FUNNY STORIES (BUKHTINA)***

 Fedor Sokolov (village Druzhinin Kharovsk District) came from the war wounded in many places and, for this reason, called himself " the Sieve." And when the collective farm (kolkhoz) returned to him a single calf taken during the collectivization, he explained it this way: "I decided to collectivize the kolkhoz."

 When he met an old man Barov, they seriously discussed how many nails in the coffin should be put, what time is better to die and whether it is worth it to escape from the other world if there is not to their liking.

 Comedians and buffoons, jealous of the storytellers, fooled listeners with buffoon jokes. Therefore, a funny story sometimes begins with action. Thus, Savvaty Petrov from the village of Timonikha, left temporarily by his wife, sat down one day to milk the cow. The cow ran away, and he began to feel with his hand on the bottom of the pail, searching allegedly had come off cow's udder. He's just for laughing sake imitated a rooster at a particular moment, cat's "scratching."

 Raisa Kapitonovna Pudova was a very realistic narrator, too, who was not averse to twisting a funny story, for example, a cow, which would lower the hind leg into the pail after milking after looking back, stirred milk with the foot.

 The bukhtina is a popular anecdote, a story joke, in which common sense turned inside out. Along with the limericks, it is still a living genre of oral folklore. Poet Nekrasov's character "grandfather Mazai" transported hares in a boat to dry places during flooding, but literature only slightly touched upon this aspect of people's verbal creativity.

 What is the difference between bukhtina from the fairy tales and "true stories"? Between them can be no genre differences: the tale in other cases like that of "true story" or "bukhtina." A "true story" often combines bukhtina and fairytale features.

 The fantasy of a bukhtina-teller has no limits. It reminds a clowning buffoon, free of all conventions and the apparent absurdity of holy fools. Unlike in "true stories," a fantastic element in bukhtina fades, losing its mystical colour.

 Fantastic in the true story", as in the literature (at least in Gogol's "Wii"), is reinforced by the merger with the reality of everyday life.
The fantastic earthiness in the mystical "true story" is frightening, making one shudder, even adult listeners. Dull and devoid of mysticism, a fantasy is laughable. Humorous effects are born on a stable junction of reality and something abstract and surreal. In contrast to modern urban jokes, a" bukhtina" does not always strive for a satirical focus. It also happens that it lives only for the sake of itself, not wanting to carry the ideological burden, allowing many interpretations. In other cases, the satirical or different meaning is hidden very smart; nothing jumps out of the surface. Direct ridiculing usually should not be in the story. Instead, an intelligent listener picks up the most distant allusions.