Translating Russian color terms сизый / голубой: strategies for colo...

Russian distinguishes several shades of blue that English collapses into "blue" or descriptive phrases. Two particularly challenging terms are:

1. голубой: light blue, often with a soft, sky-like quality
2. сизый: a grayish-blue or bluish-gray, often used for pigeon feathers, dawn sky, or frost

When translating literary or technical texts, what strategies do professional translators employ for such terms? Specifically: Are there established English color terms (beyond "light blue" or "grayish-blue") that capture these nuances? Is compounding (e.g., pigeon-gray, dove-blue) considered acceptable in formal translation, or is it marked as poetic license? Are there productive morphological patterns in English for deriving color adjectives from nouns? For instance, while compounding (dove-colored) is transparent, would a blended formation following the pattern dove + blue -> dovelue [ˈdʌvluː] be considered phonologically and morphologically plausible by native speakers, or would it be perceived as a nonce formation?

I am not asking for a dictionary lookup, but for insight into how the gap between the Russian and English color lexicons is typically bridged in practice.

English does have plenty of different terms for different kinds of blue - they're not all a single word perhaps, but I also wouldn't label something like baby blue (Merriam-Webster: a pale blue) a descriptive phrase.

Enchanted Learning's List of Blues

Z
Zaffre

Also see Wikipedia's Shades of Blue page.

For specifically light blue, the OED's historical thesaurus has 22 entries

watchet a1400– A light or pale blue colour; fabric, clothing, or dye of this colour. Now chiefly historical.

vessey colour 1562–73 A light-blue or sky-blue colour.

Turkey colour 1575–1880 (a) Sky blue, azure (cf. Turkey blue n., turquoise, n. 3); (b) red (cf. Turkey red, n. a).

fesse 1587– A pale blue colour.

Venice blue 1598– (See quot.).

powder blue 1752– Originally: the rich blue colour of smalt. Now chiefly: a soft pale shade of blue.

Eton blue 1851– a. adj. Of a light shade of blue, or (formerly) greenish-blue, resembling that adopted as the colours of Eton College; b. n. a light shade of blue…

ice-blue 1851– a. adj. That is of a very pale blue colour; b. n. this colour.

periwinkle blue 1852– The purple-blue colour of the periwinkle flower.

Cambridge blue 1858– A pale shade of blue, adopted as the colour of Cambridge University.

baby blue 1861– a. n. A pale shade of blue; b. adj. of this colour.

starch blue 1875– A pale shade of blue or greenish-blue.

duck's egg 1876– The colour of the egg of a duck; used attributively. Frequently duck-egg blue, duck's egg blue.

pervenche 1876– Chiefly U.S. A shade of light blue resembling the colour of periwinkle flowers. Cf. periwinkle, n.¹ 3b.

opal blue 1881– An opal-blue colour.

pervenche blue 1884– = pervenche, n. 2 (cf. periwinkle blue n. at periwinkle, n.¹ compounds 2).

periwinkle 1895– A purple-blue colour like that of the periwinkle flower (sense 1). Cf. pervenche, n. 2.

harebell blue 1909– attributive, as harebell blue.

horizon-blue 1919– A light shade of blue, the colour of the uniform of the French Army during and after the war of 1914–18; such a uniform; also as adj.

Nattier blue 1923– This shade of blue; a garment, etc., in this colour.

zircon blue 1928– a. n. A light blue colour like that of some gem-quality zircon; a pigment of this colour b. adj. of this light-blue colour.

Mary blue 1943– A light or medium blue colour.

12 for greyish-blue

perse-blue 1414 Of a bluish or bluish-grey colour. Cf. perse, adj. Obsolete.

plunket 1415–1548 Of a light greyish-blue colour; light blue; (also) made of wool of this colour. Cf. blunket, adj. Obsolete.

perse c1425– Of a dark blue, bluish-grey, or (esp. in later use) purplish black colour. Now historical.

china blue 1657– Frequently with hyphen. Designating a blue colour characteristically found in Chinese blue and white porcelain ware (see blue and white, adj.…

gunpowder 1702– Designating a dark colour resembling that of gunpowder, or (now more usually) a bluish-grey colour resembling that of marks made by gunpowder (see…

grey-blue 1741– Of a blue colour tinged with grey; designating such a colour.

iron blue ?1758– Of a greyish-blue colour; designating this colour.

smoke-blue 1807– With names of colours, as smoke-blue adj., smoke-brown adj., smoke-grey adj., etc. (used as nouns or adjectives).

slaty-blue 1854– In combinations. With names of colours, as slaty-black, slaty-blue, slaty-green, slaty-grey.

Silurian 1892– Also with lower-case initial. Of, pertaining to, or designating a paper showing two or more contrasting colours on its surface; usually applied…

haze blue 1896– a. adj. Of a pale silvery purplish or greyish blue colour; b. n. this colour.

powder-blue-grey 1952– Of the colour of powder blue. Also in compounds, as powder-blue-grey adj.

There is some research on the topic of translating colors between English and Russian, for example Specifics Of Translating Color Names In English Texts by E. V. Mishenkina, which points out that translation of colors is not quite so straightforward as simply getting the right shade as "context and attitude to color play a key role, because in English and Russian-speaking cultures these colors are not absolutely identical."

Just for reference, here are the colors according to a search on Yandex, the most popular Russian search engine - also note that these two are not the only words used to describe a color close to the English blue, and that Russian also uses plenty of 'descriptive phrases' in designating which particular blue is meant.