VF [to JM: Should the English reader
synesthetically read "racemosa" and feel it in
Russian?]: The English
reader should (for a full-scale experience)...identify Cerasus
racemosa (earlier, Padus racemosa) as a Russian
‘cheremuha’ species...bird cherry; Faulbeerbaum, Faulbeere
(Germ.);merisier à grappes, putiet, putier (Fr.). then go to a
Botanical Garden of their choice ...and smell the
flowers. They are
amazing. One cannot feel
Russian literature in full (Turgenev especially) without seeing and smelling
racemosa...Maybe soon we
will have olfactory files for downloads, extension .olf
? The plant is also
highly medicinal and antiseptic.The berries are
somewhat edible, too, they go into pastries.This is your full
synestethic experience. J This refers
also to the famous VN’s image of a ravine where Communists shot people, a
ravine overgrown with racemosa that survived through Communist regime
[Rossiya, zvezdy, noch' rasstrela i ves' v cheremuhe
ovrag.]
JM: Cheremuha.
With a lot of help for a full synesthetic experience from Victor - my
most heart-felt thanks!
I tried wikiing but the information I retrieved here was not
inspiring (foul smell, withering perennials, poor images) and lots of medical
terms and illnesses mentioned to boot. I had to be on the
wrong track ( associations, sounds, general feelings...). Now I must go abroad
and find, see and smell this fluffy perfumed plant... I even wikied
"padus" to reach the Italian river Po, river deities, Padua, "someone who walks
on, paddles, flows", "father" ( & there were those haunting words Hazel
had taken down: pada...pad.. as some kind of negative of
racemosa...)