Old man Petson and kitten Findus are getting ready for Christmas. "What kind of Christmas is there without Santa Claus?" thinks Findus. "But Santa Claus doesn't exist, where can I get him?. ." sighs Petson. And then he comes up with a brilliant idea: he will construct a talking Santa Claus himself! Fidus's dream came true, but it seems the invention didn't work quite the way Petson thought it would.… So what really happened?What exactly has changed in our new translation of "Mechanical Santa Claus"?First of all, we have corrected obvious omissions, from which no transfer is insured (including a new one). For example, when Petson suggests that Findus bake cookies, in the first translation, the cat approves of this idea, "because he was terribly fond of cookies." However, the original is not about the cookie itself (Swedish. "pepparkaka"), and about the test for it ("pepparkaksdeg"). Experts in the world of mutual funds will not let you lie: the cat, like most children, loves raw dough. Secondly, and more importantly, the first translation, as it seems to us, lacks vivacity and ingenuity. After all, Mutual Fund, like all Nordqvist, is a bit about absurdity and wordplay — that very "untranslatable wordplay". When Petson goes to buy a box, the coat falls on him, as if from, excuse me, a box. A box store is not only unthinkable, but the whole scene is tied up (we apologize again) with boxes, boxes, chests and other caskets. The owner of the store is called Linnea in the original, L?ddan is a diminutive, literally "Box": in the previous translation, she is Karin, and Karinka is a diminutive (in honor of a meat product, not that it is very well known even to adults, besides, the "boxiness" is lost), in the new one she became Lara — a diminutive, of course, a Casket. She and her husband Henrik, in the previous translation, eat carbonade, which is also completely out of the box, and it's not even clear where it came from, this carbonade. Meanwhile, in the original it is a makaronil?da — again, a box with ready-made pasta in the Navy style. Thirdly, this book is a parable about a miracle, equally addressed to adults. Our goal was not to miss the subtle hints of this miracle scattered throughout the text. Such a hint of the presence of some miraculous power in the old translation was, for example, "a cord like a strand of goat's hair with a golden thread woven in." And this is quite a good and accurate translation. But does the reader understand why all of a sudden this goat's hair? And here we plunge into the Swedish Christmas tradition. Swedish Santa Claus (who, strictly speaking, is not exactly Santa Claus, but rather a Christmas gnome, Jultomten is a relative of a brownie, but we are not ready to take a swing at Santa Claus yet!) It is associated with a completely pagan image of the Christmas goat (Julbock). On old Swedish Christmas cards, Jultomten rides on a sleigh pulled by goats, and the tradition of decorating the central town square with a wooden straw goat at Christmas is still alive today. The translator had a choice: to make an extensive footnote and thereby ruin the beautiful design of the book, or to twist the goat yarn into something else, more New Year's. Santa Claus and winter, and especially his twin Santa Claus, are associated with a deer. So in the new translation, a twine appeared, twisted from deer wool and intertwined with gold thread, clearly hinting at the Christmas miracle. Fourthly, the famous Christopher Pulham deserves a separate story. Every Swedish child has heard his name, just as every Russian has heard the name of Mikhail Lomonosov. Pulchem was an older contemporary of Mikhail Vasilyevich and also, as they say, a universal genius who "inherited" in various fields of science and technology. Systematizing the principles of mechanics, Pulchem carved 80 standard constructions out of wood, which in Sweden were called mekaniskt alfabet, literally "mechanical alphabet". However, for a person who is not involved in the history of Pulchem, this phrase is more likely to be associated with a mechanical piano or something similar - letters popping out of nowhere. And the generalized principles of any science or art are commonly called "abc" in Russian, which, by the way, is also alfabet in Swedish. About the author:Sven Nordqvist was born in Helsingborg, Sweden, in 1946 and has been painting all his life. He worked as an architect, taught, worked in graphics, and in 1983 took part in an illustrator's competition held by the Opal publishing house. Especially for the competition, he composed a book (the fairy tale "Agathon Eman and the Alphabet"), with which he won first place. So the artist also became a writer. And books about Findus the cat and old man Petson brought him worldwide fame. About the series:A series of books about old man Petson and his kitten friend Findus, who live in the village, was invented by Swedish artist Sven Nordqvist in 1984. Since then, the whole world has learned about these heroes: the books have been translated into many languages. Books about Petson and Findus have become new children's classics. Performances are staged based on them, computer games, applications, coloring books, calendars and gift sets are made. More than one generation of children in Sweden and Russia grew up on them.