Sergei Nikolaevich Kostin
(Born Moscow, 1896; died Moscow, 1968)
Samuil Iakovlevich Marshak
(Born Voronezh, 1887; died Moscow, 1964)

The Former Ersatz Landowner, TASS No. 1007, July 3, 1944

Stencil
2016 x 834 mm
Along the Berlin streets
There wanders every day
A Ukrainian landowner
With outstretched hand.

From his former grandeur
Nothing now remains
But a feather in his hat –
And nothing more.

Next to him, despondent,
There wanders his wife.
“Mein Gott! What's happened to us?”
She says with melancholy.

Hitler gave us a gift
An estate near Poltava,
In the shade of an old oak grove
And with lions at the entrance!

My husband and I, we drove around
In a carriage like noble counts
And in our possession,
We had two hundred peasant souls!

We were very pleased
To have serfs of our own.
But all of them joined the ranks
Of the Soviet partisans.

Everything ended terribly!
On one silent night
We had to run away
From the army of the Reds!

We ran through all the puddles
Now trotting, now at a gallop.
And my husband and I,
We lost our last wardrobe.

All that remains from our estate
Is this here bicycle…
Have pity on us!
Give us money for a meal.
Gift of the USSR Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, 2010.86