A Piano, and Thousand Kilometers of Memory
The recording wasn’t made in a studio. Director Nabat Gasanova shot a music video showing Grinko performing on an old upright piano in the back of a truck, traveling through Anatolian landscapes. The visual metaphor was intentional—a Russian pianist in a truck bed, literally and spiritually following the footsteps of a blind Anatolian poet.
This wasn’t nostalgia or tourism. Grinko was honoring something real. The video captures him playing across genuine Turkish terrain, the piano’s sound mixing with ambient field recordings. It’s lo-fi in the best sense—authentic, vulnerable, stripped of production gloss.
The actual recording was arranged and performed entirely by Grinko himself. Unlike some of his ensemble work featuring strings and orchestration, “Uzun İnce” strips down to its essence: piano, space, the weight of those descending melodies. The composition is in a key that emphasizes the song’s melancholic foundation while allowing Grinko’s classical training and folk sensitivity to coexist.
The Architecture of Minimalist Interpretation
From a production standpoint, what’s remarkable is what Grinko didn’t add. No orchestral enhancement. No synthesizers (a element he often incorporates). No attempts to “improve” Veysel’s structure. Instead, he respected the song’s original contours while translating them into piano language.
Each note placement is intentional. Grinko describes his work as finding “small miracles” in composition—moments where emotion crystallizes into sound. With “Uzun İnce,” he wasn’t creating miracles. He was revealing them. The song already contained everything necessary. His job was to translate, not to decorate.
The track was released on May 17, 2024, as the lead single from his Outtakes 2 EP—a three-track collection of reimagined and archival material marking a transition point in his career. For Turkish listeners particularly, it was a gesture of gratitude and deep cultural respect.
Notes About “Uzun İnce” by Evgeny Grinko
Release Date: May 17, 2024
Duration: 4:52
Genre: Minimalist Classical / World Music / Contemporary Neo-Classical
Original Composer: Aşık Veysel Şatıroğlu (1894-1973)
Arrangement & Performance: Evgeny Grinko
Album: Outtakes 2 (EP, 3 tracks)
Director (Music Video): Nabat Gasanova
Label: Self-released / Independent
Key Information: First release from Outtakes 2 EP; part of Grinko’s career transition following relocation to Berlin; celebrates Turkish musical heritage and his 158 concert history in Turkey
Evgeny Grinko “Uzun İnce” Era Band Details
Album Details
Project: Outtakes 2 (EP)
Release Date: May 17, 2024 (single), June 21, 2024 (full EP)
Format: Digital platforms only
Label: Independent
Arranger/Producer: Evgeny Grinko
Recording Approach: Solo piano interpretation of traditional Turkish folk material
Career Context: Marks artistic transition before Berlin relocation; follows three-year hiatus from new releases
Album Concept: Archival and reimagined pieces from Grinko’s catalog alongside new cultural interpretations
Band Members/Personnel
Evgeny Grinko - Piano, Arrangement, Producer, Performance
Nabat Gasanova - Music Video Director
Original Composition: Aşık Veysel Şatıroğlu
Production Notes
Recorded at unspecified location (home studio likely)
Shot in Anatolian landscape for visual accompaniment
Solo piano arrangement without orchestration or ensemble
Spiritual meditation on Turkish folk poetry and life’s impermanence
Followed by European tour (Berlin, June 27, 2024; Baku, June 30, 2024)
Part of broader cultural bridge-building between Russian and Turkish musical traditions
Released during significant personal transition (artist relocated from Russia to Berlin in 2022)
Interesting Facts About “Uzun İnce”
The Blind Poet Who Shaped a Century
To understand Grinko’s interpretation, you need to know Aşık Veysel. Born in 1894 in a small Anatolian village, Veysel went blind by age seven due to smallpox. His father gave him a bağlama—a Turkish stringed instrument—and sent him into the world as an aşık, a wandering minstrel-poet. For nearly 80 years, Veysel walked Turkish roads singing about life’s fundamental questions: mortality, spirituality, the nature of wandering itself.
“Uzun İnce Bir Yoldayım” became his most famous composition. It uses the traditional Turkish folk structure—multiple verses building a cumulative meditation on human existence. The song describes life as a han, a long building with doors at each end: you enter through one door, travel its length, exit through another. It’s simultaneously profound philosophy and simple truth.
What’s crucial: Veysel initially resisted Western orchestral adaptations of his work. He appreciated the folk tradition too much to see it diluted. Yet when younger musicians like Fikret Kızılok came seeking permission to reinterpret his songs, Veysel blessed them. He understood that art transcends ownership.
The Road from Russia to Turkey, One Piano at a Time
Grinko’s journey mirrors Veysel’s in unexpected ways. Both are wanderers. Both discovered spiritual truth through constant travel. Grinko began his career as a drummer in Russian noise rock bands. In 2010, during a break from touring, he wrote “Valse”—a deceptively simple waltz that went viral on Facebook and eventually reached 350 million Spotify streams. That single composition redirected his entire artistic life.
From 2013 to 2024, Grinko performed 158 concerts in Turkey. That’s 158 times standing on Turkish stages, absorbing Turkish audiences’ emotional depths, learning Turkish music’s rhythms. By 2024, when he arranged “Uzun İnce,” he wasn’t approaching it as a foreigner. He was approaching it as someone who had walked Turkey’s roads, metaphorically speaking, hundreds of times.
The timing was significant. In 2022, Grinko left Russia following his public opposition to the Ukraine invasion. He relocated to Berlin, then Istanbul, then Berlin again. He was geographically displaced but artistically grounded. Interpreting Veysel’s song about wandering and displacement became a form of processing his own displacement.
From TikTok Phenomenon to Cultural Bridge
What’s remarkable about Grinko’s career is how his music transcends algorithmic boundaries. His 2013 track “Experience” eventually became a TikTok phenomenon in 2021—15.6 billion views, 6.8 million user creations. But he didn’t chase virality. He just made honest music that audiences recognized as honest.
“Uzun İnce” represents the opposite trajectory. It’s not designed for viral moments. It’s designed for listeners who want to sit with Turkish melancholy, Russian introspection, and the universal human experience of walking a long, narrow road without knowing where it leads.
Grinko’s inclusion of Turkish material in his international discography signals something important: contemporary classical music’s growing embrace of world traditions not as exotic seasoning, but as equal voices in a global conversation. He approached Veysel not as a Western interpreter mining folk traditions. He approached him as a fellow traveler in minimalism and melancholy.
Common Questions
Q: How does Grinko’s version differ from traditional arrangements of this song? A: Grinko strips the arrangement to solo piano, removing the bağlama and voice entirely. He emphasizes the melody’s descending patterns through classical phrasing while maintaining folk authenticity. It’s neither rock fusion (like Kızılok’s 1969 version) nor symphonic orchestration, but intimate chamber interpretation.
Q: Is this a full album or just a single? A: “Uzun İnce” is the lead single from Grinko’s Outtakes 2 EP, a three-track collection released June 21, 2024. The other tracks are reimagined versions of his compositions “Once Upon a Time” and “Velvet Elephant.”
Q: Why did Grinko choose this particular Turkish song? A: Grinko cited the song’s lyrics deeply moving him and feeling kinship with Veysel’s musical philosophy. After 158 Turkish concerts and years traveling through Anatolia, the song represented both gratitude to Turkish audiences and spiritual resonance with its themes of wandering and impermanence.
Q: Did Aşık Veysel approve of Western musicians covering his work? A: Veysel’s friendship with musician Fikret Kızılok demonstrates his openness to reinterpretation. When Kızılok asked permission to record “Uzun İnce,” Veysel blessed it. However, Veysel was initially critical of purely orchestral Western arrangements, preferring folk authenticity. Grinko’s piano arrangement honors this preference by maintaining the song’s essential character.
Q: How many people have covered this song? A: Dozens of artists have recorded versions, from rock musicians to classical composers. Notable covers include Kızılok’s 1969 chart-topping version, Joe Satriani’s instrumental interpretation, and countless Turkish folk and world music artists. Each generation finds new meaning in Veysel’s timeless structure.