When I was studying at the university, one of my neighbors in the student dormitory had the misfortune of falling in love with the work of Vertinski for a while. It was a misfortune for us neighbors, because his love was unselfish and generously shared with others through a powerful acoustic system, as a result of which in my brain forever stuck the remarkable line "In a banana-lemon Singapore - in a storm...". So when I first came to Singapore 20 years ago, on a tour of the Botanical Garden, the first thing I tried was to find these wonderful fruits and look into the information center. There, the employee told me that this issue is always addressed by the Russians for some reason and that usually lemons and bananas are in the Singaporean climate without care grow badly, do not survive: too wet and hot, mold and insects destroy the fruit before ripening. They have both in the garden, but precisely because for Singapore it is exotic (disappointment from such news was offset with interest by the pleasure of staying in the famous orchid center). At dinner, I shared my surprise with a colleague – a professor of the local technical university, Russian by origin. He smiled, "You are not the first, you are not the last, many familiar Russians ask this question: why Vertinsky wrote such a line? In my opinion, the options are two. The first is simple: written from a lamp, for the sake of a beautiful rhythm, type, fruitful exotic - it's all from those edges. This is possible, but it is doubtful at least because at that time lemons were exotic only in Siberia, but not in France and not for Versailles. He was a literate man, a professional of the word, wrote ill-fated texts, spoke in Europe to educated people, cosmopolitan, and would hardly be able to compose an open nonsense. The second option is more interesting. Singapore, as a British colony, has long been distinguished by the anglicalization of the local inhabitants, who received the nickname "banana" - yellow on the outside, white on the inside - which is widely used toward westernized people with Asian roots, although it is condemned as a manifestation of domestic racism. "Lemonny" is the nickname of the British Americans, which became fashionable in the world after the First World War. Both this and the other Vertinsky could quite hear in those circles in which he then revolved - and there was a kind of calambur, a tangible and concise description of the population of Singapore, quite understandable to the then audience of the performer."