Georgii Konstantinovich Savitskii
(Born St. Petersburg, 1887; died Moscow, 1949)
Dem'ian Bednyi
(Born Gubovka, 1883; died Moscow, 1945)

The Kolkhoz Watchman: A True Occurrence, TASS No. 0531, August 18, 1942

Stencil
2308 x 1298 mm
Night. On a collective farm,
Everyone asleep to get up early.
Only the watchman, old man Nefed, does not sleep.
Suddenly, grandfather Nefed became alarmed:
Above the village rumbles a motor!
Grandfather looks: It’s really a plane.
Grandfather Nefed does not take his eye of it:
“How marvelously the plane behaves.
It’s circling right above the woods...
Then it ascends fast... As if it was never there! It’s gone!
What demon was it chasing down here?”
Thus the old man thought, walking towards the woods:
“In case I notice something.”

Ah look, toward him
Walks a lumbering giant.
Nefed to him: “Who are you? Where from?”
The giant stares; maybe lying, maybe not:
“I,” he says, “have escaped captivity.
I incited a German to treason.
I bribed a pilot to drop me
Behind Soviet lines.
Where’s the road to the station?
The old man feels alarmed.
But his speech is moving and tricky:
“Stay with us for the night.
Eat, drink, and sleep.
And in the morning, God bless,
We'll find a horse in the collective farm
To take you to the station.

The nocturnal guest is in the collective farm,
Everyone surrounds him…
“Did you suffer in captivity?” “O, dear one,
Tell us we are interested.”
And the old man whispers to the cook:
He is definitely lying.
He says he suffered, yet his belly is huge.
Matrena, run to the regional center.
Tell them what’s up: During the night
A crow showed up.
I don't like this guest.
He is evasive and he has the face of a spy.

Everything became clear in the morn.
The detachment from the regional center
Unmasked the enemy in an instant.
A German agent sneaked in here.
The only legacy left of him
Are his false identification,
Weapons, explosive materials
And a fat packet of money.
He received according to the law
That applies to spies:
As they say: He was here, and now he's not!

Having prevented harm
The watchman, old man Nefed,
Is now more attentive than ever
On his night watch.
Everyone tells him: “Thanks!”
“No problem,” he laughs in response.
If anyone else tries to interfere
We will send him after the first
To the devil for dinner!
Ne boltai! Collection, Obj: 205691