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Russia. Volgograd oblast. 21st century.
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To discover the truth of the life
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of my long-ago Cossack ancestor,
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I went out to see this river dry
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at 15 degrees to 40 Celsius.
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At this place, our old hamlet once stood,
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but now stand only gardens and hillocks,
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only crisscrossing roads heading off
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into the horizon, till they're small dots.
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Here my ancestors lived since childhood,
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trained their skilled hands by
chopping up brushwood,
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then went to serve whoever they had to,
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until they suffered their midlife crisis.
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Far from home, they'd
cook soups during rest-stops,
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would head off, singing, on expeditions.
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Any foe talking back to them would feel
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like a good craftsman next to a genius.
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Where they went,
they left foreign flags torn down,
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and moans in all sorts of foreign phrases -
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like right after a party in the dorms
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of the Institute of Peoples' Friendship.
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I'm standing by a dried out river:
[Lychak River]
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there is no water, no frogs, no duckweed.
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Where are those who hacked fate
with both hands,
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took Siberia and reached Alaska?!
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Where are those, who in battles flat-out
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expanded Russia right down to China?!
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Why do I stand today at this place
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all alone, with no land
and with no name?!
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Why do I gaze at a blackthorn bush,
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and an aspen tree
between the plants here?
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It is no bush, but a Crown of Thorns,
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not a tree, but a leafy aspen stake.
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I've erected a Cross on this soil -
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may it stand here, like an apparition,
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like a coda to these native lands,
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like a parody of resurrection.
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[On this spot there once stood
the Cossack Rasteryayev hamlet]
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I imagine now
ages long gone past:
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Sharp sable unsheathed,
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a deer on my shield,
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I am a Cossack,
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my chieftain's Yermak,
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and there comes a new night,
there comes a new day.
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Now our chieftain
cheerfully belts out a song;
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his great beard hangs down to his navel!
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All is cloaked in smoke,
all is hot with fire.
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Once again our gang
rides out to the East,
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To "play checkers" with
that renowned black king
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amidst the carpets
of the land of chess.
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How we like all of these
mountains and fields -
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it must mean that
this is Cossack land!
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Cliffs and fallen trees,
meltwater and snow.
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Our chieftain Yermak
leads us without maps.
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Latitude is where
I had whim to sing,
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Meridian's drawn
by my horse's hooves.
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Let them scold us from
Western capitals -
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we don't care a whit;
we cannot be bluffed.
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Russia does not have any border-lines!
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All that Russia has
is the horizon!
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As our forces sally forth,
[Salehara, Tobolsk, Tyumen]
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we leave behind
[Krasnoyarsk, Bratsk, Irkutsk]
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our placemarkers - Krasnoyarsk, Tobolsk.
[Chita, Yakutsk]
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Tomorrow, at dawn,
a new fight will start;
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steel will clash with steel,
ringing out anew.
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But against all odds
I will return home,
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maybe with a shield -
but more probably with two!
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Later I'll recall
how I fought back then,
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how our chieftain led
us to the Earth's edge.
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And the whole world saw
how by Kamchatka's hills
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the "quiet" Don
flowed into the Pacific.
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"Hey there, matey, I don't
much care for your squint!
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Why don't you give us
that island, quick?"
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'Twould be nice to see
ages long gone past:
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Sharp sable unsheathed,
a deer on my shield,
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and ahead of me,
my chieftain Yermak.
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And there comes a new night,
there comes a new day.
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[Lyoha Lyahov]
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words, music, drawings, screenplay
Igor Rasteryayev
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director
Pavel Yegorov
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animation
Sergey Kotov
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subs - Niffiwan @ animatsiya.net (2025)