(Russian cultural references).
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| Fisherman and the Golden Fish. Illustration by Ivan Bilibin. |
Putin, accompanied by the Prime-Minister Medvedev and the Minister of Defence Shoigu, was fishing on a lake in Tuva, a Russian Federation republic on the border with Mongolia. In one of the photos with his pike, Putin seems to be talking to the fish or kissing her.
Some claimed that the pike in photos shouldn't have been more than 12 kg. The Kremlin insisted that the weighing was genuine. The long-standing British record for a pike is 21 kg 234 g.
Others simply rolled their eyes — no, not another one! Putin previously flew on a micro-light with a flock of storks, chased whales on a speedboat, shot a Siberian tiger with a tranquiliser, and, most hilariously, 'discovered' a cache of Greek amphoras while diving in the Black Sea.
The pike episode is special in that it evokes numerous cultural references in Russia. All of them derisive.
One is the popular folk tale of The Simpleton Yemelya and the Pike (a version in English here and in Russian here). Yemelya, the lazy third son of a peasant, refuses to do any work at home or in the fields except when bribed by 'presents'. One Winter, he goes to fetch some water in an ice-hole on the river and catches a pike in his bucket there. The pike, being a magical creature, asks him to let her (or him in some versions) go, and promises that any of Yemelya's wish will be fulfilled if he adds to it a short incantation: "по щучьему велению, по моему хотению" — 'on the pike's behest and on my request.' Yemelya goes on to marry the tsar's daughter and later on becomes the tsar himself.
The 'moral' of the tale seems strange or absent at first, but only if you forget that many folk tales have a reverse message, that is they tell you what not to do or not to expect to happen. In Russian language, the phrase 'on pike's behest' is often used to mock wishful thinking or empty boastfulness.
The second reference is to Pushkin's tale in verse "Сказка о рыбаке и рыбке" (The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish, Robert Chandler's version in English here and in Russian here, wiki about the tale). The tale uses the plot of the Brothers Grimm Vom Fischer und seiner Frau (in Russian here) but while many of the Grimms' tales are well-known in Russia this one is better known in Pushkin's rendition.
The old fisherman lives in a mud hut by the sea with his wife whose only possession is a разбитое корыто (broken trough). One day her goes to the sea and catches a goldfish who talks to him in human language and, again, as in the tale about Yemelya, asks him to let her go. The old man, charmed by the beauty and gentleness of the sea creature, lets her go. But the fish-wife scolds him and makes him go back to the sea to ask the goldfish for a log cabin. The fish, who turns out to be the Queen of the Sea, turns the mud hut into a log cabin. The fish-wife wants more and more with all her demands granted. Until one day when she is deciding that she wants to rule the Sea herself. After which the Goldfish has had enough and everything returns to where it was, the mud hut and the broken trough.
Остаться у разбитого корыта — to be left by the broken trough became an idiom which means to be no better off than before, to be left with nothing, or to be back where one started.
And the third reference is "Бриллиантовая рука" (The Diamond Arm, wiki here), Leonid Gaidai's 1969 comedy. If it isn't a number one then it certainly is in the top ten of the most loved Russian/Soviet films. Every Russian-speaking person knows it practically by heart and almost every line went into the language as an idiom.
The plot turns around a gang of smugglers whose latest shipment of gold and diamonds from abroad has, by accident, landed in the cast on the supposedly broken arm of an unintended man, Semyon Semyonovich (played by the famous comedian Yuri Nikulin). Nikulin reports the incident to the police, and they decide to use him as live bait to catch the criminals. The crooks, one of whom befriends Nikulin, didn't realise that Nikulin saw the treasure being hidden inside the cast, and go on trying, unsuccessfully, to lure him into a series of traps to get the cast off him. Now, in one such attempt, Nikulin and his 'friend' go on a fishing trip to a remote place. Nikulin, an experienced angler, doesn't believe there's fish there, but is promised that "клёв будет такой, что ты забудешь всё на свете" (the fish will be biting so much that уou'll forget everything). Because another, scuba diving crook, is sitting at the bottom of the sea with a netful of live fish and hooking them on as soon as Nikulin throws in the line.
The staged fishing success that makes the fisherman 'forget everything in the world' is being remembered now and repeated in connection with Putin's pike, genuine or not.
There's the triple counter-punch for you, fire the PR.
The Diamond Arm with English subtitles. The fishing episode comes at 44th minute into the film.
In this 1957 Soviet cartoon version of Yemelya and the Pike there is an added motive of Yemelya beating the foreign princes, defeating an invading army and the tsar deciding to emigrate abroad. (bad syncing)
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