Russian Language Blog

Russian has a versatile root that is used to describe ideas having to do with ownership, such as a property or a landlord. Can you guess what that root is? It is -хозяй-. This post will look at some of the most common words with this root. Хозя́ин/хозя́йка Хозя́ин (masculine), хозя́йка (feminine), and хозя́ева (plural)…

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Do any of you follow any accounts posting in Russian on Twitter? I follow a few journalists and organizations. We have posted about ideas on who to follow on social media before. Take a look at what was trending when I was writing this post. Igor Talkov Murder Case Reopened Дело об убийстве Талькова возобновили,…

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The Russian band Ме́льница (Mel’nitsa, “mill”) performs songs in a genre that could be described as Celtic-inspired fantasy folk. You can not only enjoy their music but also use their lyrics (слова́) to learn more rare vocabulary having to do with nature, old-time weapons and occupations, feudal titles, and magic. While not immediately useful in…

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Perhaps one of the things you noticed when visiting Russia is how long the city and street names were. Maybe you never quite learned to sound out the name of the metro station closest to your hotel. “Novo… whatever,” you’d say, before taking off. Why do Russian names have to be so bulky? The answer lies…

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If you follow international news, you might have heard about two Russian men who were accused of poisoning a Russian defector in Salisbury, England. As with any contentious, developing story, there are conflicting accounts of what happened, so I will include quotes from various news outlets covering it. What Happened? In early March 2018, former…

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