I’ve been reading a bilingual anthology of poetry from the Siege of Leningrad, Written in the Dark (the book in which I found пир королей), and it’s reassuring how much of it I’ve been able to understand without referring to the English.  I’m always feeling so inadequate with my Russian, like I’m a fraud, and like people think I’m better at it that I actually am, but it’s a small piece of proof that perhaps can speak it, after all; only what a harrowing way to be reminded of it.