Lesia Nikitiuk. “A Bird Sat Down”

(Сіла птаха, Sila ptakha)

 

 

 

Singer: Lesia Nikitiuk (Леся Іванівна Нікітюк)

Text: Lesia Nikitiuk (Леся Іванівна Нікітюк)

Music: Igor Poklad

 

 

Translation by Christian Scharlau

A Ukrainian yellow-winged bird sat down¹

on the fence of the moskal² kremlin

it has come to spread a new virus³

so that there would be no more moskal in the world.

That bird was raised by western scientists

in secret pigeon-houses across the Dnieper,

an electronic chip sewn into its head,

in order to mark russia with shit…

That bird is scarier than a bayraktar,

and it will fertilize women from the sky,

and all children will look like Bandera,

and won’t be able to speak katzap⁴

And in our armoury we also have geese

they ram all the planes in the sky

pigeons mark russian infantry precisely

and then sparrows accurately shit with hail⁵

Be afraid, bitches, because here “in Ukraine”⁶

even a mouse has an officer’s rank

in the woods and in the fields, underground and in the sky,

they hate the moskal with all their heart.

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1. “A white-winged bird sat down…” is the beginning of a popular folk song.
2. The Moscow Kremlin, of course. “Moskal” is an ethnic slur for “Russian”, literally “Muscovite”. Note that here the Kremlin is surrounded by a wooden fence instead of a wall.
3. Absurd as it may sound, here and later on the song develops on the totally crazed allegations made by Russia at the UN Security Council that there were secret labs in Ukraine where Western scientists had developed new viruses, which were to be spread in Russia by migrating birds, etc., etc.
4. Another ethnic slur for “Russian”.
5. “Hail” (“Град”) is also the name of a missile system.
6. In the original in Russian. Literally, Russians say “on Ukraine”, which suggests Ukraine is a region rather than a souvereign country.

Comments:

From minute 1:09 of the clip, Russia is marked with the word параша (parasha). It denotes the bucket used in Russian prison cells instead of a toilet. At the same time, one can read this as two words (there even is an appropriate little gap): “па, раша” – “bye, russia” (using the name of Russia in English).

 

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