The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #107520 Message #2229464
Posted By: GUEST,Volgadon
05-Jan-08 - 09:17 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Hey, Driver, Take Me to Butirsky (Russian
Subject: Lyr Add: Hey, Driver, Take Me to Butirsky (Russ)
http://www.kulichki.com/vv/pesni/ej-shofer-vezi-v.html One of Vysotsky's early songs, drawing from the tradition of criminal and prison songs, but using it for a political statement. Butyrskaya Tyurma (colloq. known as Butyrka), was the most formidable and brutal of Moscow prisons and it's been operating for over 200 years, if I'm not mistaken. Among the inmates were the KGB's daddy Dzerzhinsky (ironic, innit), Pugachev, Solzhenytsin, Mayakovsky, Babel, and Nestor Makhno. Taganka, or the taganskaya tyurma, is another very notorious prison, dismantled in 1958. There is a famous song about the place, the fictional conman Ostap Bender served time there, and among the real-life inmates were the writer and statesman Lunacharsky, and the Nazi collaborator General Vlasov. To end up in one of those, you didn't have to be a criminal. Incurring official displeasure, or being at the wrong place at the wrong time would do it.
Ey, shafyor, vyezi v butyrsky khuter, gdye tyurma - da paskaryey mchi! ty, tavarish, apazdal, ty na dva goda pyereputal - razbirayut uzh tyurmu na kirpichi.
Ochyen zhal, a ya sevodnya spazaranku pa radnym ryeshil prayekhatsa myestam... nu da ladna, shto'zh, shafyer, tagda vyezi menya v "taganku", paglyazhu, vyed ya byval i tam.
Razlamali staruyu "taganku" - padchistuyu, vsyu, ka vsyem chertyam! shto'zh, shafyor, davay nazad, kruti-vyerti nazad svayu baranku, tak, ni s chyem, payedem pa damam.
Ili nyet, shafyor, davay zakurim, ili luchsye - vypyem paskaryey! pyom za to, shtob nye astalas pa Rassii bolshye tyurem, shtob nye stala pa Rassii lageryey!
Hey, Driver, Take Me to Butyrsky!
- Hey, driver, take me to Butyrsky Village, where the prison is - make haste! - you, comrade, are too late, you've missed it by two years - they are taking the prison apart for bricks.
- What a shame, today I've decided to visit the old familiar (or my native) places... oh well, what to do, driver, take me to "Taganka" - and have a look, after all, I've spent time there too.
- they've torn down old "Taganka" - done a damn thorough job of it, - well then, driver, let's head back, turn your car around - and let's just go around the houses.
Or let's, driver, have a smoke, or better yet - get a drink! may Russia have no more prisons, we'll drink to that, may there not be any more camps either!