Of Fish and Cockroaches

If you have trouble telling the difference between a форель and an осетрина, or between селёдка and сёмга, the following may help.

In Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, there is a chapter titled “Lobster Quadrille.” In it, The Mock Turtle and the Gryphon tell Alice that a whiting is called a whiting because it “does the boots and shoes.” Alice finds out that, under the sea, shoes are done with “whiting” instead of “blacking” and made of “soles and eels,” and that “no wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.”

In Nina Demurova’s able “transculturation” of Carroll’s book, the whiting became треска (cod), about which it is said: Рыба она так себе, толку от неё мало, а треску много. Как начнёт трещать – хоть вон беги. The wordplay is on the verb трещать, which means to crackle, but it also means to jabber. So a translation might be: “As a fish, she is not much, you get very little from her, but she jabbers a lot. And as soon as the jabbering starts, you want to run away.” Notably, you can also use трещать¸ to describe a headache: “У меня голова трещит.”

Треска is visited by Старичок Судачок (diminutive from судак – pike perch), called a судак for his constant gossiping – с утра до ночи судачит (судачить: to tittle-tattle). The two chatterboxes are sometimes joined by a щука (pike) – она всех щучит – she is always scolding everyone (щучить: to scold). In this noisy bedlam, the poor белуга (sturgeon) can only “реветь белугой” (cry hysterically).

The word “fish” (рыба) itself offers quite a pronunciation challenge to those not accustomed to rolling their Ps and squeezing out Ыs. In a popular Russian film, По семейным обстоятельствам (Due to Family Circumstances), a little girl’s speech therapist says to her, “Фефочка, скажи: ыыба.” Since he cannot roll his Ps, “fish” comes out something like “iish”. The clever girl, not wanting to repeat the therapist’s mistake, replies: “Селёдка” (“Herring”).

It is actually funny how fishy idioms travel from one language to another. Some translate well: Ловить рыбу в мутной воде (to fish in troubled waters); ни рыба, не мясо (neither fish nor fowl); как сельди в бочке (packed like sardines); как рыба в воде (like a fish to water); and биться, как рыба об лёд (thrash about like fish on the ice).

But don’t jump to the conclusion that any ichthyological idiom will work in both languages. For example, Russians don’t drink like fish, but like shoemakers (пить как сапожник). And на безрыбье и рак рыба (when there are no fish, even a crawfish is a fish) does not translate directly (“Something is better than nothing” would be a good translation). And, feminists take note, “like a fish needs a bicycle” should translate as как рыбке зонтик (umbrella).

One of my favorite fish idioms is Маленькая рыбка лучше большого таракана (A small fish is better than a large cockroach). This hardly needs explanation, and it provides an excellent segue to the poems of Nikolai Oleynikov, a 1920s avant-garde poet who paid homage to both of these most persecuted animals. First, Oleynikov sympathizes with the таракан, trapped in a glass and chewing on his leg while waiting to be dissected:

Таракан сидит в стакане,
Ножку рыжую сосёт.
Он попался. Он в капкане.
И теперь он казни ждёт.

The cockroach sits in the glass,
Gnawing on his rust-colored leg.
He’s done for. Doomed.
And awaits his execution.

Then there is Oleynikov’s requiem for a карась (carp) who is frying in a pan:

Жареная рыбка,
Маленький карась,
Где ж твоя улыбка,
Что была вчерась?

Frying fish
Little carp,
Where is your smile,
The one you had yesterday?

It turns out the carp committed suicide – swimming into a net – after his love was rejected by a cruel coquette:

И решил несчастный
Тотчас умереть
Ринулся он страстный,
Ринулся он в сеть.

And the unlucky one decided
To end it right now
He threw himself passionately,
He threw himself into the net.

The murky Neva rolls on, but the little carp will never swim anywhere again.

Так шуми же мутная
Невская вода!
Не поплыть карасику
Больше никуда.

So noisy and troubled
Are the Neva waters!
The carp will not swim
Anywhere evermore.

I do not know a funnier or sadder Russian poem about fish. If you have any doubts about its significance, Dmitry Shostakovich wanted to compose an opera inspired by Oleynikov’s “The Carp.” But he never did. The famous maestro clearly had bigger fish to fry.