This is really quick and really dirty translation from the Russian. I have left out a few words here and there that I didn’t bother to look up. I haven’t massaged it for English grammar and style — there are Dostoevskian run-on sentences.

На Командорах [Na Komandorakh] On the Commander Islands. Author: Gennady Snegirev. Artist: M. Miturich. Izdatel’stvo “Malish”. Publisher “Little One”. For older preschoolers. A print run of 350,000 in 1975. Cost, 16 kopecks.

Full Russian book scanned here.

The Commander Islands were discovered in the first half of the 18th century by Commander Bering, an officer in the Russian fleet, at the time of his expedition along the coast of North America and therefore received their name. They are located in a sea which also was named in honor of the famous seafarer – the Bering Sea.

Vitus Bering

During winter, the Commander Islands stick out of the cold waters of the Bering Sea like the peaks of snowy mountains. The shore of the islands are cliffs and inaccessible. In spring, when the tundra blooms, flocks of birds arrive to nest. On the ponds and streams nest wilk ducks and geese. From the sea comes schools of char to spawn in the streams. People catch them in the river by hand and make “khokha”, a delicious dish of char baked in dough.

In the tundra on every tussock grow mushrooms, white and orange-cap boletus, huge and completely with worms. Youths on dog sleds go out on the tundra for mushrooms. They cut off just the caps with knives and at night bring back sledges full of mushrooms to dry for winter.

p.2

In the end of April, like the first streams sounds in sunshine, to the shores of the island swim the fur seals [морские котики] — big seals with warm and valuable fur.

The fur seals come to have their pups on dry land, little black pups, so they are called “blackies.” [чёрненьие]

There isn’t a lot of space on the beach, and from the ocean arrive more and more fur seals. The roar of the fur seals is audible from far off, as they struggle for a place to lay down.

In June, when the babies are born, the roaring is heard for a kilometer. The adults roar, and also the pups crawl along the haulouts and pitifully cry ‘beh-beh-beh,” just like sheep.

The mothers of the pups swim away in the sea to catch fish to feed themselfs, and the pups gather together like a kindergarten, playing or sunning themselves and sleeping, so deeply that you can pet a pup, and even pick it up in your arms — it still won’t wake up.

After three weeks the pups grow bigger and crawl in the water, where it is shallow, and splash around. At first they don’t swim far, but each day the pups go further and further, slipping down the high waves as if down a mountain, and grow accustomed to the boundless ocean, so that in fall they can swim away to winter in the warm Sea of Japan.

How are the fur seals today? The Commander Islands are a national park, so theoretically there are some protections for them. Here’s 18 minutes of Russian researchers poking them with sticks, tagging pups, and working to get a count on the population.

I’m out of time, so that’s all for now, friends. Tune in next time for sea birds!