Quote Originally Posted by DrBaldhead View Post
-Куме**, а какая же СКОТИНА
- My friend, then who are those FAGGOTS
Okay, today's quick lesson in vulgar English slang: to my American ears, "c*cksuckers" is probably a much better translation for скотина in this particular context.

Understandably, it may seem that calling a man c*cksucker is "logically equivalent" to calling him f*ggot, but there's actually a difference, at least in US English usage.

Surprising as it may seem, c*cksucker can be applied to an AGGRESSIVE and "macho" man, while f*ggot pretty much always implies weakness and passivity. So, if you're talking about those among the Maidan protestors who turned aggressive and violent and started setting things on fire, then "f*ggots" doesn't really work.

But "The peaceful political demonstration was ruined when a bunch of neo-Nazi c*cksuckers started rioting and throwing homemade bombs" sounds totally normal.

P.S. Of course, since скотина is "бранное" but not "матерное", one might also want to choose a slightly less vulgar English expression for the sake of parallelism -- for instance, "assholes" or "goddamn jerks".

Note that the related word "кумовство" doesn't mean "friendship" but rather means "corruption".
Hmmm, "cronyism" seems like the ideal translation here. (The word "crony" literally means "friend," but it comes from old блатной жаргон and for this reason is almost always used in a negative sense: "I'm sick and tired of that idiot -- and all of his idiotic cronies, too.")