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New Year’s Celebrations at School and Work Posted by Maria on Dec 22, 2014
We have talked about the traditional New Year’s celebration in Russian homes, with an abundant meal, elaborate toasts, watching TV, and the midnight countdown. However, New Year being the biggest holiday in Russia, it is also celebrated outside the home — at school and at work. Let us go over some celebrations Russian encounter throughout…
Russian New Year’s Music Posted by Maria on Dec 15, 2014
The weeks before Christmas in countries where it is the main winter holiday — and you know in Russia it’s not — are marked by the incessant playing of holiday music. It may be endearing for some and set the mood for the upcoming holidays, while it may drive others like myself up the wall. While…
Bizarre Russian Remedies Posted by Maria on Dec 11, 2014
We have discussed some peculiarities of Russian traditional medicine before, however, there are a few treatments that will seem outright bizarre to the unprepared. If you are planning to go to Russia for a long period of time, you may run into one of them. 1. Fire-Cupping Fire-cupping (банки) is a treatment where a patient’s back is…
How to Ride Public Transport in Russia Posted by Maria on Dec 4, 2014
The subject of public transport was covered in a detailed post on this blog before. This time, I would like to concentrate on the practical aspects of ridership. As a reminder, the main modes of public transport (общественный транспорт) are автобус – bus троллейбус – trolleybus трамвай – tram/streetcar метро – underground/subway These are normally…
Metaphoric Country Names Posted by Maria on Dec 1, 2014
Russian is notoriously intolerant of repeating words within a sentence or in adjacent sentences. As a result, elaborate circumlocutions are used to say the same thing. A specific case is metaphors that refer to countries. As always, I will link to sources for words in languages I don’t know. All usage examples come from the Russian National Corpus…
E-Commerce in Russia Posted by Maria on Nov 24, 2014
I recently had the occasion to have a gift delivered to a person in Russia. That experience drew my attention to the differences in how we deal with electronic purchases in Russia and abroad. I must admit I had forgotten some of the Russian peculiar ways, and new ways have emerged since I left Russia!…
Writing about Russia for Dummies – Part II Posted by Maria on Nov 20, 2014
We are continuing our discussion from last week about things to keep in mind if you plan to feature Russia or Russians in your creative work. History and Governance Mixing Up Historical Periods The territory that is now Russia (and the neighboring territories that are not) has undergone many transformations in terms of its national…