Comments on: Giant sausages full of what?

Question: Giant sausages full of what?

MonkeySaltedNuts — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 15:22:45 -0800

In this photo, does anybody know what these bicycle riders are transporting in the giant sausages? Does the Russian caption (which I don't read) explain it?

By: fixedgear

fixedgear — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 15:23:50 -0800

When I saw this it said that they were transporting (seriously, now) stolen natural gas.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 15:26:16 -0800

Yeah, I saw a similar photo a few months back. People stealing natural gas in China froma pipeline.

By: Good Brain

Good Brain — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 15:45:04 -0800

I third the natural gas explanation. I came across this photo a few weeks ago via Slate

By: MonkeySaltedNuts

MonkeySaltedNuts — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 15:52:00 -0800

Thanks. I was able to find these photos of Chinese gas theft but I havn't yet found the source of the photo I linked.

This article says

In the first few months of 2004, Ukrainian police discovered more than 150 holes in the nation's oil distribution system. Oil crooks there and elsewhere can find an unguarded length of pipe and make their own tap.

so I don't know if the photo is of Chinese, Ukrainians, or others.

By: ORthey

ORthey — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 17:02:12 -0800

My lousy Russian translates it as:

Chinese energies stole valuable experience and Ukrainian colleagues.

So.... um... yeah.

By: ORthey

ORthey — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 17:04:00 -0800

Plus it might actually be IN Ukrainian. Also "experience" could be "experiments."

By: gesamtkunstwerk

gesamtkunstwerk — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 17:36:27 -0800

It's a joke. Chinese entrepreneurs learning from the experience of their Ukrainian colleagues.

It's making light of the Russian/Ukrainian confllct over gas pipelines, implying that Chinese and Ukrainians are stealing from Russia.

I don't understand the spelling of the first word, but I am pretty sure that opyt would be dostiv in Ukrainian. Either it's slang, or perhaps Belorussian.

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 18:05:58 -0800

gesamtkunstwerk; the image and article linked to by Good Brain doesn't look like a joke, even though the picture in the original question does look photoshopped.

By: gesamtkunstwerk

gesamtkunstwerk — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 20:00:23 -0800

Was the text the same?

I may be projecting irony onto it.

By: eritain

eritain — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 22:01:03 -0800

It's Belarusian. Interpolating from my good Ukrainian and my weak Russian, 'Ketajskie energetiki perenyali tsennyj opyt u Ukrainskix kolleg' would be 'Chinese energeticians took [have taken] valuable experience at [from] Ukrainian colleagues'.

Geeky linguistic details follow:

The easy giveaway for Belarusian is in the i-like letters. Ukrainian doesn't use ы; Russian doesn't use Latin-style i; Belarusian uses both. The slightly harder giveaway is what gesamtkunstwerk noticed: Vowels (in this case e) that don't make sense in Ukrainian or Russian (should be, in each of those, the letter that transliterates as i; Belarusian also has a lot a lot of unexpected a replacing o, as if some kid had tried to spell phonetically in a dialect with strong akanie).

I confess I'm fudging the translation of perenyac', since slovnyk.org is down at the moment and I haven't got a Belarusian dictionary on paper. There is no exact parallel (perenyaty) in my Ukrainian dictionary, but Ukr. prynyaty is to receive or to accept. And IIRC -- whoops, I was about to write something about the possible convergence of pere- and pri-, which I think did take place in Polish, but while looking for evidence I happened to open Herman's Dictionary of Slavic Word Families exactly to the page where Russian perenyat' is translated 'adopt'. So, yeah, 'take' will work.

And the word that gesamtkunstwerk is looking for is dosvid. Molodets, sir.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 06:16:32 -0800

No, you are molodets! You've made a hell of an impression on me with your first MeFi comment; welcome, eritain, and I'll be watching for your username. And I just bookmarked slovnyk.org—thanks for that.

By: gesamtkunstwerk

gesamtkunstwerk — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 18:45:29 -0800

Thanks, eritain. I kind of get Ukrainian through Russian, but there's always something I miss. I must try my luck with Belorussian.

By: MonkeySaltedNuts

MonkeySaltedNuts — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 19:02:32 -0800

I'm still impressed by the photo but haven't been able to google its source.

As so abley shown above, the caption is a Belarus joke about Ukrainians and Russians.

The 4 googleable pics, (1, 2, 3, and 4) tend to cast the Chinese gas thefts as fairly amateur.

The starting photo shows well organized efficient tech for stealing gas.

By: Chuckles

Chuckles — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 23:44:21 -0800

I first saw a photo like this through this post - Russia reduces gas export to Ukraine.