Autor: by Alexander Fainberg
Authorized translation: by Sergei Zubkov
Illustrations: by Leyla Basharova

Did not they say that present-day deserts used to be seas’ bottoms and oceans’ depths millenniums ago – seas and oceans unknown to us? Why not contemplate that once, in time immemorial, axis of equator had changed its position in space? And what is hidden there at present – what mysteries are there in boundless depths? And what would happen to us living today and cherishing hopes for future great happiness?
Happiness is happiness. All human beings have their own separate different happiness, luck or fortune – whatever one prefers. But always are full of love and light reflected in arts types of happiness! Even in tragedies. Such are waves carrying Shakespeare’s Hamlet away to exile. Such are irate crests of waves in The Sea Sonatas by Churljenys. They – the waves – are everywhere for water is part and parcel of animate nature – soul of every living thing – all flesh, man and beast. Therefore any kind of arts cannot do without water. Either purposefully or independently of each other Creators of the World and their followers in all human cultures worship water. Some of them dip into water with delight; others come to water with repentance to purify their souls. Not to mention the rite of christening. Don’t I dare to touch upon it?! I only mean music, painting, and poetry. Water, water – wherever one goes…Tropical cloud-bursts, snow blizzards, seven-color rainbows. And why there is absence of water in R. Kipling’s the “Great Dry Spell”. Throat gets parched when I read verses by this outstanding romanticist and once again sense his great dry spell. And once again the lines emerge:

Let fishermen cast down their seines,
A drunkard drink, a blockhead strive
for power.
Look up! The treble clef’s soaring
to heaven,
To make the music raining down
to water flowers.

It has poured down…Do you sense it? The music has poured on us – like longed for reviving water for our souls among suddenly sprung up hot dry winds.

Sea waves dandled a yacht with a sail set
Lazy waves are tapping sandy seaside.
A woman beautiful and attractively naked
is strolling in her morning promenade.

Back in Moscow a year ago she
squandered
Hopeless life – no shelter, no work –
in a reckless race,
When suddenly a rich Arab guy
unsolicited
Bought and brought her to Mediterranean
for just in case.

Moscow blizzard is throwing snow
At night bars’ windows and bright
billboards.
Downtown ladies here – shivering with cold,
Try to survive their stampede from
backwoods.

So far, clinging to Moscow in a death grip,
They share its drunken feasts and brigandage.
A dolphin’s playing in the Mediterranean sea
A young lady’s strolling along the beach.

She has forgiven, forgot her grief
misfortune.
Remaining calm, not pondering over her fate
A cockleshell is in the hand, she hears
sea tune
And sees the prince of the childhood
fairytale.

You would never pull in to these
far away shores
Neither gold nor power could ever
tame you.
You’ve curbed the waves fawning
upon you.
And who knows what happiness is? Who
could tell you?

Who could tell you, really? Where is the answer? Is it in the Mediterranean Sea, in the Black or Japanese sea?
It is the eternal mystery of Her Majesty Water; and The Queen of Life may reveal her secret to us – but only then when we are eager, when we learn to listen to whisper of waves’ crests and comprehend them or… well, just simply to meditate upon ripples on water generated by a leaf fallen from a waterside tree.
When you are young the world seems to be open wide and infinite. With passing years a lot of changes occur: – other impulses, revised values, newly born affections, different desires. Incredible are the ways of Destiny.

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Autor: by Alexander Fainberg
Authorized translation: by Sergei Zubkov
Illustrations: by Leyla Basharova

Deep boom-sounds
Ring out their way.
The Earth is blazing.
Islands are in fire.
Sea water is boiling away.
Both – North and South Poles are
enveloped in jerks
of flame-colored blizzards,
Rushing over centuries-old icebergs.

Deep boom-sounds
Ring out their way.
It’s not an inferno’s
mushroom is rising
like a hunted beast at bay. –
We see a tremendous blazing Cross.

Christ – the Savior – with thorns crowned
Is mournfully looking down
At disastrous development
Of human’s Environment.

CHRIST’S RISEN! Christus surrexit! Vere surrexit! *

Good God! Two thousand years. And how many millenniums had passed before A.D.? Have we grown wiser? No we have not! We – cultivating in ourselves wicked rapacity – do not prohibit hunt for living creatures as a kind of some game-sport, but not as means of subsistence. Here it is …slavery in the souls. Wolves – getting in our flocks where everything is easily available – kill ships and reindeers, not being hungry. The easy meat complex enters into force. And Life returns this evil for degradation. Wolves having got accustomed to such like carnage, when getting into in natural environment, fail to catch up with a savage deer. This is what happens to people too. I have fallen in love with the book “Don’t cry “Wolves”” written by an English biologist Farley Mowat.

The book is not about humanizing of wolves. It’s about the truth of life – of reality where people behave as if they were alien extraterrestrials – they, after having read information on Farley’s research work in Canadian tundra, did not believe the scientist-practitioner and started acting like absolute imbeciles. I might have been a more striking idiot recommending all of my acquaintances to read the book. It turns out they are reluctant to follow my advice – too busy to go to pains reading. Much less pain and trouble people would face if they could comprehend Farley M.! Only a single step towards conceiving the essence of nature of the Earth might accomplish that which could not be attained through benefits stolen by human robbers ransacking the planet. It is not a matter of wolves. The matter is that Human Race should not tolerate passing Laws making thievery and depredation legal. Is it so that publicity of expressing opinions granted to most clever men by governmental power will remain a voice crying in the wilderness?– as my bosom friend Seva Vilthcek used to say.
We ought to learn from Nature to be wise – that is to cultivate sense of harmony in consuming benefits granted by Nature.
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Autor: by Alexander Fainberg
Authorized translation: by Sergei Zubkov
Illustrations: by Leyla Basharova

Either scope of Russia or Grand Canyons in the USA
Everything is precarious, my honey, and surely unsafe:

Including blossom colors of Indonesian islands,
And Africa and global power of Britain’s lions.

So, what would happen to the Earth and all of us?
When the ultimate tsunamis blow up at last?

Don’t worry; lifelessness will come of it, my dear,
And only salty winds cool all the dead without fear.
And that’s all there is to it! There are no people on the planet. Oil remains throbbing through the Earth interior, water remains lapping against shores in the oceans, seas and rivers. There are no words on the planet, and no more poets: no Pushkin, no Ahmatova, no Tsvetaeva… Only the global ocean’s waves will wave goodbye
And give the deepest sigh
For: – Marina, Anna, Alexander …*
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Autor: by Alexander Fainberg
Authorized translation: by Sergei Zubkov
Illustrations: by Leyla Basharova

Half-moon is throwing dim light. The moon gleam slightly fluxing and refluxing is flowing down over a small foreyard in a typical Central Asian homestead. There is an “ayvan” * in the middle of the yard and on one side of it over the “aryk” ** there is a wooden wheel steadily rotating. This is a “chigkyr” *** . It ladles out water with its large jars from the wide aryk. And Н2О flows down through inclined flumes towards furrows in the vegetable garden and further on to the fields cultivated on the other side of the “dooval” **** . The land is drinking water. The chygkyr stops rotating at the dead of night. And it starts having dreams that flow down from the ruthful half-moon high in the sky.

Those deprived of words never enjoy any human rights.
We’re polluters of Nature’s ancient depths – to the most,
See dolphins leaping out to beaches on ocean coasts –
Agonizing in silent, crazy and desperate loss of lives.

Cut trunks of former trees make no complaints.
Mountains sag under the load of radar sets.
Nuclear darkness is spreading through plains,
And wordless grass is drying out doomed to death.

Neither water nor stone would curse us for the siege.
No words had dogs killed by our pitiless rage.
No words had birds shot down by missiles in flights.

For two millenniums we’ve been begging in Christ’s name,
But still proceeding to exist, completely being lost to shame.
The Lord! To whom thou gavest the human word and rights!
To whom? Indeed! And what was it for? For how many ages have we been failing to reach an agreement? Just try to count them all.

Well, then … why not just talk it over?

Recently there had been a display of new limousines in Detroit. To millionaires’ joy a row of super cars were exhibited standing in splendor and boasting of six hundred horse powers engines each. One can only fancy, if every nation in the world procures somewhat ten such herds, then half the planet ought to be sown with oat to feed all the horses.

* A dais installed in a traditional way at some place comfortable for rest and having meals or receiving guests and honorable visitors, as well as conducting various family events. In continental arid climate it is usually located in the shade under trees and over some waterway (canal, irrigation ditch, etc.).

** It is an irrigation ditch (in Central Asia).

*** A device in the form of a rotating wheel designed for elevating irrigation water (used from time immemorial).

**** A clay fence that is usually erected around a homestead.

But in the case in question not oat crop is needed – powerful cars demand oil! It is Fuel. How much of it will people need to maintain this family of luxury cars? Okay, let’s imagine that we managed to feed them all. Then another global challenge will emerge to its full extent. What air will our great granddaughters and sons breathe in? Ah?.. The air generated by the seas and oceans? It might be so, if it were not for tankers and the disaster which befell the clean waters of these seas and oceans when oil flushes from liquid cargo carriers in consequence of frequent shipwrecks.
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