Google honors baritone Eduard Khil with doodle

Eduard Khil and his Google doodle

Google paid Russian baritone Eduard Khil the ultimate honor with creating a doodle for him on September 4th, which would have been his birthday. Khil was born in 1934 and died five years ago.

Despite having studied at the Leningrad Conservatory (now the Saint Petersburg Conservatory), having won numerous singing awards and going on to a career at the Saint Petersburg State Theatre Arts Academy, he became most famous for singing “I Am Glad Because I Am Finally Returning Back Home.” The song was posted on YouTube in 2009 and became known as the “trololo,” due to Khil repeating the phrase “trololo.” The track became an internet sensation and appeared on several television programs including “Family Guy,” "The Colbert Report" and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

Lottery Fever clip from Family Guy featuring the Trololo Song:

The Trololo video first appeared on February 21, 2010, the most prominent of those being the "Trololo" website trololololololololololo.com that helped push the video into popular awareness, receiving more than 3,000,000 hits in its first month.

After his singing career faded in the early 1990s, Khil re-entered private life and worked in a cafe in Paris, singing cabaret. For his 75th birthday in 2009, Khil was awarded the "Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 4th Class" by Russia and the next year he performed in the St. Petersburg Victory Day Parade. Upon his death from a stroke in 2012, condolences came from all corners of the world, including from Russian President Vladimir Putin.