Hi folks!
Very interesting critters, Rik. Well, I know to read
Cyrillic alphabet. I've been learning Russian as one of the foregin languages but long ago in the primary school (grammar / high school - english only). Back in 9th century AD
Slavic peoples shared common
Glagolitic alphabet. I'm offering you those links if you have some interest in history.
Turning back to the point... I can understand "На значительном протяжении Азии водяные ослики отсутствуют." without need to even translate because words are similar. But you must be careful with similar languages. Some equally looking words could have a very different meanings.
Although I understand meaning of this sentence it is equally "tricky" for me to translate it to croatian as well to english.
Lets make some try:
Ru - Cro - Eng
На - na - on
значительном - značajnom - noticeable, considerable, big, significant
протяжении - području, prostor - region, territory, zone, extent
Азии - Azije - Asia (of course)
водяные - vodene - aquatic
ослики - uši - lice, louse, nit
отсутствуют - nedostaju, odsutne - not present, absent, missing
One possible variation:
Aquatic lice are absent from the significant extent of Asia.
Sorry again for bad english.
More confused now?
By the way, just now, after googling I found some possibly helpful links:
English-Russian and Russian-English online dictionary
English-Croatian and Croatian-English online dictionary
For those curious in Slavic folklore here is a link to
Slavic mythology.
Slavic mythology
Major Gods
Dazbog - (giving god, god-giver, god-donor, deus dator) •
Jarilo - (Jarilo (Juraj, Jura) became identified with St. George after the arrival of Christianity, possibly because of mild similarities in their names, but more likely because St. George is usually shown as a knight on a horse slaying a dragon, whilst the Slavs believed Jarilo to have an equine appearance, and that for a time he lived in the green underworld with his step-father Veles, imagined to be a serpent-like or dragon-like deity. Another possibility is the fact that some legends of St. George depict him being killed and resurrected several times over.) •
Morana - (Goddess of winter as well as death. Her name is based on the Slavic root mor, used in words such as "confusion", "peril", "nightmare" and "death".) •
Perun - (Perun in a number of Slavic languages today simply means "thunder" or "lightning bolt". Perun is strongly correlated with the near-identical Perkūnas/Perkons from Baltic mythology, suggesting the existence of an ancestral Balto-Slavic deity, which ultimately derives from the Proto-Indo European thunder god whose original name has been reconstructed as Perkwunos. The root *perkwu originally probably meant oak, but in Proto-Slavic this evolved into per- meaning "to strike, to slay".
... Te izvadi tri jabuke zlatne
I baci ih nebu u visine...
...Tri munje od neba pukoše
Jedna gađa dva djevera mlada,
Druga gađa pašu na dorinu,
Treća gađa svata šest stotina,
Ne uteče oka za svjedoka,
Ni da kaže, kako pogiboše.
"...Then he took out three apples of gold
And threw them high into the sky...
...Three lightning bolts burst from the sky,
One strikes at two young brothers-in-law,
Another strikes at pasha on a horse,
The third strikes six hundred wedding guests,
Not an eye for a witness fled
Not even to say, how they ended dead."
It is conjectured that mythical golden apples of Perun were symbols of a rare but notorious form of atmospheric discharge, ball lightning. The same is probably true for the thunder marks of East Slavic folklore, of which two examples are shown above.) •
Siwa - (Her name means "living, being, existing." Sieba is married to Siebog, her male equivalent.) •
Svantevit - (Associated with war and divination. Described as a four-headed god with two heads looking front and two back. A statue portraying the god shows him with four heads, each one looking in a separate direction, a symbolical representation of the four diections of the compass, and also perhaps the four seasons of the year. Some interpretations claim that Svetovit was another name for Radegast or Belobog, while another states that Svetovit was a fake god, a Wendish construction based on the name St. Vitus. However common practice of Christian Church was to replace existing pagan deities and places of worship with analogous persons and rituals of christian content, so it seems more likely that Saint-Vitus was made to replace the original Svanto-Vit.) •
Svarog/Svarogich - (God sun and spirit of fire; his name means bright and clear. In neo-paganist religions, Svarog is often the supreme god-creator and the central part of the (holy) trinity Triglav. He completed the creation of the world by giving it Prav. Svarog is associated in Christianity with Saints Cosmas and Damian, and Saint Michael the Archangel. His animals are a golden horned ox, a boar, a horse, and a falcon named Varagna.) •
Triglav - (Triglav (lit. 'three headed') also sometimes called troglav is a god or complex of gods in Slavic mythology, similar in nature to the Trinity in Christianity or Trimurti in Hinduism. Often, he is considered to be the same deity as Troyan. Triglav's heads represent sky, earth and the Underworld. Some priests said that Triglav has three heads because he rules all three kingdoms (sky, earth and hell) and has a binding over his eyes so he could not see people's sins. His eyes are said to possess great power (that's why all eyes on his statues are covered). Triglav is also the highest mountain of Slovenia.) •
Veles - (Slavic god of earth, waters and the underworld, associated with dragons, cattle, magic, musicians, wealth and trickery. He is also the opponent of thunder-god Perun.) •
Zorya - (Zaria or Zoria is the goddess of beauty. A once-popular goddess also associated with the morning, Zaria was known to her worshippers as "the heavenly bride." She was greeted at dawn as "the brightest maiden, pure, sublime, honorable." Zaria (sometimes Zarya) is the Russian word for "Sunrise.")
Other Gods
Belobog - (Belobog, Belbog, Bialbog, Byelobog, Bielobog, Belun, Bylun (all names meaning: White God) is a hypothetical Slavic deity of light and Sun, the counterpart of dark and cursed Crnobog (Black God)) •
Berstuk - (Berstuk is the evil god of the forest) •
Chernobog - (Chernobog (also spelled Crnobog, Czernobog, Černobog or Zernebog, each name meaning Black God) is a mysterious Slavic deity of whom much has been speculated but little can be said. A veneration of this deity perhaps survived in folklore of several Slavic nations. In some South Slavic vernaculars (Croatia!), there exists an interesting phrase do zla boga (meaning "to [the] evil god," or perhaps "to [the] evil [of] God," which may denote ownership rather than some dark attribute), used as an attribute to express something which is exceedingly negative. No-one is really aware of the literal meaning of these words anymore; exclamations such as Ovo je do zla boga dosadno!, To je do zla boga glupo! can be safely translated as "This is devilishly boring!", "That is immensely stupid!" without any actual loss in meaning.) •
Dziewona - (Dziewona (or Dziewanna in Polish, Devana in Czech, Diiwica in Serbian) is the Slavic equivalent of the Roman Goddess Diana. All her names that derive from Slavic language translate to "The Maiden." She is the virginal Goddess who is the huntress of the forest and is associated with the Moon, spring, agriculture and weather.) •
Hors - (Hors represents the old sun which, in Slavic mythology, becomes smaller as the days become shorter in the Northern Hemisphere, and dies on Korochun, the winter solstice. It is said to be defeated by the dark and evil powers of Chernobog. On December 23rd Hors is resurrected and becomes the new sun, Koleda. Gods with similar roles in other mythology systems include: Esculap (Hellenic), Asclaepius (Roman), Apis (Egyptian), and Baldur (Scandinavian). •
Flins - (Flins is the god of death.) •
Karewit - (Karewit is the protector of the town of Korzenica (nowadays Garz) on Rugia. Depicted alone, his naked statue has a head with two faces, an oxen's head on his chest and a rooster's head on his belly. Depicted together with Rugiewit, he has six heads, four male and two female ones. His chest sports a lion's head.) •
Lado - (Lada or Lado is a fakeloric Slavic pagan deity of harmony, merriment, youth, love and beauty which almost certainly never existed in the ancient Slavic pantheon. A kind of Slavic Cupid) Lado is also tne name of Croatian famous folklore ensemble •
Mat Zemlya - (Mat Zemlya, also Matka Ziemia (literally Mother Earth, various other names are in use as well) is the collective term applied to a number of Slavic deities devoted to plants, growth, birth, creation and patrons of field works.) •
Mokosh - (Goddess connected with female activities auch as shearing, spinning and weaving. Wife of Svarog according to some Old Slavic legends, she talked him into creating a life on Earth that would look like him. So, he breathed life into an oak tree from which the first man, named Dubravko, came to life; she created another one, a woman, Ljubljenica. Her statues in temples are in a seated position, as are Svarog's. Her day of the week is Friday. The name is probably connected to mokri "wet", which evokes connections of fertility. It was said that women who made satisfactory offerings would be helped with their laundry, by association with her as a water goddess. This is illustrated by the fact that rainfall is sometimes called Mokosh's milk. In Christian times, she became conflated with the Virgin Mary.) •
Oźwiena - (Goddess of echo in the Slavic mythology. She is similar to the Greek goddess Echo. She was also the goddess of fame and glory, being the responsible of the storytelling of the heroes' deeds. When she was at the service of the subterranean god Peklenc, she spred the screams or the damned as a warning to the living ones.) •
Perperuna - (Dodola (also spelled Dudulya and Didilya, pronounced: doh-doh-la, doo-doo-lya, or dee-dee-lya) or Perperuna is a being in old Slavic mythology. According to some interpretations, she is the Slavic goddess of rain, and the wife of the supreme god Perun (who is the god of thunder). Slavs believed that when Dodola milks her heavenly cows, the clouds, it rains on earth. Each spring Dodola is said to fly over woods and fields, and spread vernal greenery, decorating the trees with blossoms.) •
Porenut •
Porewit •
Porvata •
Radigost •
Rod •
Rugiewit •
Stribog - (Stribog (Strzybog, Стрибог), in the Slavic pantheon, is the god and spirit of the winds, sky and air; he is said to be the ancestor (grandfather) of the winds of the eight directions.) •
Zirnitra - (Zirnitra or simply Zir is a black Slavic dragon and the god of sorcery. The image of Zirnitra was employed on a Wendish flag when the Wends fought the invading Saxons. Zirnitra literally means magically empowered. Rosvodiz is a byname of Zirnitra.) •
Zlota Baba
Legendary heroes
Alyosha Popovich •
Bash Chelik •
Burislav •
Dobrynya Nikitich •
Ilya Muromets •
Ivan Tsarevich •
Lech, Czech and Rus •
Libuše •
Marko Kraljevic •
Sadko •
Solovey-Razboynik
Croatian version of Lech, Czech and Rus story:
In a Croatian version of the legend the entire Slavic tribe had once lived in Croatia, ruled by a prince named Croat who submitted to the Roman Empire. When he dies, he leaves behind three sons Czech, Lech and Mech and one daughter, Vilina. The boys want to shake off the Roman rule, but their sister betrays the plot to the Roman Procurator. When the boys find out about this, they wall her alive in the tower of Krapina Castle, named Vilina tower till this day. Next the brothers turn eastward and, after crossing three rivers, Czech founds the Czech kingdom, Lech the Polish kingdom, and Mech the Russian kingdom.
The Croatian legend associated with a concrete place, Zagorje (Krapina), has two elements of particular interest for us. One is that it identifies Croat, the father of the three boys, as the ancestral prince of the Slavic people; and the second is that the ancestral land was supposed to be Croatia: in other words, only the Czech, the Poles and the Russians had to find a new homeland, not the Croatians.
Magical creatures and plants
Alkonost •
Cikavac •
Firebird •
Gamayun •
Raskovnik •
Simargl •
Sirin •
Zmey
Spirits and demons
Baba Yaga •
Bagiennik •
Bannik •
Bies •
Boginki •
Bukavac •
Domovoi •
Drekavac •
Karzełek •
Kikimora •
Koschei •
Lady midday •
Leshiy •
Likho •
Polevik •
Rusalka •
Skrzak •
Stuhać •
Sudice •
Vila •
Topielec •
Vampir •
Vodyanoy
I spent a lot of time at ponds as a kid and I do not remember ever seeing them 
)
