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