Archive for 'Culture'
Survey: What Do Russians Do For Fun? Posted by Maria on Jul 15, 2019
The Levada pollster recently published the results of a survey that asked what Russians liked doing in their free time. It turned out that more “highbrow” activities like reading fiction or going to the theatre are losing popularity, while watching TV shows has picked up. The survey (опрос) included over 1,600 adults in 50 constituent…
Talking About Chernobyl in Russian Posted by Maria on Jun 17, 2019
The Internet has been abuzz lately with discussions of the HBO Chernobyl miniseries. The show is based on the real story of an explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Powerplant (Черно́быльская А́томная Электроста́нция, ЧАЭС), and its release has reignited interest in the catastrophe, its causes, and how its been covered by witnesses, survivors, first responders, writers…
Things That Don’t Go Together in Russian Cuisine Posted by Maria on Jun 10, 2019
I recently attended a conference in Italy, and I thoroughly enjoyed the advice the locals gave us on following the culinary conventions, such as no cappuccino after 11 AM. This inspired me to write this post, which will look at some food-related “taboos” in Russia. This is all in good humo{u}r, and, of course, not…
White Walkers and Horcruxes, or How to Talk About Fantasy in Russian Posted by Maria on May 16, 2019
Even if you are not a huge fan of the fantasy genre, it seems like these days you can barely avoid Game of Thrones spoilers or Lord of the Rings references. These genres and the associated subcultures have a following in Russian-speaking countries, too. This post will include some famous fantasy names—in Russian! Властели́н коле́ц—Lord…
Поэт или авторка: Gendered Names of Occupations in Russian Posted by Maria on Apr 17, 2019
Russian is a gendered language, which means that nouns have a grammatical gender (род): feminine (же́нский), masculine (мужско́й), or neuter (сре́дний). True, it can be confusing to grasp why a table (стол) is masculine and a river (река́) is feminine, but it should be much simpler with names of people’s occupations, right? In theory, yes…
Spelling and Abbreviating Bulky Words in Russian Posted by Maria on Mar 14, 2019
Thanks to their numerous prefixes, suffixes, and endings, Russian words can be pretty long. In addition, the “morphology principle of spelling” (морфологи́ческий при́нцип правописа́ния) dictates that we spell Russian word roots consistently, even if they are pronounced differently in related words. Think of го́род (city) vs. города́ (cities). If they were spelled phonetically, they would…
3 Slang Sayings About Broken Dreams in Russian Posted by Maria on Feb 19, 2019
Russian has a few fun sayings for talking about getting your hopes up—and getting them crushed. Let’s look at three of them with examples and explanations. 1. Гу́бы раската́ть Гу́бы is the plural of губа́, lip. Раската́ть is related to ката́ть and means “to roll out.” So, all together, this saying means “to roll out…