Page 4. I read this as a poem and immediately want to pare down the over-elaborate to English translation. I've spent many hours with original Tang poetry and so appreciate and aim for directness. 

Episode 78 – On the hills of Manchuria – Real Russian Club

A very useful site I think. 

Take for instance third line first verse ie Тучей закрыт восток. 'cloud closes east'. 

Thats an interesting word, восток .... 

Pron. 'vostok' as in English is for east, being born in 1958 its as familiar as soyuz for union, laika for barker (RIP little doggie hero) and Семёрка, semyorka for rockets ie 'old no.3' as I've just found out today. All are 'space words' or programmes from the Russians. I apologise for the military angle to this material, merely words heard fifty and sixty years ago. 

Thats certainly say two months minimum of writing and memorisation; or probably longer, I'm no genius at this game.  

Here we are set to music, beautiful rendition, the line we are interested in is at 00:43 ...

On the hills of Manchuria, Людмила Зыкина.

postscript 1. 

Lets also get the specific text onto the screen here, as a newbie, each day brings revelations and insight. I'm currently using goog translate but it can produce errors, so I also paste into reverso.net ...

пустынные сопки, - Translation into English - examples Russian | Reverso Context

As poetry it works far better to translate exactly as word for word and DO NOT try to 'prettify it up' by altering the sentences to what you think might make 'it flow better' ... it will not! Fr instance first two lines with word for word and nothing more we reach ...

Night arrives, dusk on land settles,

Drown in darkness deserted hill, 

Cloud closes east.

This in itself aids memorisation as 'word for word' and nothing more, no extraneous embellishment nor frills.  It also reminds me as if yesterday all the winter Sunday afternoons spent on Brough Law ie Ingram Valley with my first Rossmaith beagle. The change from late winter sunlight to eventual darkness, quite magical. We were never summer visitors, had no idea how popular it was in warmer months. Sadly the unique aspect of the area has now been ruined by 'so-called development' by the land owning classes, ie the Dukes brother. In addition immense stupid conifer plantations at the headwaters have ruined the previous slow run off of rain to a river-scouring disaster. Self appointed experts it seems know fck all. I'm assuming some sort of land owning investment/ tax procedure. I actually walked the upper reaches backpacking from Alnwick circa 1976 before even it was ploughed for the huge plantations. I shudder to think what it looks like now or the destruction of it being harvested. 

From realrussian Ep.78 'On the Hills of Manchuria'. 

Ночь подошла, сумрак на землю лёг,
Тонут во мгле пустынные сопки,
Тучей закрыт восток.

Здесь, под землёй, наши герои спят,
Песню над ними ветер поёт
И звезды с небес глядят.

То не залп с полей долетел –
Это гром вдали прогремел,
И опять кругом всё спокойно,
Всё молчит в тишине ночной.

Спите бойцы, спите спокойным сном,
Пусть вам приснятся нивы родные,
Отчий далёкий дом.

Пусть погибли вы в боях с врагами,
Подвиг ваш к борьбе нас зовёт,
Кровью народной омытое знамя
Мы понесём вперёд.

Мы пойдем навстречу новой жизни,
Сбросим бремя рабских оков.
И не забудут народ и отчизна
Доблесть своих сынов.

Спите, бойцы. Слава навеки вам.
Нашу отчизну, край наш родимый,
Не покорить врагам.

Ночь, тишина,
Лишь гаолян шумит.
Спите, герои, память о вас
Родина-мать хранит.

postscript 2. Here we find a famous Russian singer with a very good orchestration of the words set to song ie (58) На сопках манчжурии - YouTube  the above first verse finishes at 00:50 but is perfectly discernible.