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Nickolay Popov
Creative autobiography
I do not consider myself a writer and I never thought that one day I’ll start to write of something. Born October 19, 1949 in the heart of Russia, I spent my childhood in a s...view moreCreative autobiography
I do not consider myself a writer and I never thought that one day I’ll start to write of something. Born October 19, 1949 in the heart of Russia, I spent my childhood in a small town, which was referred to by Ivan Michurin’s name, who in Soviet times was the well-known reformer of nature. Can we imagine what we will become in the future? We dream? — Oh sure. I also dreamed of becoming a pilot. A graduate from high school, I tried many professions.
Such as me, in Soviet Russia, were called flyers at the time, so no wonder I had a childish dream of conquering the fifth ocean. I had to stand at the bench and work at a building site; I was a postman and a musician, worked as a teacher, and a projectionist, and only imagine as an ornithologist in the conservation area on the river Oka. Finally I realized my dream since I enrolled in the flying school of the regional center (Tambov). Maybe there, in the sky, on a par with birds for the first time I wanted to share my thoughts with others, share feelings, being, as I then wrote later, two steps away from happiness from my childish dream. Why two steps? Well, it's a different story.
In the meantime, I entered the Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages Department. As it happened—the two steps were not enough to the real dream. But I got my way.
Meanwhile, learning English, and later German, I supposedly found myself in another dimension, in other concepts, in a different view of the world. Thanks to the English I learned how to speak well, primarily in Russian, because the knowledge of languages, not only broadens the mind, develops memory, but it teaches a person to think first and then speak or write. As they say, the head is in front of the tongue—then emotions. In the institute the stories, translated from English into Russian were my first attempt at writing. I translated even those stories that already could be taken in the library in Russian.
One day we were visited by Americans. They visited the department, met with students, and one of them named Manhall gave a book as a keepsake. It was H.R.Haggard The Yellow God, 1912 edition. We all read it, and I straight away undertook to translate this novel in the Russian language, without knowing that the Russian version of this novel does not exist. Now there is: an electronic version on Smashwords, on paper Createspace. This year the Company Hemiro Limited in Germany has published my translation of the great classic.
Working at school, I became interested in journalism; then I’d been publishing a factory newspaper and at the same time contributed to the local press. How much has been written, seen, discussed! At that time came my first stories; I placed them in the local newspaper, which was published in book format. Very easy to read format, it must be said.
High tech that had burst into our lives introduced new mood. Internet, social networks, e-mail have expanded our capability. I tried to publish the novels translated into Russian on Amazon. At first it worked, I even received a fee more than one thousand dollars. But, apparently realizing that books are in Russian language, the owners of the portal blocked my literature. What for? After all, books were a success; they brought them a profit, too. I do not understand. Haggard, Vonnegut are world-famous writers.
Now on Amazon I published a small book in English (The Doll). But for the present no one sees it. In principle, this is the translation of my own works. At the moment, I can confidently recommend: without a good knowledge of a foreign language do not use machine translation. If I'm missing something through Google, then only on the basis of given information to write something new, relentlessly correcting grammatical errors, inserting idiomatic expressions and even slang.
Will I publish something else? I cannot tell. There is something, something is in the idea. I'm not ever a writer. My creativity is not only literary. I like to draw. I have invented an airborne vehicle without an engine. No, levitation is not to blame at this point, and I do not use psychic energy. Everything is based on earthly laws of aerodynamics. Working drawings to the last screw are at hand.
Life is beautiful, she continues. Creative biography is not over.view less