I'm native Russian and when we need to talk about some tough choice between two alternatives, we use a metaphor of a traditional scale. Namely, it's bowls.

• Так вышло, что на одной чаше весов был чемпионат мира, а на другой — дружба.

• In English: It so happened that the World Championship was on one side of the scales, and friendship was on the other.

Idioms are generally very regional-specific, and so I assume it will not be a good idea to translate it to English literally. What will be a good alternative for it?

I know about "on the one hand ..., on the other one ...", but it's not quite the same.

I'm native Russian and when we need to talk about some tough choice between two alternatives, we use a metaphor of a traditional scale. Namely, it's bowls.

• Так вышло, что на одной чаше весов был чемпионат мира, а на другой — дружба.

• In English: It so happened that the World Championship was on one side of the scales, and friendship was on the other.

Idioms are generally very regional-specific, and so I think it won't be a good idea to translate it to English literally. What will be a good alternative for it?

I know about "on the one hand ..., on the other one ...", but it's not quite the same.