Russian Language Blog

I’m not much of an opera fan — because most of them, in my opinion, have maybe 5 or 10 minutes of musically entertaining sections heavily padded with hours and hours of shouting and warbling. The typical opera is like one of those pop-music albums that contains exactly ONE hit anyone wants to hear again, plus 10 instantly forgettable “B-side” numbers, plus 3 or 4 dance remixes of the one song for which you bought the album. Perhaps only футбол can rival opera in the sheer quantity of “Nothing Interesting Is Happening Right Now” that it offers to spectators.

A шкатулка (“ornamental box”) depicting an episode from the life of Prince Igor Svyatoslavich

And yet — a few operas do have their moments, and for me one of the most spectacular examples is the Половецкие пляски (“Polovtsian Dances”) section from 1890′s «Князь Игорь» (“Prince Igor”) by Александр Бородин (“Aleksandr Borodin”). It only runs about семь минут, but they are an AWESOME seven minutes.

In this YouTube video, it’s performed by a massive theatre company with everyone приодетые в блестящих средневековых тряпках (“dolled up in glittery medieval ‘threads’”), and it’s quite a spectacle!

Admittedly, I really had trouble understanding what they’re singing, at first — all those operatic voices sort of blend together into a indistinct tra-la-hah-lah that’s difficult to decipher, especially in a language that isn’t my native one. (Soprano voices, in particular.) But after just a bit of Googling, I found the written lyrics for this section. And it’s wierd how the sounds that had been meaningless траляля, труляля start to magically crystallize into intelligible Russian words once you’re able to read along while you listen! But before we get to the sing-a-long lyrics…

A Bit of Backstory from Medieval Rus’

Borodin based the opera’s libretto on a 13th-century East Slavonic epic poem known as «Слово о плъку Игоревѣ», which is typically translated as “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” The poem describes a rather disastrous military raid led by the Slavic prince Igor Svyatoslavich in 1185 against the Polovtsian army of Khan Konchák — which ended in the slaughter of all but a dozen Russian warriors, and the capture of Prince Igor.

Even though Igor’s military campaign was a flop, the epic that recounts it is revered for at least two reasons: First, from a linguistic standpoint, it’s a rare and valuable record of what ancient East Slavonic looked like before it began to be influenced by Old Church Slavonic (which belongs to the South Slavic group). Second, from the standpoint of Slavic nationalism, the poem urges the princes of Kievan Rus’ to cease their constant in-fighting and unify against the incessant attacks by various Turkic peoples. Little did the anonymous author know that the fearsome татары (“Tatars” or “Mongols”) would come riding into town just a few decades after Prince Igor’s death and kick the butts of everybody in the region, both Slavic and Turkic!

Who were these Polovtsians? Половцы is simply the Slavic name for a bunch of nomadic Central Asians who called themselves “Kumans” or “Cumans.” Their periodic raiding and pillaging of Kievan Rus’ started around 1060 and continued for almost 200 years (until the Tatars showed up uninvited). Our knowledge of Kuman/Polovtsian culture is a bit scanty, but we know that their language belonged to the Turkic group; they were evidently rather light-haired (at least compared to other Central Asians); and in Igor’s time they were still pagan, although in later centuries, some assimilated to Islam and others to Christianity.

As for the хан (“khan” or “king”) named Кончак, don’t make the mistake of thinking he was a total bad guy. Despite the constant hostility between the Russians and the Polovtsians, they would occasionally form ad hoc military or political alliances. In fact, Konchak and Igor were сваты, or “co-fathers-in-law” — the pagan khan’s daughter was in an arranged marriage with the Christian prince’s son!

So, the Половецкие пляски segment that you see in the video clip is from end of Act 2 in the opera — the wounded Igor is technically a POW in the Polovtsian camp, but Konchak has intervened on behalf of his son-in-law’s dad, and is playing the part of a gracious host in hopes that the Kievans will agree to some sort of truce.

The lyrics (and their translation)

In the first section, entitled Пляска девушек (“Dance of the girls”), we hear a chorus of невольницы (“slave maidens”), who address their song as «ты» and urge it to “fly away on the wings of the wind,” back to their long-lost homeland on the far side of the Caspian Sea. (Hmmm, can you think of another classic Russian tune where the singer addresses her own song in the imperative, and tells it to fly to some distant place?)

Anyway, practically everyone will recognize the melody, which was ripped off (via the Broadway show Kismet) and turned into the 1950s pop standard “Stranger in Paradise”. Here it is with a line-by-line translation — click and drag on the pink lines to see the English:

♪♫ Улетай на крыльях ветра
Fly away, on the wings of the wind,
Ты в край родной, родная песня наша,
You [fly away], our native song, to the region of our birth.
Туда, где мы тебя свободно пели,
To where we sang you in liberty,
Где было так привольно нам с тобою.
Where you and we were so free.
Там, под знойным небом,
There, under the sultry sky,
Негой воздух полон,
The air is full of bliss,
Там под говор моря
There, under the murmuring of the sea,
Дремлют горы в облаках. ♪♫
The mountains half-slumber in the clouds.

Incidentally, I’m really not sure why the next-to-last line has под говор (accusative) instead of под говором (instrumental) — since it’s hard to see how the verb дремать (“to be drowsy”) conveys motion, even in a figurative sense. Perhaps one of our native speakers can shed light?

Anyway, some very athletic dancing by the male slaves follows, and all the frenetic leaping and banging of kettle drums leads us into a bombastic, Carmina Burana-ish chorus that begins at around 03:40 in the video clip. In the opera’s score, this part is rather unimaginatively titled Общая Пляска (“General/Collective Dance”), but “Khan Konchak, Superstar!” might be a better title. The key verb in this section is definitely славить — “to glorify, to sing the praises of”. If you close your eyes, you can almost imagine Ricardo Montalban’s minions singing this to William Shatner:

♪♫ Пойте песни славы хану! Пой!
Sing songs of glory to Khan! Sing!
Славьте силу, дочесть хана! Славь!
Glorify the might, the honor, of Khan! Praise him!
Славен хан! Хан!
Glorious is Khan! Khan!
Славен он, хан наш!
Glorious is he, our Khan!
Блеском славы
In the gleaming of his glory
Солнцу равен хан!
Khan is like unto the Sun!
Нету равных славой хану! Нет!
There are none equal in glory to Khan! None!
Чаги хана славят хана…♪♫
Khan’s slaves praise Khan!

And as the Polovtsians are singing their lungs out in praise of Mr. Fabulous, Konchak offers Igor a beautiful slave-girl as a party favor from one сват to another — though with a string attached, of course! It starts around 04:40 in the video, and basically turns into a duet by “Konchak and the Khan-ettes”, as the невольницы sing back-up:

♪♫ Видишь ли пленниц ты –
Do you see the captive-girls
С моря дальнего?
From a distant sea?
Видишь красавиц моих
Do you see my beauties
Из-за Каспия?
From beyond the Caspian?
О, скажи, друг,
Oh, say it, friend –
Скажи только слово мне!
Say only a word to me!
Хочешь, любую из них я тебе подарю! ♪♫
If you want, I’ll make you a gift of any one of them!

If you’re wondering what happens next — well, Igor eventually makes a heroic escape by digging a mile-long tunnel with a teaspoon and swimming through the rat-infested sewers crawling under a loose tent-flap and jogging away. (Konchak isn’t exactly holding the prince in maximum-security conditions — after all, they’re both blue-blooded noblemen, and in-laws on top of that!) After arranging for the ransom of other Russian chiefs still in Polovtsian hands, Igor goes back to his job running the princedom of Novgorod-Sverensk, arranges more political marriages for his kids, and eventually dies around 1201. It’s unclear what happens to Konchak, but as we know, the fortunes of the Kievans and the Kumans alike went into decline after the Tatars showed up!

1985 USSR stamp commemorating the 1185 battle

Ok, the usual disclaimer goes here: if you are easily offended, do not read this post. Parental advisory recommended. Using any of these words in public is considered mild hooliganism and is punishable by law.

The three whales of русский мат (Russian curse words) are the three rude words for a male sexual organ, female sexual organ and the sexual act itself. The forth word has a literal meaning of “prostitute”. This in itself is neither new nor original.

What sets Russian obscenities apart from English-language ones is the enormous flexibility and depth of meaning thanks to all the suffixes, prefixes, and compound words formed with матерный (obscene) roots.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that mastering just one of these three words would get you closer to mastering both the mechanics and that certain je ne sais quoi of the Russian language than штудирование (thorough study of) “regular” textbooks or even reading the classics.

Speaking of the classics, it should come as no surprise that they more than dabbled in мат. I’m not even talking about the modern classics, such as Pelevin or Erofeev. Nope, I mean such светоч (luminary) of Russian literature as Mikhail Lermontov and Anton Chekhov and, of course, Наше Всё (Our Everything), the great Alexander Pushkin himself.

Anyway, most of the times the obscenities are not used in their literal sense, to describe детородные органы (genitals) or половой акт (sexual intercourse). Instead, they are used for just about anything else. They are used to describe a full range of emotions, complex thoughts and actions, and just about any conceivable situation.

But this mind-boggling flexibility achieved with just four very short words pales in comparison to the virtuosity of a true дока (old hand) who can stack them together into intricate ругательства (invective) known as трёхэтажный or многоэтажный мат (the three-stories or multistory obscenity).

Still, please think twice before using even mild матерные слова (obscene words) in a conversation. Yes, you might come across these words in books. And yes, you might overhear them on the streets or in YouTube videos. And yes, expect to hear at least a few of these крепкие словечки (strong words) in a casual atmosphere of застолье (a feast), especially if the conversation turns to politics or economy. Still, resist the temptation to join in or to show off your grasp of colloquial Russian, especially if

1. You are in the presence of minors or women

2. You are a woman. Women should never материться, как грузчики (curse like a stevedore).

3. You do not have a very firm grasp of all the intricacies of meaning and usage. One wrong prefix and you just call something awesome a total junk. Or, in case of the image at the top of the post, wrong stress turns a very rude “don’t talk!” into no less rude “don’t steal!”

4. You are in a public place – remember, it is against the law, even if your favorite soccer team is not doing their best… again.

Speaking of cursing in public now being illegal, the new Russian law levies fines on any незапиканный (unbleeped) or incorrectly/partially bleeped out нецензурная ругань (strong language; lit: bad language that is not allowed by censorship). This goes not only for what the anchors or journalists themselves might utter, but extends to comments and reactions from readers, listeners and viewers, including comments on the articles or news clips.

Sounds outrageous? Well, as the State Duma explains: свобода речи – это не значит вседозволенность (freedom of speech doesn’t mean permissiveness).

Interestingly, the new law does not create a чёрный список (black list) of forbidden words. Instead, issues will be resolved on a case-by-case basis by expert philologists. One of the authors of the new law explained that the offensive word must be bleeped or *** enough to completely obscure its meaning. He further said:

Если в слове из трёх букв уберёте центральную букву и замените её звёздочкой, это не значит, что никто не поймёт, что у вас написано

(If you take out the middle letter from a three-letter word and replace it with an asterisk, it doesn’t mean nobody understands what you have written)

Can you guess which three-letter word слуга народа (the people’s servant) is talking about? And speaking of the phrase “three-letter word”… It’s a widely used euphemism for the most widely used obscene word in the Russian language. So when you say “да пошёл ты на все три буквы!” (lit: go to all the three letters!) everyone knows exactly what you meant (a very strong version of “go to hell!”).

Does it mean that the public use of euphemisms, such as the above “three-letter word” is also punishable? Too bad because there are truly clever Russian euphemisms for obscenities, such as the word скоммуниздить meaning “to steal”, раздолбай meaning “a good-for-nothing person”,  and едрёна мать, one of the countless Russian phrases with the meaning closest to the English four-letter exclamation.

This brings to mind one бородатый анекдот (an old joke):

На одном заводе процветала матерщина. Директор строго-настрого запретил материться на производстве. Ругаться перестали, но упала производительность труда. Директор на планерке спрашивает ветерана – дядю Ваню, в чём дело.
– Да, знаете, Петр Иванович, раньше бывало скажешь: “Иван, подай вон ту хреновину”, а сейчас пока вспомнишь, как она называется – полчаса пройдет.

Try to translate it using this vocabulary or, if all else fails, Google Translate:

процветать – to flourish

матерщина – from мат (obscenity) is the noun that describes the entire body of obscene words

строго-настрого – an adverb meaning “in the strictest way”, compare to other adverbs such as крепко-накрепко (in the strongest way), перво-наперво (the very first thing), мало-помалу (little by little), скоро-наскоро (quickly)

материться – to use obscenities in one’s speech

планёрка – a work meeting

Oh, but it looks like I haven’t told you the exact words for the big three Russian obscenities. Well, you see, I can’t do it. Women should not curse. Plus, as my Mom always said, интеллигентный человек не матерится (an intellectual does not use obscenities). To this day, it режет слух (sets teeth on edge; lit: grates hearing) when someone around me curses in Russian.

Besides, there are quite a few great resources on the subject, including this Wikipedia article (in English), this Wikipedia article (in Russian), a pretty good Lurkmore article (in Russian), the classic (in Russian), this video (in Russian, a perfect primer to all four big bad words) and, should you really dig deep into the subject, this very comprehensive book. Good luck!

Are you getting tired of telling the driver behind you to Save the Pygmy Hippos? Or maybe you’re thinking that it’s time to scrape off that Re-Elect Carter 1980 bumper-sticker?

Well, allow me to offer 10 Russian остроты (“aphorisms; witticisms; quips”) that’d be perfect for a custom-made bumper-sticker. Or a (нагрудный) значок (“pin-on lapel button”). Or even a татуировка — but remember that it costs quite a lot to have an unwanted tattoo lasered off.

As far as I know, incidentally, there isn’t a specific Russian word for “bumpersticker.” The word наклейка means “adhesive sticker applied for decoration” or “a decal”. And the term автонаклейка is a “car decal,” but it can refer to large ones that are intended for the rear windshield or doors. So if you mean something like this:

…you can say наклейка для бампера, “decal for a bumper.”

Anyway, on with the list.

For free-speech supporters and those with generally libertarian sentiments, here’s a classic from Екатерина II (Великая) (Catherine II, aka the Great):

1. С идеями пушками не воюют.
Ideas are not to be fought with cannons.

Grammar point: after verbs that mean “to fight,” such as воевать, the adversary/foe can be expressed either with с кем/чем (instrumental) or против кого/чего (genitive). So «Против идей пушками не воюют» would mean the same thing, but it loses the semi-rhyme of «идеями пушками».

Of course, while Екатерина Великая really was a personal admirer of the European Enlightenment and a regular pen-pal of Voltaire, at home she was far from libertarian, and historians have criticized her unwillingness to take any steps towards the ending of serfdom.

(I made this one myself. I hope the figures in the image are recognizable at this resolution!)

2. Если людоед пользуется вилкой и ножом — разве это прогресс?
If a cannibal uses a fork and knife — is that progress?

Don’t forget that the verb пользоваться (“to use”) takes an instrumental object, while the synonymous verbs использовать and употреблять/употребить take the accusative.

This observation about well-mannered cannibals is one of the all-time pithiest quotes by Polish writer Станислав Ежи Лец (Stanisław Jerzy Lec), a highly prolific author of quips and aphorisms who gets nine full pages at this excellent Russian-language collection of notable quotes. (But don’t confuse him with Polish sci-fi writer Станислав Лем (Stanisław Lem), best known for Solaris.)

As I said, Mr. Lec offers a goldmine of clever observations to choose from, but here’s another one of his that I like:

3. Даже из мечты можно сварить варенье, если добавить фруктов и сахару.
You can make jam out of nothing but a daydream, so long as you add a bit of fruit and sugar.

Or, as we might say in English, “Your good intentions plus fifty cents will buy you a cup of coffee.”

The remaining slogans in the post are of less certain authorship — some came from an online list credited to Ukrainian-born satirist Михаил Жванецкий, but it wasn’t clear to me if he originated all of them or just liked to quote them.

4. Любого автомобиля хватит до конца жизни, если ездить достаточно лихо.
Any car can last for the rest of your life, if you drive recklessly enough.

Depending on the context, the adjective лихой can mean either “daring; showing bravado” or “excessively reckless.” And the noun лихач means “a reckless driver.” Also, as a point of grammar, let’s take a closer look at this phrase:

любого автомобиля хватит

Here, the verb хватать/хватить, “to suffice, be enough” is in its 3rd-singular future perfect form — “it will be enough” — although we can use a present-tense construction in English. And the person/thing/substance that there is enough of is expressed with the genitive — thus, автомобиля. Also, for example, Мне времени не хватает, “I don’t have enough time,” literally “It isn’t enough of time for me.”

If, like me, you are prone to «тянуть канитель» (i.e., to procrastinate), here’s a bumper-aphorism that may motivate you to carpe diem:

5. В любом из нас спит гений. И с каждым днём всё крепче…
In each and every one of us, Genius sleeps. And with each passing day, it sleeps all the more soundly…

The language in this one is simple and straightforward. However, take note of the phrase всё крепче. Generally speaking, using всё with an adjective or adverb in the comparative degree gives the meaning “all the more X” or “more and more X-ly.” Thus, реже is “rarer” or “more rarely”, and всё реже would be “more and more rarely.”

6. Костюм “Евы” мне очень идёт, только ушить нужно кое-где.
I look really good in my Eve costume (i.e., “birthday suit”) — it just needs to be taken in here and there.

Presumably, this would be on a car driven by a woman — for a male driver, it would be костюм “Адама” (“an Adam suit”), but otherwise the phrasing stays exactly the same. And what about that pronoun кое-где? Essentially, it means the same thing as в некоторых местах, “in certain places.” And, in general, when the prefix кое- is attached to an interrogative pronoun, it adds the meaning of “certain ones” or “some, but not all”.

когда-то — “at some time; once”
кое-когда — “at certain times; now and then”
когда-нибудь — “at any time; ever”

In other words, кое- is a bit less definite than the suffix -то, but a bit more definite than -нибудь.

Another one that I made with Photoshop

7. Обидно, когда твои мечты сбываются у других!
It’s so annoying when your fantasies come true for other people!

Note that обижать/обидеть is “to offend,” and обидно can therefore mean “offensive.” But sometimes, as here, it’s better translated with such English expressions as “It’s annoying”, “It’s frustrating”, “It gets on your nerves”, etc.

8. Чистая совесть – признак плохой памяти.
A clean conscience is a symptom that your memory is faulty.

Once again, the grammar is quite simple. I chose this one not only because it’s wryly funny, but because I sometimes get совесть, “conscience”, mixed up with сознание, “consciousness.” Here are a few related expressions:

на совести — on one’s conscience (Это лежит на моей совести, This weighs on my conscience.)
на совесть — conscientiously (Она на совесть выполнила просьбу, She carefully and diligently fulfilled the request.)
со спокойной совестью — with a quiet/untroubled conscience

9. Скупой платит дважды, тупой платит трижды. Лох платит всю жизнь.
A stingy man pays twice, an idiot pays thrice. A sucker spends his whole life paying.

First, this is really an extended version of the older saying скупой платит дважды, “a stingy person pays twice” — i.e., buying a cheap made-in-China product may cost you more money in the long run. The word тупой means “dull; blunt” in the context of a knife, or “obtuse” in reference to angles greater than 90°, but “stupid” when you’re talking about a person. (Also, note the noun тупица, “a dimwit,” which looks feminine but is totally unisex and can take either masculine or feminine verbs and adjectives.)

And the slang term лох, from what I’ve been told, originally meant “bumpkin; hick; hayseed”, but now it has the more general meaning of “sucker” in the sense of “an easy target for a con-artist” — regardless of whether the person is from the country or the city. Thus — don’t be penny-wise and pound-foolish, but don’t be plain foolish, and don’t be a dupe for slick sales-talk.

And finally, no list of bumpersticker slogans would be complete without something a bit скверный (“vulgar”). Here’s one that’s rather off-color, but still very good advice:

10. Если тебе лизнули зад, не расслабляйся – это смазка!

The verb лизать/лизнуть is “to lick” (imperf. я лижу, ты лижешь; perf. я лизну, ты лизнёшь). The noun зад generally means “the rear; the back part”, but here it’s a nicer way of saying жопа. Расслаблять/расслабить is literally “to seriously weaken”, but in the reflexive -ся form it can mean “to relax”. And смазка is “grease” or “lubricant”. So the whole thing could be rendered:

When they’re kissing your butt, don’t let your guard down — it’s just for lubrication!

Ouch!