Who's a tailor, a reaper & a piper?
He sings, he dances, he's an expert in math and he even bakes cakes! He's “и швец, и жнец и на дуде игрец” (“i shvets, i zhnets i na dude igrets” or “a tailor, a reaper and a piper”)!
This expression is used to emphasize that someone is a jack-of-all-trades. A tailor is someone who can sew, a reaper is someone who works in the field and harvests crops, while a flute player is a seasoned musician. Sometimes, it can be used ironically to describe a person who tries to do everything at once.
Interestingly, this is only part of the proverb, which, in full, reads as follows: "A Don Cossack is a tailor, a reaper, a flute player, a choir singer and a brave warrior." It refers to the Don Cossacks: the people who settled along the Don River were among the founders of the Cossack movement and literally had to be able to do everything: They had to shoot accurately, sing beautifully and cultivate the land properly.
