Then I returned to Petersburg and the workdays began. I was training very hard, I did not go out of the ice rink until the new element was ready. I did all my best. I neglected school, but I did not take this to my heart at all. 之后我回到圣彼得堡,日常训练再次开始。我练得非常刻苦,如果没有掌握新的动作,就绝对不会离开冰场。我拼尽了全力来训练。学校的学习被我抛之脑后,但是我根本就没把这放在心上。 Mom began to put order in my life when she came to visit me after half an year. She was terrified. She immediately realized everything. 半年后妈妈来彼得堡看我,她马上就发现了我的问题,简直吓坏了。是妈妈开始让我的生活再次变得有秩序。
p.21 With trainings there was no problem at all, I never missed them and worked tooth and nail. But when mom arrived at school, matters stayed completely different. 训练方面完全没有问题,我从来不会落下一堂训练课,全力以赴地训练。但是当妈妈去学校了解我的学习情况后,这就是另外一番完全不同的景象了。 In Volgograd I was an excellent student : at home they saw to my studies, mom and my elder sister Lena were working with me all the time. And here, left all to myself, I became a malignant quitter。 在伏尔加格勒我是一个好学生:在家里妈妈和我的姐姐总是帮我一起学习。而在这里我独自一人,于是我半途而废。 - Practically, we don’t see your son, and what is more he is behind the others in all subjects – they told mom. - 实际上,我们几乎见不到您的儿子,更有甚者,他在所有科目上都落后于其他学生。-他们这样告诉我妈妈。 Also mom found out that I began to smoke. 而且妈妈发现我开始抽烟。
Generally speaking, I tried to smoke yet in Volgograd, when I was seven. I took father’s cigarettes and closed myself in the toilet. I started coughing terribly. Mom smelled the cigar smoke and heard my coughing, she came and fought with me. 说起来,我在伏尔加格勒尝试过抽烟,那时候我7岁。我拿了爸爸的香烟,把自己关在厕所里抽。结果我被呛得使劲咳嗽。妈妈闻到了烟味儿,并且听到了我的咳嗽声,她跑过来把烟抢走了。 An year later I made a second attempt. My parents found out about that too. They asked me to go to them. 一年后, 我又尝试了一次。结果又被我父母发现了。他们把我叫到跟前。 - With your dad we have decided to buy you good cigarettes – declared mom, - we will sit here and you will smoke the whole package. - 爸爸和我决定给你买包好烟-妈妈告诉我,-我们就坐在这里,你必须把整包烟都抽完。 - No, the whole package I will not smoke. I can’t! – I was crying. - 不,我没有办法抽完整包烟。我做不到-我哭了。 So I stopped smoking till I arrived in Petersburg. But already here…..How can you not do it, when nobody controls you and the senior sportsmen offer you to smoke with them! When you stay together with the senior ones and smoke with them you feel almost as cool as them. 于是我不再抽烟,直到我搬到了彼得堡。但是在彼得堡,当没有人管你,而年长的选手邀请你和他们一起抽的时候,你怎么可能拒绝呢!当你和年长的选手呆在一起抽烟时,你会觉得你和他们一样很酷。
Like a good host I showed mom the metro and the town. She drew her conclusions and was once again terrified : her boy roams where he wants and no body needs him. Mom did not like that at all. 我就像一个好客的东道主,带着妈妈坐上地铁参观城市。妈妈得出了结论并再次被这个结论吓坏了:她的儿子可以去任何他想去的地方闲逛而没有人关心和需要他。妈妈一点也不喜欢她看到的一切。 She rang dad up : 她给爸爸打了电话: - You know, this is horrible. I will take him back. - 你知道吗,这太可怕了。我要把他带回家。
p.24 But after all father should not be torn into pieces and once we with mom decided that we should return home. Dad borrowed money and sent it to us. We bought tickets and went to Mishin to say good bye. 但是我们不能让爸爸累倒,妈妈和我一度商量决定我们应该回家去。爸爸借了钱寄给我们。我们买好了车票, 然后去找米申告别。 - We cannot do any more like that, - said mom,- It is very difficult, we cannot afford it. - 我们不能再这样生活下去了,-妈妈说,—这太困难了,我们负担不起这样的生活。 - This is a mistake. Later it will be different. Your son has a great potential and talent, you have to wait. Be patient. - 这是一个错误的决定。很快一切都会改变。您的儿子有巨大的潜力和天赋,您再耐心等等。 Alexey Nikolaevich gave us money for products and we stayed. 阿列克塞·尼古拉耶维奇给了我们一些钱, 我们留了下来。 But after that almost nothing changed. Just the opposite, it became worse. 但这之后几乎什么都没有改变。相反,生活变得更糟糕。 Alexey Nikolaevich needed the flat urgently and we had to move. We rented a tiny room in a kommunalka / communial apartment in a cheap hostel/^, where the people in the other room were drunkards. We paid for it 200 roubles, which was an enormous sum for us. 阿列克塞·尼古拉耶维奇急需使用公寓所以我们必须搬家。我们在一个合租的公寓里租了一个房间,邻居都是些酒鬼。房租是200卢布,这对我们来说实在是很大的一笔钱。 I was nervous and I was not so good any more at trainings.Mom cried ceaselessly. 我变得很紧张,训练成绩也不再那么好了。妈妈不停地哭泣。 Father supported us like before, he worked almost night and day. Every time we finished money, mom rang him up. I remember even till now her anxious voice: 爸爸一如既往地支持我们,他日夜不停地工作。每次眼看我们的钱花完了,妈妈就给他打电话。我至今还记得当时她焦虑的声音: - Vitya, when will you send us money? - 维特,你什么时候给我们送钱来? And father sent us money in an envelope through a conductor. 于是爸爸把钱装到信封里, 托一位列车员带给我们。 But sometimes it happened that we did not have even a kopejka. We did not dare any more to seek help from Mishin. We felt extremely awkward, he seemed inaccessible, we even feared a little from him at that time. 但是有的时候我们身无分文。我们不敢再向米申求助。我们觉得非常地窘迫,他似乎是那样遥不可及, 那个时候我们甚至有点怕他。 In the most starving days we collected bottles. Then we lived in the Petrogradsky District, not far from the Palace of Sport “Yubilejny”^. And for a “pray” we went to the Peter and Paul Fortress. 在最饥饿的日子里我们在街上捡瓶子。那个时候我们住在离尤比莱尼运动宫不远的佩托罗格拉德斯基区。我们要去彼得和保罗要塞捡瓶子碰运气。
p.26 - Tatyana Vsiljevna , good morning! How are you? -塔提娅娜 ·瓦西里埃芙娜,早上好!您最近过得怎么样? Mom couldn’t stand it anymore and started crying. 妈妈再也忍不住了,她哭了起来。 - Is it something wrong with Zhenya? – Tatyana Anatoljevna got frightened. - 热尼亚出了什么事吗?- 塔提娅娜 ·阿娜托莉埃芙娜被吓到了。 Mom told her how we were living. Menshikova was terrified. 妈妈告诉了她我们的生活情况。曼西科娃震惊了。 - What are you talking about? – She took 200 roubles from her purse.- Take it, please, this is for Zhenya. Feed the boy. - 您在说什么啊?—她从钱包里拿出200卢布。—请收下这些钱,这是给热尼亚的。给这孩子买些吃的。 On the other day she gave mom 100 roubles more: 第二天她又给了妈妈100卢布: - This is from my dad. - 这是我爸爸给您的。 Now we had money! I was happy! Now we shall go and buy many things to eat. 现在我们有钱了!我非常高兴!现在我们可以买很多东西吃了。 From starvation I was saved by the sbors^. Alexey Nikolaevich Mishin took me with him and there I was eating – three times a day! 在那段饥饿的时期,阿列克塞·尼古拉耶维奇·米申的训练营解救了我,他开始带着我,跟着他我一天可以吃三顿饭! When dad had money he could take mother to live with him in Volgograd. When there was no money, she stayed alone in Petersburg. She could not find work, because she had no “propiska”^ /record of place of residence//She had no right to be registered in Petersburg/. So there was for her only tea to drink and bottles to collect… (在训练营期间)如果爸爸送钱来,妈妈就可以回伏尔加格勒和他一起居住。没钱时,她只能一个人呆在彼得堡。因为没有居住证,她没有办法找工作。所以她只能喝完茶后去捡瓶子。 I was aware how hard it was for mom and how hard it was for dad to support himself, Lena and both of us in Peter. It was a very complicated period and it lasted not days, not months, but several years. I am very thankful to my parents that they stood it, did not break up and overcame everything. Our family did not fall apart, but just the opposite – it became stronger and stuck together. 我明白这对妈妈来说是多么地困难,也明白爸爸为了养活他自己,姐姐,及生活在彼得堡的我们是需要多么努力地工作。那是一段非常困难的时期,这并不是几天, 也不是几个月的事,而是会持续好几年的事。我非常感谢我的父母忍受了这一切, 没有因此而分离,并克服了一切苦难。我的家庭没有因此而崩溃,正相反—它变得更加团结融洽。 One morning I could not stand up from bed. I was 13, I started growing up. My skeleton was not fully formed yet, but the loading was increased every day. 一天早上我发现我起不了床。 那时候我13岁, 开始发育。我的骨骼没有完全发育好,但是身体的负荷却天天在增长。
p.27 In order to win the competitions I worked tooth and nail : three trainings a day, at which I was doing more than 150 jumps, besides everyday general physical training and choreography. 为了赢得比赛,我训练得非常刻苦:一天三次训练,做超过150次以上的跳跃, 除了跳跃外,还有一般的日常体能训练和舞蹈训练。 I had sprains, ruptures, awful pain in the back. Peculiarly sharp pains tortured me in the morning. When I woke up I slowly crept out of bed and by effort slowly stood myself up. It lasted for several weeks. Till I broke down completely. 我的背部有扭伤,撕裂,疼得厉害。可怕的刺痛在清晨特别折磨我。当我醒了以后,我慢慢地爬下床,然后咬着牙费劲地慢慢站起来。这种情况持续了几个星期,直到我再也站不起来了。 With mom we went to see the doctor. I was diagnosed with “compression of the sciatic nerve”. The reason for it was the most commonplace one – the growing organism could not stand the severe loading. They restore me with the most simple methods – stuck me with anaesthetics to block the pain and I could go out on the ice again. 我和妈妈一起去看医生。我被诊断患有“压缩坐骨神经”疾病。原因是司空见惯的那种—正在发育中的器官无法承受如此巨大的负荷。他们用最简单的方法对我进行治疗—给我打麻亖醉药止痛,这样我就感觉不到疼痛可以再次走上冰场训练。 There was no normal treatment, nobody had ever heard of rehabilitation yet. I had to relax, to swim in the pool, but no body cared about that. In general they did not thought then about restoration at all. Everybody was only interested of the result – to win at the international competitions at any cost. And what was this victory paid with, knew only the sportsman, his family and the coach. Neither the federation, nor the club of the sportsman cared about that. 那个时候没有正常的治疗方法,当时也没有人听说过有复建中心这么一说。我需要放松,去游泳池游泳(缓解肌肉的紧绷),但是没有人关心这些。那个时候他们根本没有想到过要使我复健什么的。所有人关心的只有成绩—不惜任何代价赢得国际比赛。而胜利的代价,只有运动员,他的家庭和他的教练知道。联邦政亖府和运动员所属的俱乐部一点也不关心这些。 Then I did not realize, that my sporting career could suddenly end, that one of those days I might not be able to stand up from bed. I could have turnd from a perspective sportsman, who won medals for his country, into an invalid. 那个时候我并没有意识到我的运动生涯有可能就这样突然结束,可能有一天, 我再也无法从床上爬起来。我有可能从一个前途无量、可以为国争光的运动员变成一个毫无价值的残废。 When I was 13-14 years old, I did not think about that yet. I only knew that I had to work much and not to think about anything else, not to care about anything else. 当我13、14岁的时候,我没有想到过这些。我只知道我必须努力训练,不去想其他任何事, 也不关心其他事。
p.28 And all this time mom took care of me. It was she that did not allow them sometimes to stick me, she made me massages herself, let her exhausted from overloading boy come round. And for this I am very grateful to her. 那段时间妈妈在照顾我。有时妈妈阻止他们给我注射,她自己给我做按摩,让她那负荷过重的儿子恢复健康。因此我非常感激她。