Fifth Generation

This is kind of like “Patty Cake” for Russian children. My Uzbek mother-in-law taught it to my children. I search everywhere for the words tiring of repeating “Ladushki, Ladushki” and finally found them. Now I can teach my baby the entire song.

LADUShKI, LADUShKI
GDE BYLI? -U BABUShKI.
ChTO ELI? - KAShKU.
ChTO PILI? -BRAZhKU.
KAShKA SLADEN’KAYa,
BABUShKA DOBREN’KAYa.

There is another about geese but I can’t find it! If anyone knows it please let me know.

I also got this book about Russian Fairy Tales from the library to read to the children. I had to censor about half of the stories. They aren’t meant for the PC crowd let’s just say that. In Russian fairy tales, the mentally slow are beaten and sent to the woods to die. Wives who do not obey are thrown into pits or are beaten with sticks. One wife disagreed with her husband and was thrown into a lake where the husband held his wife’s head down until she agreed with him. People are baked alive and eaten. People of all classes are regularly beaten with sticks. The fairy tales aren’t much different from the fairy tales I grew up with, except in America we get the happy censored version of fairy tales. I am sure Russian children today get the same watered down version of the tales as the book I read was from an older collection. They are interesting for adults to read however, and I highly recommend them. I also recommend reading older versions of the fairy tales from Western Europe (and in America). Let’s just say there is no woodsman at the end of Little Red Riding Hood, the younger pigs are eaten, and the ogre is definately the bad guy.