Comment
Recorded from
Vasilij Shalugin in 1990.
Translation
(50-1) I will describe how I lived thinking back from my old age till my youth, how our mother earth is, and what is going on both here and in the sky.
(50-2) We had just started school, and were in the first or second grade.
(50-3) We prepared well for the first class and were going to ask questions, waiting to hear what the teachers would say.
(50-4) We had come from far away.
(50-5) We were simply afraid of all people.
(50-6) We were afraid of our teachers as well, thinking what they would ask us and how we would answer.
(50-7) Our teacher came.
(50-8) She knew all our relatives.
(50-9) After we came to school we were asked: "Did you have food or not? Do you get clothes or not?"
(50-10) We all said: "We have eaten in the canteen of the boarding school.
(50-11) We were given bed linen.
(50-12) Then they gave us hats, shoes, clothes, and all sorts of shirts.
(50-13) They gave us warm shoes.
(50-14) We liked them very much.
(50-15) We were very happy that they were such good shoes.
(50-16) After school, when the classes finished, we all gathered to play.
(50-17) Sometimes we fished with fishing rods. We were sitting fishing with fishing rods. "Udochka" is fishing rod in Russian.
(50-18) Once when we finished playing we got together and hid in our playing place. It was the territory near the school, the club, and the shop.
(50-19) It was our playing territory.
(50-20) They called it our home.
(50-21) Other children had another territory and did not let us play there.
(50-22) We didn't let them play with us.
(50-23) Once we were sitting and telling different stories.
(50-24) A friend of us called Senja spoke.
(50-25) He told us the following.
(50-26) He said: "My father has travelled to the Moon together with the people from an expedition.
(50-27) It's very nice there, everything is nice and beautiful."
(50-28) Then he said that there were a lot of candies on the Moon.
(50-29) I remember that he mentioned lollipops.
(50-30) They were lying like pebbles in piles, small ones and big ones.
(50-31) We asked Senja: "How did they get there?"
(50-32) He said: "They crossed the river in a boat in which these people had come with an expedition. Apparently it was a motor boat.
(50-33) They then went up to the Moon along the Moon road."
(50-34) He showed us that the surface of the water was shining from the light of the Moon.
(50-35) He said: "This is the Moon road."
(50-36) We looked at the water in surprise and said: "We didn't know that."
(50-37) We started thinking how we could get to that place where there were so many candies.
(50-38) We all wanted to go, so that we could reach the Moon, walk there a little, and return back.
(50-39) We would see what nice things were there, we would see everything.
(50-40) But we didn't know how we would come back and what would happen,
(50-41) Once we decided that we would go up to the Moon.
(50-42) So we thought.
(50-43) We could not reach it in any way in a boat, because the water ends and turns into the sky.
(50-44) So we thought.
(50-45) You can't fly to the Moon from the riverbank, so a different way of traveling came to our mind.
(50-46) Sometimes the Moon becomes bigger and comes closer to us.
(50-47) We thought that then we could reach it in a boat.
(50-48) We thought how we would know that it was close.
(50-49) One of us, a friend of ours, Semen, said: "We should make a bow and arrows.
(50-50) Then we will know about the Moon."
(50-51) We decided that when the Moon becomes bigger and comes closer we would shoot at it.
(50-52) When it comes close, we would shoot arrows.
(50-53) Then we would sit in a boat and go to the Moon.
(50-54) We would come to the Moon and climb it.
(50-55) We thought that it was similar to the other side of the river.
(50-56) So we would reach it, climb it, walk there a little, and come back.
(50-57) We would see what was there and take everything we needed.
(50-58) The next day we made arrows and bow and started watching the Moon.
(50-59) Once there were three of us, our other friends left.
(50-60) Some were called by their parents, others left because they wanted to sleep.
(50-61) But the three of us started watching, to see when the Moon would come closer.
(50-62) That Senja, who told how his father had traveled there, was also with us.
(50-63) He showed us some pebbles.
(50-64) They were pebbles similar to those that lie here on the riverbank, but he said that his father had brought them from the Moon.
(50-65) Those pebbles were in fact some people's bullets.
(50-66) When people shoot guns, fire comes out.
(50-67) We all said: "Oh!"
(50-68) We wanted to see everything, take them and bring them here.
(50-69) The three of us sat and watched the river.
(50-70) We were looking at the Moon all the time.
(50-71) We were waiting to see when the Moon would come closer to us from behind the trees.
(50-72) That Senja who told us a story spoke.
(50-73) "The Moon walks along the lakes, hills, and forests.
(50-74) It collects flying birds, fishes, berries, all sort of nice shirts, trousers with pockets, candies, and biscuits.
(50-75) It divides all this between the people who reach it from here and gives it to them."
(50-76) We wanted even more to go quickly to the Moon.
(50-77) There was a boat with the oars nearby.
(50-78) Everything was there, a fishing boat and two oars for us to go.
(50-79) So our Moon appeared.
(50-80) It appeared on top of a larch tree.
(50-81) It was incredibly red and big.
(50-82) Then Senja said to us: "Let's go quickly to the boat.
(50-83) Then we will come closer to the Moon."
(50-84) We, two friends, sat on the sides with the oars, while Senya sat down to steer the wheel.
(50-85) He ordered us: "Row more quickly and strongly."
(50-86) It was completely dark, nothing could be seen.
(50-87) While we rowed Semen was looking forward. He took the arrows and the bow.
(50-88) We watched him.
(50-89) He shot without saying anything to us.
(50-90) He shot several times and frightened me a lot.
(50-91) From fear I felt bad in my back.
(50-92) My heart was beating hard and my ears were listening. I didn't know what was going to happen.
(50-93) We couldn't see anything sitting at the back.
(50-94) Suddenly Semen said: "It seems that the Moon is coming to us.
(50-95) Shoot!" he said to us.
(50-96) We turned there and saw the Moon near the place where Semen was shooting.
(50-97) The Moon appeared from behind the tree. One couldn't see the whole of it, but the top appeared.
(50-98) We looked there and thought that there were no arrows in the Moon.
(50-99) While we watched, we heard as if something had fallen down and was approaching us.
(50-100) The Moon road appeared on the water. It was completely white. I was very much afraid that we would make the Moon drown and it would die.
(50-101) I shot once.
(50-102) That friend of mine, Senja, shouted that my arrow had stuck into the Moon.
(50-103) I have never been as scared as that.
(50-104) They shot with my arrows.
(50-105) If I were in another place I woudn't have given them my arrows because I was afraid that the Moon would fall down and something bad would happen.
(50-106) We heard people shouting and calling to us from our riverbank.
(50-107) "Where have you gone?
(50-108) Come back!"
(50-109) Then we got afraid that they would whip us very much.
(50-110) We got scared even more because we thought that they would get us.
(50-111) Now when I think about it, I can't help laughing.
(50-112) While we were moving Semen fell down into the water from the boat in the darkness. We could hardly pull him back.
(50-113) We barely pulled him back and went completely quiet.
(50-114) But they called to us from the other riverbank.
(50-115) We didn't say anything, just stayed like that.
(50-116) At the fork of the river the river took us downstream.
(50-117) At the turn of the river we reached some fishermen.
(50-118) We asked them: "Take us to the other side.
(50-119) We will walk to the village."
(50-120) They told us: "We don't have time to take you to the other side."
(50-121) We stayed with them until morning.
(50-122) In the morning our relatives came to fetch us on boats.
(50-123) Well, they whipped us well.
(50-124) They called us "Moon people."
(50-125) They also said to us: "You have wounded the Moon.
(50-126) The Moon is ill, it will probably die."
(50-127) And indeed, one could hardly see the Moon. It was the time when the Moon gets smaller.
(50-128) I was very much afraid that the Moon would completely die and God would punish us.
(50-129) Semen told how we had shot arrows, and the other children, those that stayed, mocked us very much and called us "people who went to the Moon".
(50-130) We fought with them a lot.
(50-131) We beat some of them, but did not defeat the others.
(50-132) You see, that's what we thought about the Moon when we were seven or eight years old.
(50-133) Later I learnt. I heard that our earth lies on three whales and the Moon travels in the water like us but far away.
(50-134) I usually laugh a lot when I remember how I lived when I was small.
Glosses