ten different routs

One is reasonably well-known on the English trad folksong circuit, via the song "The Rout of the Blues" (i.e. the mustering of the Royal Horse Guards regiment).

In this case dam probably translates дамба (damba), not plotina.

Is damba really used for those big concrete monsters? I thought (based on the Oxford's rendering 'dike') that it meant an older style, the kind the Dutch boy stuck his finger in.

Renee, you took the word out of my mouth.
Only I'd use it in case of Hoover Dam, as direct translation of the name; Sayano-Shushenskaya is definitely a "station". Dam is only a part, however significant, of the conglomerate of various technological units which is contemporary power station.

In the case of the book you're reading "raut" is intended as anachronism (which would sound as such, I beleive, in modern Russian also) - in the same fashion and for the same purpose the outdatedtitle and ranks are dug up and presented as alternative monarchist reality.

I remember getting a comment about eshelon from you when I posted a translation of the first chapter of The Hot Snow to my blog a couple of years ago. Even if you haven't had any success with other translators, you certainly convinced this one. ;-)

By the way, the text of Akunin's story can be found at http://www.akunin.ru/knigi/prochee/skazki/1/.

"No s krasnym krestom vse idut i idut eshelony
A vrode po svodkam poteri ne tak veliki." - V. Vysotsky.

It's technically incorrect to say 'hydroelectric dam', as the NYT reporter does. It should be 'power station'. Damba normally serves water management purposes, e.g. in the Netherlands or St. Petersburg. A damb that is part of a hydro power facility is definitely plotina. It's plotina Dneprogesa, not *damba Dneprogesa.

Raut, esp. svetskiy raut sounds nearly as Victorian in Russian as in English, so it's not an entirely bad idea to use 'rout' in a translation of a text as thoroughly stytlistically calculated as Akunin's wirtings are often assumed to be.

Deystvitel'nyy statskiy sovetnik is probably a calque of 'Wirklicher Geheimrat' so although sometimes translated as 'active privy counselor', it should be closer to 'full', 'actual', 'real' or 'true'. I'd prefer 'full', as in 'full member'.

Also, "poslannik" sounds as anachronistic as "raut". Both belong to - at least- Victorian era. Ambassador is translated as "posol".

Sayano-Shushenskaya is definitely a "station". Dam is only a part, however significant, of the conglomerate of various technological units which is contemporary power station.

Quite true, but the fact is that Russians talk about the conglomerate whereas Americans use "dam" as shorthand for the whole thing. If the Hoover Dam had been built in Russia it would be called a GES, and if the Sayano-Shushenskaya were in the US it would be called a dam. As a practical example of what I'm talking about, I was confused for a long time by the translated title of Yevtushenko's book Bratsk Station -- it sounded like a train station. If it had been rendered "Bratsk Dam," it would have been much clearer.

Deystvitel'nyy statskiy sovetnik is probably a calque of 'Wirklicher Geheimrat' so although sometimes translated as 'active privy counselor', it should be closer to 'full', 'actual', 'real' or 'true'. I'd prefer 'full', as in 'full member'.

I hear you, but the traditional translation is "active," and since all such titles are pretty arbitrary anyway, there's no good reason for changing it. ("Privy" is a completely archaic word, but presumably you wouldn't want to change "privy counsellor" to "secret counsellor" in deistvitel'nyy tainyy sovetnik.)

LH, I wouldn't write off 'privy' yet. A few Commonwealth countries still have Privy Councils.

Eshelon can also mean 'tier' or 'grade' in Russian. 'First-tier stocks' would be aktsii pervogo eshelona. Note the expression gluboko eshelonirovannaya oborona, lit. 'deeply-tiered defence'.

I know the word still exists, but it's only used in phrases like "Privy Council" -- and I'll bet most people have no idea what it means by itself, because it's been obsolete for a long time. My point was that if you're going to object to "active," you should object to "privy" too; they're equally phrase-dependent.

LH, you seem to be saying most native speakers don't get--not even instinctively--the meaning of 'privy' in 'privy council' or 'privy to'. I didn't realize that.

LH, you seem to be saying most native speakers don't get--not even instinctively--the meaning of 'privy' in 'privy council' or 'privy to'. I didn't realize that.

I'd guess that more Brits than Yanks would know, but of course evidence would help. I'm fairly confident that the vast majority of my fellow Americans know the word, if at all, only as a part of some weird British institutions; "privy to" is a highfaluting phrase over here and would be used only as a show of erudition, and even those who know the phrase would (I suspect) be unable to tell you what exactly "privy" means.

I'm reminded of the use of Diet for the Japanese parliament — previously so used in English only(??) for that of the Holy Roman Empire.