Quote Originally Posted by it-ogo View Post
I doubt it was ever used in normal language. It is a part of an old theater actor school (as well as "вверьх", for example), and I have no idea where did they take such a pronunciation from.
It was. The traces are still there in poetry, where some rhymes become less strict with modern pronunciation. Theatrical pronunciation was modelled after old Moscow speech (like, beginning of the 20th century).