Trololo Guy — Eduard Khil singing on Soviet TV with text reading Eduard Khil 1934-2012

Trololo Guy

2009viral videoclassic

Published October 3, 2026

Trololo Guy is the nickname for Russian baritone Eduard Khil, whose grinning 1976 performance of a wordless Soviet pop tune resurfaced on YouTube in November 2009 and became a global bait-and-switch gag. The clip's cheerful nonsense syllables turned a serious state-honored vocalist into one of the earliest Rickroll-adjacent viral videos of the YouTube era.

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Overview

The clip is a 1976 Soviet television performance of the Arkady Ostrovsky composition titled "I Am Very Glad, Because I'm Finally Back Home," sung by Eduard Anatolyevich Khil in the vokaliz style, meaning the melody is performed without lyrics1. Khil, grinning in a brown suit jacket against a mustard set, bobs his head and chuckles through a long string of "lo-lo-lo" and "na-na-na" syllables, which is where the English-speaking internet got the nickname Trololo2. The waxed-hair, pantomimed delivery is what Western viewers read as surreal, though Russian audiences recognized the number as a straight example of a well-established genre3.

Once the video went viral, it functioned mostly as a bait-and-switch gag in the same style as Rickrolling, where a misleading link dumped the clicker into Khil's cheerful humming1. The isolated "laughing" section and a slowed, 800% stretched edit became secondary formats that circulated on their own1. The nickname Trololo Guy stuck to Khil himself, following him through TV interviews, parody uploads and, eventually, his obituaries4.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube
Creator
Eduard Khil; YouTuber RealPapaPit
Date
2009

On November 26, 2009, YouTuber RealPapaPit uploaded the 1976 Soviet TV clip under the title "I am very glad, because I'm finally back home," later renaming it "Mr. Trololo original upload"1. The upload was eventually watched more than 26 million times1. The performer was Eduard Khil, a Leningrad Conservatory graduate born in Smolensk in 1934, named Honored Artist of the USSR in 1968 and People's Artist of the USSR in 19743. The song had been co-written with composer Arkady Ostrovsky and performed wordlessly in the vokaliz tradition, which is closer to pantomime than to American scat singing3.

How It Spread

On December 20, 2009, YouTuber KamoKatt reposted just the laughing section of the performance, and that cut passed 6.6 million views within three years1. Redditor gn3xu5 submitted the full video to r/WTF on January 27, 2010, under the title "Trololololololololo," where it collected more than 580 upvotes before being archived1. BuzzFeed picked it up on February 19 as "Lyrical Genius," and two days later The Huffington Post ran a piece asking whether the "Weird Russian Guy" was the best lyricist of all time1. A single-serving site at trololololololololololo.com launched on February 26 and played the video on autoplay1. On March 4, YouTuber RayWilliamJohnson featured the clip on his show Equals Three and pitched it as "the next Rickroll"1.

Khil himself first learned about the attention after hearing his grandson humming the tune, and he gave an interview to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on March 26, 20105. On August 25, 2010, YouTuber 24KaratGoldFish uploaded a time-stretched "800% Hyper Extrended Mix" that spread as its own format1. Earlier recordings of the same Ostrovsky number by Valery Obodzinsky, Koós János and Muslim Magomaev were later surfaced on YouTube by meme hunters tracking the song's history1.

On May 28, 2012, RFE/RL reported that Khil had been hospitalized after a stroke, and he died in St. Petersburg on June 4 at age 774. A Reddit post titled "Eduard Khil ('Trololo Guy') dies in St. Petersburg, aged 77" hit the front page the same day with more than 18,000 upvotes in 11 hours1. The clip was covered during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics opening ceremonies by a Russian police choir, and on September 3, 2017, Google honored what would have been Khil's 83rd birthday with an animated Doodle of the performance1.

Timeline

1976

Eduard Khil performs the wordless Ostrovsky number on Soviet television, the clip that would later be dubbed Trololo.

2012-06-04

Eduard Khil dies in St. Petersburg at age 77, one week after a stroke; a Reddit obituary post hits the front page with 18,000+ upvotes.

2017-09-03

Google releases a Doodle animating Khil's performance in honor of what would have been his 83rd birthday.

Frequently Asked Questions