The Interpreter Viktor Sukhodrev. RIP.

Sukhodrev interprets Brezhnev and Nixon in 1973. 

Viktor Sukhodrev, the legendary Russian interpreter, who worked with Soviet leaders from Khruschev to Gorbachev, passed away on 16 May 2014.

This excerpt from an article on Russiapedia explains one 'untranslatable' idiom that Khrushchev used during the 'kitchen debate' with Richard Nixon in 1959:

As the conversation progressed, Khrushchev unexpectedly passed onto the international affairs and Soviet-American relations, warning Nixon, that “We are giants, too. If you want to threaten us, we’ll respond with another threat.” It was at that moment that Khrushchev promised to show the United States “Kuzkina mat’”, or “Kuzma's mother” in English, introducing the most famous collocation of the Cold War vocabulary, which for years remained an enigmatic and obscure threat for the US and a turmoil for interpreters. 

As Viktor Sukhodrev, Khrushchev’s personal interpreter recalls, his colleague was confused and translated the expression as Kuzka's mother as “Kuzma’s mother” throwing off the entire American delegation. Later, the American interpreter having just as hard a time, finally decided to interpret it as “we’ll show you what is what, “ which was close, but still not true. Sukhodrev confessed that Khrushchev did explain what he had in mind, on their trip to Los-Angeles, “…I am starting to translate, when Khrushchev suddenly interrupts me, ‘When I was at the exhibition with Nixon, the translation of this phrase was wrong. And it’s really easy. We will show you something you had never seen before.’ I froze for a moment; no dictionary had such meaning for this expression. In other words, ‘We’ll catch up with you and overtake you, and astound you with something you’d never seen before.’”

Later, as the nuclear program was thriving, the Soviet nuclear physicists named the newly-developed a 100-megaton atomic bomb, the only one in history, and named it “Kuz’kina mat’”. With this new notion, the expression started to make concrete sense.

Watch a longish TV interview with Sukhodrev here. Among other things he explains Khrushchev's famous phrase 'we will bury you' and says that 'nothing is untranslatable.'

Photo: Robert L. Knudsen.

Comrade Rudolph, or the Red Knows

A reader sent me this Christmas joke, which I thought was one of those silly ones from inside a cracker. But the political reference and the mention of a historical date – 1956, the year of Khrushev's denunciation of Stalin, lead me to think it might be a contemporary anecdote, though not originating from Russia herself since Rudolph the rein-deer is hardly known there. Does anyone know the source?

Here is how it goes:

'An elderly Russian couple were walking down a Moscow street in 1956. The husband looks at his wife and says, “my love I just felt a snow flake on my face”. 

“No” she says “I think it was rain”. 

“No I am sure it was a snow flake” he says”. 

His wife looks at him very troubled. 

“This is terrible” she says “how are we going to find the official party line on whether it is snowing or raining”

At that moment they see Comrade Rudolph coming towards them. 

“Comrade, can you help us” says the wife “is it officially snowing or raining?”

“It is raining” says Comrade Rudolph walking off in a hurry. 

The couple set off again but the husband is worried. 

“My love” he says “I am sure that it is snowing”. 

“Don’t worry” says his wife soothingly “Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear”

Here is a nice jazzy version of Rudolph. Note that Santa invites the Red to guide his sleigh through the night:

Kitchen Debate: 50 years since Khrushev and Nixon shook hands in Moscow

A wonderful event in US-Soviet relations: Russian Premier Khrushev and Vice-President Nixon debate whose achievements are stronger and end up shaking hands. They called each other to be open to new ideas. The kitchen debate took place at the American exhibition in Moscow in 1959 at the height of Khrushev's thaw.

Russian with American twang: Viktor Sukhodrev

Famous Russian interpreter Viktor Sukhodrev interviewed on Russia Today, the Russian English-language satellite TV channel. Having interpreted at the highest level since 1950s he is a true witness to history.