Quote Originally Posted by tohca View Post
... Было б болото, а черти найдутся. (oh BTW, what the meaning of this proverb?) ...
First of all there is no literal translation for "чёрт" in English. Evil spirit or devil would be suitable but don't represent the exact meaning. You may read this (in Russian) Чёрт — Википедия. Nevertheless the meaning for черти is simple in this proverb - bad guys. Now we have a swamp. There is a belief among the eastern slavs that the favorite habitat of "chorts" -) is a swamp. Not very nice place, isn't it? In common we have bad place and bad guys. So the meaning is - if there is a bad buisness there always will be people willing to take part in it. The proverb is commonly used as a negative evaluation of a fact or phenomenon and the people having to do with it.