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In its lair, the old evil was stirred,
It myopically looked to the east:
So the bear got up and walked stepping hard —
As a beast should be — ferocious and wild.

So they raised you to a new crusade,
Painted plenty of fatal crosses.
What do you need here where no one awaits you?
What’s your answer to future widows?

Well, listen, soldier! Don't go to kill —
You’ll be spitting blood, you’ll be kicking yourself!
For the ruins of schools, for the orphanage
You’ll get a stake between your shoulder blades.

It’s unknown whether you receive the knight's cross,
But a cross on the grave on the Volga bank’s ready.
Was it in God’s name? Then how cannot it end ill, —
Once a crusade — then crosses on graves.

Only yours are just semblance of bites of a snake,
It's all lies — you have come with no emotions!
The Holy Sepulcher isn’t here — it lies where it lay,
No crosses around your necks, crusaders.

Many centuries have although passed,
But the number of your fools doesn’t decrease!
You can be driven off, be captured or killed —
Your eternal refuge, soldier, won’t be cozy.

It’s vain to trample on spicas and grass here,
Soon one of you will turn into a stunted bush,
Your hastily made wooden crosses will sprout,
Peace will come to you, only overdue.

You have left your friends, families, brides —
Not for food for your yellowthroat chicks.
And your orphans-to-be will never need
Your notorious melted iron awards.

Go back home, someone's son and the dad!
A killed soldier is only a dead man.
If you survive — to the thousands of fresh graves
How will you explain then why you have come?

Old mate, there’ll be a shortage in schools for five years, —
Adding deaths, you have been away for too long,
And your wife, then so pretty and so young,
Didn't give birth to your offsprings.