Vladimir Vladimirovich™

I decided to take a crack at translating something funny. Humor often gets lost in translation, but I think this one will be funny to English-speakers who are versed in the lexicon of post-Soviet politics and aware of recent environmental happenings in Russia. The original Russian version is here, so those of you who do know Russian can check my work. Apologies to Mr. Parker - I'm going to email him and will take the translation down if he doesn't like it.

Friday, Feb. 2, 2007

Once upon a time, Vladimir Vladimirovich™ Putin was sitting in his Kremlin office and waxing his Presidential skis.

All of a sudden, the tall doors of the Presidential office burst open, and in rushed the deputy chief of Vladimir Vladimirovich™'s administration, Vladislav Yur'evich Surkov.

"Hey, bro," said Vladislav Yur'evich, "Whaddaya doing there?"
"Waxing my skis," answered Vladimir Vladimirovich™. "I'm gonna go skiing. There's a lot of snow, it's real nice."

"Hold off on the skiing," said Vladislav Yur'evich. "We got something strange here."
"Whazzat?" asked Vladimir Vladimirovich™ with alarm.

"They had orange snow fall in the Tomsk, Tyumen and Omsk regions," said Vladislav Yur'evich quietly.
"Orange?!" shouted Vladimir Vladimirovich™ in horror.

"I think it's begun," nodded Vladislav Yur'evich.

"What are we going to do?" fretted Vladimir Vladimirovich™. "But you promised me there was no threat! That nothing orange would happen."

"We're doing our best," said Vladislav Yur'evich calmly. "Look, we kept those tangerines out of the country. But who could have known that it would come down in the snow...we're going to melt it."

"Melt it," said Vladimir Vladimirovich™ tensely. "Melt it ASAP!"

"We'll get it melted," said Vladislav Yur'evich confidently, and quickly left the room.

[Update] - Mr Parker's email address bounces, his LJ blog is "suspended," and the guest book on the vladimir.vladimirovich.ru site was closed almost two years ago, with the comment, "Homophobes, anti-Semites, revolutionaries and other lowlifes can tell their mothers everything they've been writing here." I'm trying one more email address, which I don't think will work. The only reason I'm doing this is because I know there used to be a regular English translation of this column, so maybe the author would rather not have translations published randomly. But since the last English-language translation on the website is dated last March, maybe I'm filling a void here.