# Братан развел его втемную



## William Stein

This is another passage from Viktor Pelevin's "Generation P." Can anybody explain the last part to me? [Tartarskii is writing an advertising script for Nescafé Gold. In the first shot, a young man is sitting on a bench across from an elegant villa. A scared, suspicious-looking character runs out of the villa and jumps into his Mercedes, surrounded by bodyguard]s:

"Мерседес" трогается с места, и тут же один за другим гремят три мощных взрыва. Машины разлетаются на куски; улица, где они только что стояли, скрывается в дыму. Смена кадра - молодой человек на лавке вынимает из сумки термос и красную чашку с золотой полоской. Налив кофе в чашку, он отхлебывает из нее и закрывает глаза от наслаждения. Голос за кадром: "Братан развел его втемную. Но слил не его, а всех остальных. Нескафе Голд. Реальный взрыв вкуса".

The Mercedes starts driving off, when suddenly three powerful blasts are heard in succession. The car is blown to bits; the street where he had just been standing, is covered with smoke. Another camera angle: the young man on the bench takes a thermos and red cup with a golden strip out of his bag. He pours coffee into the cup, takes a sip, and closes his eyes with pleasure. Off-screen narrator: "????? in the dark. But ???? but rather all the others. Nescafé Gold. A real taste explosion."

I think Братан might be a gangster. It must be some kind of pun but I don't know gangster slang. It might mean: "The gangster brewed it undercover. But not he, but all the others, got to enjoy it." (if the gangster is the little fat man who ran out of the house). Or it might be something completely different, any ideas?
Here's another idea, the Братан refers to the guy on the bench that blew up the car:
"The brother brewed it (the coffee or the plot) in secret but didn't spill it but rather spilled (killed) all the others. 
Assuming that слил is slang for kill, which I'm not sure about.


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## eni8ma

Hence the "real taste explosion"!

Found this on answers dot com (topic/detsl):
"Не пытайся меня слить" (Don't Try to Get rid of Me)

Seems to be in similar vein to your bit of text.


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## Maroseika

Братан is a common addressing among Russian gangsters, from брат - brother. Originally братан is a familiar form of брат. Therefore in this text братан is not "a little fat man", but the one who ordered to kill him.
Развести - to trick smb.
Втемную - killer did not know what exactly he was doing or whom he killed.

Развести втемную sounds senseless or pleonasmic. Common expression is использовать втемную. For example, asking somebody to put a packet under the car without his knowing it is a bomb.


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## rdimd

Google showed me some links about "развести втемную" and I thought that the sentence means:
The gangster cheated him but destroyed all the others, not him.
I think, братан means that "He" is also a gangster.

Of course, I am not sure if this translation makes sense, but perhaps the young man was evicted from this villa and he blew everything or everyone up.

But we can translate it also as follows:
The gangster made this coffee with closed eyes, but poured out others, not this. Nescafe Gold.

So, we have at least two meanings, but I am not sure if I found the "right" ones or "best" ones.


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## Maroseika

rdimd said:


> Google showed me some links about "развести втемную" and I thought that the sentence means:
> The gangster cheated him but destroyed all the others, not him.


Maybe this is what he did, but it doesn't mean развести втемную. (Yet another idea is развести втемную means развести путем использования втемную).



> I think, братан means that "He" is also a gangster.


Exactly.


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## estreets

I agree with Maroseika, Развести втемную is a pleonasm just to intensify the meaning of the slangy phrase.
As far as I know, Братан, which really is a common addressing among Russian oups! not only gangsters already!, is a dialectism which means a cousin.
Слить originally meant something like to betray, for example, слил меня ментам - gave information on me to the police, now it can mean all kinds of betrayals and other trick bags (I'm not good at that slang).


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## Carrot Ironfoundersson

> I agree with Maroseika, Развести *втемную *is a pleonasm just to intensify the meaning of the slangy phrase.



Also it's used because instant coffee without milk is *dark*. Actually, this whole phrase is a pun on coffee, which is *dark*, *poured* into a cup and *explodes *in your mouth with taste.


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## estreets

Carrot Ironfoundersson said:


> Also it's used because instant coffee without milk is *dark*. Actually, this whole phrase is a pun on coffee, which is *dark*, *poured* into a cup and *explodes *in your mouth with taste.


 Oops! This only means that I am not with Pelevin and don't understand his kind of figurative language. Нажал - и сломал.


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## William Stein

Carrot Ironfoundersson said:


> Also it's used because instant coffee without milk is *dark*. Actually, this whole phrase is a pun on coffee, which is *dark*, *poured* into a cup and *explodes *in your mouth with taste.


 
I agree it all has to be a pun about coffee. That's why I said "He brewed it" (because "Развести" can mean to dissolve, right?), which can refer to the coffee or to the plot. Then, a loose translation, based on eni8ma's definition (Не пытайся меня слить" = Don't Try to Get rid of Me) might be:

He brewed it dark. And instead of wasting it, he wasted all the others instead.


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## Carrot Ironfoundersson

A bro brewed it dark against him, but wasted all the others instead...


(Wonder how The Oranus Theory would sound in English...)


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## eni8ma

On "onby dot ru slash vikpelevingenerationp/3/08" someone has posted this section of the original text.

The Google translation is a bit rough, of course, but from the context, it seems the emphasis is on the coffee ad, not the gangster.

They had previously set the scene by putting up many posters mentioning the name of their coffee.  Then the suggestion is that they arranged a fake bomb scare which turned out to just be a bag containing lots of Nescafe Gold coffee.  Of course, this got reported in the news, so it is much higher in everyone's consciousness than most advertised products.

Then they ran an ad campaign, featuring the gangster who runs out of the house, tries to escape, but gets blown up.

Camera pans to young man in park enjoying his fresh cup of hot dark coffee, and the voice-over says "Братан развел его втемную. Но слил не его, а всех остальных. Нескафе Голд. Реальный взрыв вкуса".

Братан can be used among gangsters, but also is a friendly name meaning brother or cousin (as supplied by Maroseika and estreets) thus referring both to the guy who they "got rid of" (and perhaps his killer also), plus the fellow in the park who is enjoying a quiet cup of coffee.

As a phrase "Братан развел его втемную" seems, given the explanations provided, to be using words that are used about gangsters, yet also describe the coffee, to keep the mental connection going.  Some of our English puns can be similarly strained in terms of good grammar, but we know what they mean.

слить seems to have a connotation of "getting rid of" but also means "poured", again tying the two scenes together.

Of course, the explosion brings together all the elements, the gangster who dies, the explosive taste of the coffee, and the original bomb scare that was just some bottles of Nescafe.

Rather neat, really.


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## Maroseika

eni8ma said:


> Rather neat, really.



Unfortunately not too neat in Russian due to the problems with grammar and style. Typical for Pelevin - cannot manage to express his sometimes interesting ideas in words.


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## Mr_Darcy

To understand what слить means in a slang context, imagine the toilet flushing sound. This is where this verb comes from.

Слить is slang for give away (a secret or a person).
So some translate wikileaks as викислив, although слить информацию means to give information away intentionally (even though often trying to pretend it's an accidental leak). Someone through whom information is given away (say, to the press) may be called "сливной бачок" (toilet cistern).
If you give away a spy, you сливаешь шпиона.

Another slightly different meaning for слить (which probably derives from the two mentioned above) is slang for "sacrifice." If, say, a team in a company is responsible for some failure, the boss of the team will sacrifice (сольёт) someone who is the least valuable (by saying, for instance, it's all his/her fault) to protect the other team members against being punished. Sacrificing can in a proper context mean "get rid of" or "destroy."

(Another meaning is to lose: слить игру = to lose a game.)

Развести кого-то means to lead smb on (also in the "romantic" sense, but not in this case).


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## William Stein

Carrot Ironfoundersson said:


> A bro brewed it dark against him, but wasted all the others instead...
> 
> 
> (Wonder how The Oranus Theory would sound in English...)


 
Andrew Bromfield's translation of "Oranus" it is "Moutharse". I would just leave Oranus since it's Latin and works (or doesn't work) just as well in English as in Russian.


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## William Stein

eni8ma said:


> On "onby dot ru slash vikpelevingenerationp/3/08" someone has posted this section of the original text.
> 
> The Google translation is a bit rough, of course, but from the context, it seems the emphasis is on the coffee ad, not the gangster.
> 
> They had previously set the scene by putting up many posters mentioning the name of their coffee. Then the suggestion is that they arranged a fake bomb scare which turned out to just be a bag containing lots of Nescafe Gold coffee. Of course, this got reported in the news, so it is much higher in everyone's consciousness than most advertised products.
> 
> Then they ran an ad campaign, featuring the gangster who runs out of the house, tries to escape, but gets blown up.
> 
> Camera pans to young man in park enjoying his fresh cup of hot dark coffee, and the voice-over says "Братан развел его втемную. Но слил не его, а всех остальных. Нескафе Голд. Реальный взрыв вкуса".
> 
> Братан can be used among gangsters, but also is a friendly name meaning brother or cousin (as supplied by Maroseika and estreets) thus referring both to the guy who they "got rid of" (and perhaps his killer also), plus the fellow in the park who is enjoying a quiet cup of coffee.
> 
> As a phrase "Братан развел его втемную" seems, given the explanations provided, to be using words that are used about gangsters, yet also describe the coffee, to keep the mental connection going. Some of our English puns can be similarly strained in terms of good grammar, but we know what they mean.
> 
> слить seems to have a connotation of "getting rid of" but also means "poured", again tying the two scenes together.
> 
> Of course, the explosion brings together all the elements, the gangster who dies, the explosive taste of the coffee, and the original bomb scare that was just some bottles of Nescafe.
> 
> Rather neat, really.


 
Hi eni8ma,

I think the guy on the bench probably engineered the whole thing and maybe even pressed the demolition button, so he's probably a "Bratan", too, as you say. 
Anyway, I recommend the whole book, it's very funny. It's probably available somewhere as an e-book. I guess my Russian isn't good enough to appreciate (or rather depreciate) the stylistic flaws Maroseika mentions because I think it's very well written. I'm reading the whole thing (along with Bromfield's translation when I need it, although he doesn't translate everything) just to review my Russian, since I mainly work with other languages, and I'm learning a lot (especially contemporary Russian).


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## morzh

William Stein said:


> Andrew Bromfield's translation of "Oranus" it is "Moutharse". I would just leave Oranus since it's Latin and works (or doesn't work) just as well in English as in Russian.



Actually Arsemouth is better - sounds quite English, like Monmouth, Bournemouth, Plymouth and such.

I think "Oranus" left alone, untranslated, is just fine, but the translator might've thought that the Russian reader for whom it was intended is better familiar with Latin buzzwords than the English one, and so he decided to translate it.
Though both "oral" and "anus" exist in English vocabulary, so I am not sure why.


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## William Stein

morzh said:


> Actually Arsemouth is better - sounds quite English, like Monmouth, Bournemouth, Plymouth and such.
> 
> I think "Oranus" left alone, untranslated, is just fine, but the translator might've thought that the Russian reader for whom it was intended is better familiar with Latin buzzwords than the English one, and so he decided to translate it.
> Though both "oral" and "anus" exist in English vocabulary, so I am not sure why.


 
In all fairness, he also uses the term Oranus. It probably alludes to Uranus, too, which is the planet of mysticism and allows for the old astrologer's pun: better Uranus in Cancer than cancer in your anus...


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## learnerr

William Stein said:


> In all fairness, he also uses the term Oranus.


It may allude to this society, by the way; "Эранос". The whole novel reads like an epitaph to the Russian literature, so this reuse of a word, that relates to the gatherings of [pseudo]-spiritual sense, meant for the popular gathering, that is similar as far as as spirituality is concerned (exchange of ideas), and as far as the goals are concerned (exchange of prestige), and as far as the form is concerned (gathering together), but distinct as far as the manifested target of action is concerned (TV ideas in one case, intellectual ideas in the other case), would be quite in line with the "general line of the party", sorry, of the novel…


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