JOANNE BOURNE: Translation of French YouTube documentary on the almasty (Part Three)

A few weeks ago we posted part one of Jo Bourne's translation of a YouTube posting of a French documentary about the almasty. Ten days later we posted part two. We continue with part three...

Voiceover: It was once again evidence found by a shepherd that enabled a young biologist from the university of Karkof[????] to observe an Almasty on the 29 Aug 1991 in this stable.

Shepherd: He came and asked if the Almasty came here sometimes, and it was here he saw one for the first time. I showed him in the stable the horses with plaited manes* and I asked him who did the plaiting and why. Patchenko spent the night here. He slept over there, and the horses were tied up here.

GREGORY PATCHENKO
[His words are translated into French] “I fell asleep and was still sleeping when the Almasty came into the stable. I was a few metres away from him. It was dark, but through the opening by which he came the moon shone. It was a full moon on that night. [Before I could see him; avant je na’i pu le voir – the French translation is clearly audible but makes no sense ] he was standing upright near a horse. He was plaiting its mane. And as far as I could judge, its arms at the minimum reached his knees.

But I repeat I didn’t see his knees. His fur hid half of his body. I heard him emit sounds. Not words, but more of a murmur. I had a camera with a flash, but no battery. I couldn’t find them. [Then why is he sleeping in the stable, if he’s not prepared???-Jo] After all is said, I think that the Almasty belongs to a branch of man’s ancestors.”

Voiceover: Gregory Patchenko is a member of the Society ??????? [ de Russi, Dr Koffman is President. At 74 years old, she’s never been fortunate enough to see the Almasty, the object of her quest.

A seasoned mountaineer, Marie-Jeanne knows the subtlety of the mountains [sorry, this entire paragraph is rather clunky; the original is pointlessly poetic in the grand French documentary manner], and each corner of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic that she is so fond. Her name is nearly as well-known as that of the Almasty. In the Caucasus she has also known the terrible years of the Second World War as captain of a Red Army mountain battalion. And by chance of numerous observations of wild men gathered over a long period by the Professor Boris Porchnev, who she collaborated with. She knows better than most the dossier of relic hominins. In the different Caucus republics multiple witness statements reinforce her certainty, even if the restraint of the investigator cannot bring irrefutable proof of the Almasty’s existence, she speaks of it in the conditional. And it’s towards new tracks that she takes us, rendezvous manqué de quelques jours avec l’homme a semele de vent [fundamentally this means the Almasty was here a few days earlier].

M-J K: There’s a [???? Plantaire?] very marked. I see a [sorry, she has got an accent and is talking into the footprint with the river in the background. If I translated this I’d be guessing]

Perhaps he stopped here. [more indistinct dialogue] The only thing we can do now is go up and down the stream, because here, we can’t get out. We want proof, direct or indirect of the Almasty’s existence, but obviously it isn’t enough for science. We must have the creature’s body or bones in our hands.

4:37

Voiceover: Even without a photograph of the Almasty, we must resign ourselves to leaving Kabardino-Balkaria. We find Andre in Moscow, studying the prints.

Foot specialist Andre finds the last set of footprints more convincing than that of Maray de Hip Soco [need a map for the location].

Andre: Using this method we can see that the way the foot is placed is the same as that of a human. This form is for us characteristic of a relic hominin. [he speaks in English, and thinks there is a similarity between the prints and those of a Neanderthal]. I think it’s a very positive result for this expedition.

Voiceover: And if the prints are really those of an Almasty, our witnesses won’t have imagined things and their reports would become credible.

Eyewitnesses:

[with hat] He was this size

About this size…

Lady with scarf: He was bigger than me

Voiceover: Was it a woman?

Woman: No, a male

Man: They emit sounds but nobody understands them

Bobblehat Physically he’s strong, around 2-2.10m. And a bit stooped, with bent legs, and arms, too.

Last man: I called like that, for no reason. And I thought, what is this, there are no man here… [

Voiceover: The solitude accompanies the footsteps of the investigator who digs new paths for science. Dr Koffmann follows her research far from knowing [un anime de ces pert: that’s what it sounds like; can’t make a sentence out of the individual words]. In a time of science and technological development that demystifies our origins and turns our future upside down, dreams become our last place of adventure. Of its kind, the Almasty deserves to exist. An invisible cousin survives [xxxxxx] a legend of all those who refute its existence.

JOANNE BOURNE: Translation of French YouTube documentary on the almasty (Part Two)

A few weeks ago we posted part one of Jo Bourne's translation of a YouTube posting of a French documentary about the almasty. We continue with part two...


Almasty. Yeti du Caucase. Part 2
Realisation
Sylvain Pallix
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdzYiQYg9UM&feature=related

Rough draft translation by Jo Bourne 9 October 2010



Voiceover: [Proving] the existence of the Almasty is the object of this journey, but the circumstances [of the trip mean that] science is a long way from daily concerns. Tracking the creature across these vast, wild spaces often feels like a pointless exercise. Like we’re chasing an illusion. In this republic, where the creature is hardly likely to delight [to do much for] the embryonic tourist industry, it is perhaps a strange [daft] idea to want to photograph or film it.

We’re in the valley of the river Moushta [that’s what it sounds like, can’t find it], where tracks have been discovered. He is convinced that this place, filled with canyons and inaccessible gorges is an ideal habitat for the Almasty.

ANDRE KAZLOV, ANTHROPOLOGIST
[Well we’ve found footprints…]
“It was here in 1976 that we found traces of stones [with tracks] maybe belonging to a relic hominin. Three footprints on one side of the river and three or four here. In one of the footprints there was a hair. The hair was analysed at the laboratory of Forensic Medicine at the Perm Medical Institute. It has an interesting structure. It does not belong to animals or humans.

Voicover: It will take a million detection systems if we are to have any hope of covering the region. Even then, it would be pure chance were the Almasty just to wander out of the neighbouring forest. Nature is the most precious ally of wild creatures. [Even] Bears and wolves have escaped our watch, offering not so much as a footprint to assuage our curiosity.
And the Almasty – too quiet? [Why the silence?] Lkely it has no desire for its destiny to collide with that of man.

SYLVAIN MAHUZIER, NATURALIST
“[Can’t hear the start of what he says] Almasty, that it a question very painful [incomprehensible, bad sound and he’s quiet] can we reasonably, from a scientific point of view, let this chance [too quiet] in the Caucusus, and never know what this creature – probably very important for all anthropologists – is?”

Voiceover: In an attempt to solve the mystery of this creature, night vision glasses amplify sight under the moon and stars – just part of our technological arsenal.
[the film jumps here]
… hypodermic pistol. Its only for making it sleep so we can gather indisputable proof: hair, saliva, a drop of blood, prints from hands and feet, as well as a mask from the face. The Almasty is not destined to be a hunting trophy, even less a circus attraction…

3:19
Voiceover: Our exploration takes place in a radius [? Rayon. Lit: ray] of 100 km around St Makavot [this is what it sounds like] and often brings us close to Mount Elbrus. We have, several times, sought a family who were said to have raised an Almasty, without much success [Nous avons a plusiers repris cherche un famille qu aurait ete eleve un Almasty, sans grand success]. A negative response is sometimes a symbol of a religious taboo. To not speak of the diabolical creature is primarily to avoid [incomprehensible word. Possibly a word for a curse?].

There are places where the Almasty has been seen more often than others. At Fermi [?] Baksan, the shadow of the yeti seems to fall on each street corner.

HOSSEIN ATMOURZAEV
He never shows himself in the day. We can’t see him. There’s something weird about them. Something repoussant, even. Otherwise, they look like men. He was taller than me. About this high. They are like wolves: they don’t turn their heads but turn their bodies… like this.

Other man: He turned round like a wolf, you understand…?

Micha: Like that…

Other man: Yes, like that, he turned his whole body round. And then he left.

Voiceover: Our belief wavers according to the witnesses we speak to. The similarity of the descriptions is surprising – how can everyone have the same repeated hallucinations?


Yet for the most part, the witnesses all treat their encounters as a unique experience. Like the director of the school at Fermi Baksan, they all take the trouble to remember the date, and take us to the precise spot of the event that marked their memory. It was in 1940 that he saw the Almasty in the village where he was born, [that was later] razed by Stalin.

ICHZIR OUZDENOV
“My parents had gone haymaking; at the time I was a small boy. I came out over there… and in this tree I saw an Almasty. He was small, black. I didn’t pay attention to his eyes. His fur covered his whole body.”

The Almasty was more commonly seen in the years before the war when there was little in the way of mechanisation and where the villages had no electricity.

The fracas [ ? xxxxxx] and the massive deportation of the Balkarian people towards central Asia has also served to distance the wild man from their base [think they mean man’s base, ie proximity to man]. To see the Almasty and find tracks is increasingly rare.

6:55
A farmer in the valley of [Hip soco? Do you have a map?] had that chance and the fright of its life during our stay. It was his dog that put her on alert. She first thought it was a fox attacking her hens.

(the woman appears to count six, if schist is six)

Voice: “Are you sure they’re the tracks of an Almasty?

DOUCHA IVANOVA
“I’m sure. I saw it with my own eyes. It wasn’t a man. And I immediately knew what it was.
He was small like that…
His hair was like that. [gestures] The eyes were different. A bit like that [drawing] and his forehead was high.”

Voice: Higher than that of a man?

Doucha: “Yes.”

Voice: “What colour was he? Black?”

Doucha: No, like the fur. [pointing to parka trim].

Voiceover: Andre is less enthusiastic, maintaining a scientific reserve. The angle of the stride seems to him closer to that of man. The Almasty walks in a line, like a tightrope walker [not clear if he means generally, or this suspect Almasty]. However, he’s never seen anyone walking barefoot in the region.

Andre: In this footprint, the big toe is longer than in the other footprint. I think this is the footprint of another creature [two different kinds of relic hominin? Surely not – Jo].

Voiceover: These footprints are [can’t catch it] a fragile vestige of our objective. They take a cast, less for posterity than for analysis.

If the Almasty was walking here, so close to our base, it’s rather frustrating, no?

JOANNE BOURNE: Translation of French YouTube documentary on the almasty (Part One)

Almasty. Yeti du Caucase. Part 1
Realisation
Sylvain Pallix
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qZ7HDYfwSg
Rough draft translation by Jo Bourne 29 September 2010


Voiceover: Marie-Jeanne Koffman tracks the Almasty, a quest [une obstination] without end for this Franco-Russian doctor, determined to prove the existence of the wild man of the Caucusus. After taking part in a scientific expedition to the Pamir Mountains in search of the Yeti [man of snow], it is in the Kabardino Balkarian Republic that she continues her quest. With scientific rigour and an insatiable curiosity, she gathers more than 500 witness statements, and these [emprints] constitute an enormous dossier.

Marie-Jeanne Koffman: We have indirect proof, in the form of witness statements, because first of all there are very many, they come from a particular region, from all kinds of different people; absolutely different in terms of religion, language, ethnic origin. But nevertheless all these people describe the same thing. [d’ecrire le meme portrait]

Voiceover: It’s therefore from the analysis of these witness statements that the scientific study can begin.

Child: I want to know if the Almasty could be dangerous or aggressive?

M-J K: I have never heard of any aggression with regard to humans, even if humans behave in a manner that presents a danger to the Almasty. Never. None.

MUSEE DE L’HOMME, PARIS


Man: This is the great beast that we would like to consider the ancestor of that which you are looking for. This is the mandible, and we call it the Gigantopithecus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantopithecus

M-J K: I always say to my companions that we should, as a working hypothesis, start from the principal that we are looking for a being part human and who surpasses us in many parameters, even perhaps intelligence [not clear. I can clearly hear what she’s saying, but there’s not a lot of clarity in what she’s saying]

Man: In scientific terms we find one day this being you talk of, whatever its nature, whatever its affiliation, that would be utterly extraordinary.

Voiceover: It is in the Caucusus that we begin the incredible journey on the trail of the Almasty. Mount Elbrus dominates the research field. We are in the Kabardino Balkarian Republic and here the wind blows on the summit of the Caucusus who xxxx? a barrier of 1200km between the Black sea and the Caspian Sea.
Myth, reality… these reflections accompany the first excursion. The Almasty, after the witness statements gathered here by Dr Koffman, is described as a being of between 2-2.2 metres, with black or red fur, without language or fire [not clear here whether the voiceover is saying it has the ability to make fire or not] and living by night to avoid the worst predator – man.


There are many caves in the area and a local shepherd reveals possible traces in the form of bones.

ANDRE KAZLOV, ANTHROPOLOGIST


Kazlov: It’s not a young man. You’ll see his teeth. I think he was strong. His bones indicate strong musculature. [note from Jo: no idea what they’re doing with this dead man’s bones. He’s got nothing to do with the story. Can’t tell when he’s from. Could be recent, in Libya shepherds still use caves for animals and for living. The chap could be Palaeolithic for all we’re able to tell, or early 20th century] This cave is very good for Almasty. Maybe he slept here for a few nights, some nights, or days or years ago.

Voiceover: Even though the bones are human, it is worth installing a detection system in the cave. If you trip the wire, then click clack – the camera or video recorder takes a picture. Whether he came or not, the cameras record images devoid of the snowman. A horseman we encountered said the Almasty had the power to render itself invisible. If he’s right, the picture of the century will be a long time coming.


Sarmakovu???, our base camp, our other [noyed it sounds like; no idea what this means] and one of our first witnesses didn’t believe in the existence of the Almasty until January 1987.

MOUAYED MALSURGENOV


Mouayed: I saw between these planks, something strange [un inconu: lit, a stranger], very large, perhaps two metres 10 centimetres She was covered with black hair Her eyes shone red. She made two huge steps. She walked like this. I thought, perhaps, it was the Almasty.

Voiceover: Micha is an artist, and if the Almasty that he drew following the description of Mouayed doesn’t comform to reality, never mind. To enrich the witness statements it is sometimes xxxxxxx strange encounters [incomprehensible, and I can’t even hazard a guess]
[Micha I think] had also met one of the creatures. At the time he was caretaker of a well outside the town of Tornause?. No one since has wanted to succeed him.

Xxxxx [don’t know who is talking]: When he saw him he was in the cabin looking out of the window. He saw a creature watching him. He wanted to get his pistol but he couldn’t. It was like he was [I would guess hypnotized] by the almasty.

MICHA CHAMAROV


Micha: He looked at me like this with big teeth. He looked at me like this and I was laying down. He had wrinkles like this, and he stared at me. He had a big head.

Voiceover: [something something] people the dreams of Caucasian children [something something]. If you possess the fur of an Almasty, he will become your slave. But be careful, if he puts his hand on the stolen fur, he will take cruel vengance on your family. The young Henri [knows that] the old hold tight to the story. Not everyone believes in the existence of the Almasty, and for the shepherds who in the morning don’t have the right number of sheep, the wild man often gets the blame. [what voiceover man says often has no continuity, but I’m transcribing what I hear]

[Talking Head Shepherds say in 40 years they’ve never seen the Almasty]

The Almasty is described by witnesses as not animal, not man, but like a man. Survivor from an earlier time for some scientists, big ape for others. Inepuisabel pour tout ce qui amuse a vour the snowman appear periodically in the news.

DINA DIDANOV

DINA [love that cape!]: I was sleeping, like this and I saw him. I pulled my cape up and watched what he was doing. He arrived here, he walked slowly, he came into the cabin and he looked here. He unhooked a harness, he looked at all the stitching, and he put it back. There was a big pot here, he took off the lid. He helped himself to bread, he helped himself to meat. Hair fell from his face. He looked at us, he turned, before leaving here. That’s all. When he bent forward, his hair fell over his face, but I saw his eyes through his hair. They shone. They were very shiny. They’ve got eyes like this: like cats. They’re round but the pupil is vertical. The eyes are yellow green.

PART 1 ENDS