# Does anybody know this poem?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-know-this-poem/266420>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [September 28, 2004, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-know-this-poem/266420 "2004-09-28T03:29:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Inoshiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a9adbd/32.png) [@Inoshiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inoshiro)\
**Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-know-this-poem/266420/1 "2004-09-28T03:29:48Z")

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Maybe a year ago I was watching a documentary on the History channel (I think). It was about Russia’s role in WWII. They read a poem whose topic was death and war. All I remember, apart from the fact that I liked it, is that there is a line in it like

“no trains or aeroplanes come and go from that place” (yes, they pronounced it aero-planes in the British fashion)

I think the poem was originally in Russian. I did all the usual Googling for the line, fragments of it, and “poem, war, russia” and associated concepts. Nothing useful. Anyone know this poem or who it is by?

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**Author:** ![Inoshiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a9adbd/32.png) [@Inoshiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inoshiro)\
**Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-know-this-poem/266420/2 "2004-09-28T21:12:41Z")

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OK, I forgot to mention that I seem to recall that this was a modern Russian poem. Probably from the Communist period and conveyed a more or less secular view of death (probably why it got through the Soviet censors, good proletarian literature and all that) There was also a mention of trains and cars I think so it might have been

“no trains or aeroplanes, no automobiles come and go from that place.”

I wish I could remember it better ☹

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**Author:** ![Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)\
**Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-know-this-poem/266420/3 "2004-09-28T21:48:51Z")

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[http://www.litera.ru:8080/stixiya/themes/war.html](http://www.litera.ru:8080/stixiya/themes/war.html)

Did you run across this site? It’s in Russian, I know. I ran it through [http://www.freetranslation.com](http://www.freetranslation.com) and there are a few promising entries under Anna \<Russian last name I don’t understand\> and Olga \<Russian last name I don’t understand but different from the first one\>. You’ll have to copy the shortcuts for each poem and translate them individually if you use [FreeTranslation.com](http://FreeTranslation.com), though.

Good luck. I hope this helped, if only a little.