Mystery tenor. All that is certain about him is that he left a handful of absolutely spectacular radio recordings from
1969. Few, very few tenors have ever sung the dreaded Siciliana like he did.
From one internet source, an immensely knowledgeable collector and poster on a Russian operatic forum, it seems he sang in Kiev; in
that case, however, even his first name "Nikolaj" is questionable (if he was Ukrainian, it would have to be "Mykola", it's impossible
to decide since there are Samofalovs in both Russia and Ukraine). On the other hand again, the fantastic Siciliana recording is in
Russian, not Ukrainian.