Comment
Recorded from
Nikolaj Lixachev
in 1986.
Translation
(29-1) When we were small we were twelve children.
(29-2) We lived in poverty.
(29-3) When we lived, the rich people from another house tortured my mother, forcing her to make fish nets and shoes.
(29-4) They said: "We will give you one plate or mug of food for the work you have done, if you finish the net and the shoes and give them to us."
(29-5) One Sunday we said to our mother: "Mother, let's go.
(29-6) Let's go to the rich people.
(29-7) Perhaps they will give us some milk, food, fish or meat."
(29-8) That's what happened.
(29-9) So we went.
(29-10) We went, but no!
(29-11) We sat almost two hours talking and chatting with them.
(29-12) No! They only gave us tea without anything else, one mug.
(29-13) That's what happened.
(29-14) So we left.
(29-15) Our father lay in bed ill with rheumatism in his legs and arms.
(29-16) Who would hunt for us?
(29-17) We did not have a person who could hunt.
(29-18) That's what happened.
(29-19) Then our mother said: "What can you do?
(29-20) If nothing, nothing. There is nothing."
(29-21) She brought a damp stick, a chock of wood.
(29-22) She took the bark from it.
(29-23) She took the bark from it.
(29-24) She took the top of the white bark from it.
(29-25) She took off that bark. There is tree with bark that makes its trunk white.
(29-26) She scraped it with a knife.
(29-27) She sat like that and scraped it.
(29-28) When she scraped it, the bark became like that.
(29-29) When you turn it, it becomes like lard.
(29-30) She cut it.
(29-31) She cut it and made gruel out of it.
(29-32) She made gruel.
(29-33) What sort of gruel could it be?
(29-34) It was simply water.
(29-35) At that terrible time she fed it to us.
(29-36) There was nothing then.
(29-37) No bread, no butter, no tea, there was nothing.
(29-38) Only water.
(29-39) That's how it was.
(29-40) The children cried, but she said: "Don't cry".
(29-41) She sat us down on the bench, took the smallest child and sat down herself.
(29-42) She said: "Children, don't cry!"
(29-43) She said: "Now we go to the rich people, but don't envy them."
(29-44) She said: "The war will come.
(29-45) When the war finishes, we will have a good life.
(29-46) If you don't die before then.
(29-47) Until then have patience.
(29-48) Don't cry. We will have a very good life.
(29-49) If Germany wins, life will be bad. If the Soviet power wins, then we will have a good life.
(29-50) We will eat butter and flour, we will wear nice clothes, there will be plenty of different clothes.
(29-51) Very many.
(29-52) There will be all sorts of things.
(29-53) There will also be shoes to wear.
(29-54) There will be everything.
(29-55) So be patient and don't cry.
(29-56) There won't be any rich people then.
(29-57) Everybody will be the same.
(29-58) There won't be any rich people, there won't be any poor people, everybody will be similar."
(29-59) That's how it was.
(29-60) She said: "Don't cry."
(29-61) Then she said: "Who will feed us?
(29-62) Whether you cry or not, anyway there is nothing.
(29-63) If there is nothing, where will you see something? Where will you find something?
(29-64) You better get asleep here, hush!"
(29-65) That's how it was.
Glosses