Thread: Hi from JoeBirmingham, USA - OLD BEAKER ??

Actually, I'm Joe in Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

I just received what I think is a Russian silver beaker. I was hoping for help with the translation of writing on the side. Any volunteers (please).

The cup has ancient armed warriors on the side and I think celebrates the 1917 revolution. I believe it mentions the city of Vladivostok and the date 1917 XI 26г . I have photos attached.

Some of the writing is:
на доьрую память гну дайто

Maybe a list of warriors also.
от хаяси якусиэи ивахаси накаяма арисака кодо

By the way, my wife visited Saint Petersburg on one of the cruise lines last year and loved the experience.

Thank you,

JoeBirmingham - "SEE Y'ALL SOON"

На добрую память господину (г-ну) Дайто // On the good memories for Mr. Daito
Владивосток 17 XI 1926 г. // Vladivostok, Nov 17, 1926

Thank you for your help. Your english is fine.

Does the cup celebrate the revolution?

Is the list names? Military?

Thanks,

JoeBirmingham

I think no, the cup doesn't celebrate the revolution. I guess it's just image of ancient warriors with plate armor and helms.

The names sounds like Japanese or Chinese.

Thank you.

Is the reference to Vladivostok, Nov 17, 1926 significant.

JoeBirmingham

Originally Posted by JoeBirmingham

Thank you.

Is the reference to Vladivostok, Nov 17, 1926 significant.

JoeBirmingham

It's probably just the date on which the engraving was done -- Vladivostok itself was in a long period of "transition" all through the 1920s, but nothing really major happened in November 1926.

Some of the names are very clearly Japanese, as I confirmed by Googling -- apparently, it was a gift from a group of six people, and thus there are six surnames given: "From Hayasi, Yakusiei, Iwahashi, Nakayama, Arisaka, and Kodo." And "Daito" is also a Japanese surname.

As the wikipedia article on the History of Vladivostok explains, there was a significant Japanese presence in the city for many decades, and from 1917-1922 the city was occupied by a coalition of foreign troops that included Japanese soldiers. After the occupying militaries left in 1922 and the Bolsheviks took control of the city, the number of foreign residents and foreign businesses began to decline, but this didn't happen overnight.

So, I might speculate that the cup commemorates the closing of a Japanese business, presumably a firm owned by "Mr. Daito". In that case, the significance of the cup can be interpreted as "So long, Boss, thanks for the good years -- XOXOXO, Your Staff."

On the other hand, it might have been an occasion of far less gravity than a Bolshevik-forced exodus of foreign capitalist dogs. Maybe Mr. Daito wasn't the owner, but simply an older employee who was retiring. Or maybe these seven people weren't coworkers at a firm, but a group of friends, and "17 November" was Daito's birthday!

But we can't be sure what the actual occasion is, because на добрую память isn't at all specific -- it's literally "to nice recollections," and when engraved on a souvenir or written in a gift card, it conveys "[We hope that looking at this gift in the future will bring you] pleasant memories." But memories of WHAT, the cup doesn't say.

Here's an odd fact I learned from reading about Vladivostok on wikipedia. The territory has only belonged to Russia since 1860, and prior to that it was Chinese-controlled for centuries. And the historic Chinese name for what is now the city of Vladivostok was Hǎishēnwǎi -- which literally means залив трепанга (морского огурца), or "sea-cucumber bay"!

Without a doubt, Владивосток ("Ruler of the East") sounds a lot more impressive...


Imagine naming a city after these! Interestingly, the Chinese word for these creatures, hǎishēn, means морской женьшень ("sea-ginseng"). Believe me, they taste NOTHING like ginseng! But if the Chinese called it by the more honest description противный большой слизистый бородавчатый морской хер ("big disgusting slimy warty sea-cock"), nobody would eat it.

Good branding is everything!

WOW!!

Fantastic info.

I really appreciat your help. If I can ever help you with anything in Alabama please shoot me an email

Thanks a ton!!!.

JoeBirmingham

It seems off they would have selected this cup. The figures on the cup don't look asian. ??

Originally Posted by JoeBirmingham

It seems off they would have selected this cup. The figures on the cup don't look asian. ??

Well, think of it from the point-of-view of a foreign tourist (or in this case, a long-term resident foreigner who was getting ready to pack up and leave because the Communists had taken over).

If you were visiting Nigeria, for example, you wouldn't buy a souvenir cup with images of Chinese people on the Great Wall; you'd want a cup with images of elephants and/or black people in traditional African tribal costumes, to show "folks back home" what Nigeria looks like.

P.S. I would guess that the figures on the cup are intended to be bogatyri -- that is, semi-legendary, larger-than-life knights of medieval Russian folklore. Check out the picture at the wikipedia article and compare it to the guys on your cup! Needless to say, there were never any bogatyri in Vladivostok (which, as I said, was Chinese-dominated until the second half of the 19th century).

So this is just a little bit like putting Robin Hood and his Merry Men on a souvenir cup from Canada -- yes, Canada was settled by English people, and Robin Hood himself was English. But Mr. Hood supposedly lived during the reign of Richard the Lionhearted, who died almost 300 years before Columbus reached the Americas! Historically, Vladivostok had as much to do with the bogatyri as Canada had to do with Robin Hood (namely, nothing). But souvenirs like this are about national pride and cultural symbolism, not about historic accuracy.

if the Chinese called it ... "big disgusting slimy warty sea-cock", nobody would eat it.

Actually, this isn't true.

У китайцев привычно есть трепанг ИМЕННО ПОТОМУ, ЧТО он похож на большой ху фаллос. Значит, по принципу "симпатической магии", он считается полезно для мужского полового здоровья. В двух словах -- "морская Виагра"!

(Chinese people eat sea-cucumber PRECISELY BECAUSE it looks like a big phallus. So, by the principle of "sympathetic magic", it's considered beneficial for male sexual health. In two words: "sea Viagra"!)

Китайские друзья дали мне понять, что в природной состоянии, "морской огурец" не имеет никакого вкуса -- поэтому, в азиятских кухнях, чаще всего потовят его в остром соусе. Я лишь раз попробовал трепанг в китайском ресторане, и соус был очень вкусен -- остро-сладкий, с чесноком. Однако сам трепанг был чуть-чуть "слизистым" на язычке.

(Chinese friends have led me to believe that in its natural state, sea-cucumber has almost no flavor -- therefore, in Asian cuisines, it's usually cooked in a spicy sauce. I've tried "trepang" only once in a Chinese restaurant, and the sauce was delicious -- hot-and-sweet, with garlic. But the sea-cucumber itself was a little bit slimy on the tongue.)

Good point. But since this was a gift between fellow countrymen it seems odd. You have been a great help. With your kind assistance I have gleaned enought information to list the cup on ebay. If you have a minute (and are interested) you might want to check me for accuracy. Also, I gave you a information byline. Shortcut Antique Sterling 1926 RUSSIAN BEAKER CUP Japanese Gift - eBay (item 180694332357 end time Jul-17-11 18:34:09 PDT)

Also, a friend of my sister wrote me and suggested "the first line of Russian that your friend sites below (HA DOBRYIU .....) means “to the beloved memory of the regiment of Daito (name of leader), followed by the names of his warriors." What do you think? Thanks, JoeBirmingham

Also, a friend of my sister wrote me and suggested "the first line of Russian that your friend sites below (HA DOBRYIU .....) means “to the beloved memory of the regiment of Daito (name of leader), followed by the names of his warriors." What do you think?

One can't rule out the possibility that the names on the cup belonged to Japanese war veterans, but to me it seems just as likely that they were members of Vladivostok's civilian Japanese community.

Keep in mind that Vladivostok itself was never the scene of any massive fighting between Japan and Russia. True, during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, some Japanese warships fired a bunch of artillery shells at the city, but the attack was of limited scale, and apparently Japan had no ambitions to either destroy Vladivostok, or to capture it and make it a Japanese port. Japan was MUCH more interested in acquiring what was then the Russian-controlled Port Arthur, which is now the Chinese city of Lushunkou. If you look at the map below, Port Arthur was at the very tip of the "Dalian" peninsula, halfway between Beijing and Pyongyang, on the opposite side of the Korean peninsula from Vladivostok:



And during the course of the R-J war, not only did Japan eventually capture Port Arthur, but they kicked the Russian Navy's ass to hell and back in the battle of Tsushima Strait -- on the map, that narrow bit of water between Pusan, South Korea, and Fukuoka, Japan. However, the few Russian warships that survived Tsushima were allowed to escape to Vladivostok, and the Japanese chose not to chase them. So Vladivostok didn't become a major battle zone in that war.

As I mentioned, Japanese troops were stationed in Vladivostok from 1918-22. But they were part of a limited international "police" force that was mainly there to prevent Bolshevik "activists" from vandalizing and harassing foreign-owned business interests. They were certainly unprepared to fight the entire Russian Army, and they pulled out completely in 1922.

Still, it's possible that the names on the cup were Japanese veterans who had either participated in the 1904-05 war against Russia, or who'd been briefly stationed in Vladivostok in 1918-22. However, I doubt that anyone wearing a Japanese uniform would've been allowed anywhere near Vladivostok in 1926, when the cup was engraved, so if they were indeed military veterans, they were presumably visiting as civilians.

P.S. That map in my previous post is from the wikipedia article on the Russo-Japanese War, and the reddish areas represent what was historically "Manchuria."

The Trans-Siberian Railroad passed through the city of Harbin (in the dark-red area) on its way to Vladivostok, and Japan offered to let Russia keep "Northern Manchuria" as far south as Harbin (thus preserving Russian rail access to Vladivostok), if Russia were willing to let Japan have all of "Southern Manchuria" (including the Dalian peninsula, and Port Arthur). Oh, and the Japanese also wanted the entire Korean peninsula, too.

However, Vladivostok's harbor freezes in the winter, while the Port Arthur harbor is usable year-round -- so the Russians had no interest in Japan's "peaceful partition of Manchuria."

And so, in the face of such unreasonable stubbornness from the Russian side, the peace-loving Japanese had no choice but to launch a sneak attack on the Russian Navy at Port Arthur.

(American historians today might say that Port Arthur was a "beta test" version of Pearl Harbor, while Russian historians might say that Pearl Harbor was "Port Arthur 2.0")

Oh, thanks for the byline on ebay, and good luck with the auction!

By the way, after looking at the actual photo of the engraving, and doing a few minutes of Googling, I can say with confidence that ALL the names are Japanese. In your top post on this thread, you had made a couple typos in the Russian -- so that "Kondo" came out as "Kodo", which is a Japanese word, but is not used as a family name. But when I did Google searches with the corrected spellings, it turned out that they're all common Japanese surnames.

So you might want to edit the spellings on your ebay listing: "From Hayashi, Yakushiji, Iwahashi, Nakayama, Arisaka, and Kondo".

Wow, great information. You must have a genuine interest in history. I will pas this on to the rest of the group helping me translate the cup's inscription. I have received some great interest to the cup via ebay. They are probably family members who know their ancestors were in the area. I may eventually get some of the story from them also. I will let you know. Thanks, again. Joe