Getting dressed is one thing. But unless you’re in some kind of tight-fitting spandex, you won’t STAY dressed very long if your clothes aren’t properly secured with some kind of застёжка (“fastener”).

As young children have to learn, there are various types of застёжки. For instance, a пуговица (“button”) can help keep your рубашка (“shirt”) closed. However, don’t get your buttons confused — a pin-on “button” urging people to MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR! is a значок — and a “button” on a blender or in an elevator is a кнопка.

The corresponding “buttonhole” for a пуговица is a петля or петля. Whichever pronunciation you use, петля can also mean a “hangman’s noose” — believe it or knot! (Sorry.) But this isn’t as strange as it may seem, because the word’s oldest sense was simply “a loop,” as of верёвка, “rope.”

By the early 20th century, buttons on some garments had begun to be replaced with the quick-as-lightning “zipper”, which in Russian is most often молния (lit. “lightning”), though you may also encounter the term змейка (lit. “small snake” — also used in reference to “ziploc” plastic bags). And in the 1950s, a Swiss engineer took inspiration from the крючки (“little hooks”) on a plant’s seed-pods, and eventually perfected липучка — i.e., “velcro,” from липнуть, “to adhere”.

On the other hand, a пояс (“belt”) or сандалии (“sandals”) or лыжные ботинки (“ski boots”) will generally be fastened with some sort of пряжка (“buckle”). And speaking of обувь (“shoes; footwear”), little kids today often wear обувь на липучках (“velcro shoes”), but on adult shoes you’re more likely to find шнурки (“shoelaces”; sing. шнурок).

But how do you actually operate all these fasteners? In English, we button buttons, zip zippers, and buckle buckles. In Russian, though, there’s one all-purpose verb — or rather, a pair of antonyms — used for such items:

• застёгивать/застегнуть (perf. -ну, нёшь), past passive participle: застёгнутый (“to fasten; to button/zip/buckle, etc.”)

 

• расстёгивать/расстегнуть, PPP: расстёгнутый (“to unfasten; unzip, unbutton, etc.”)

With both of these verbs, the accusative object can be either the article of clothing, or the fastener itself:

Я застёгиваю пуговицу. (“I’m buttoning the button.”)
Она расстегнула лифчик. (“She undid her bra.” — without specifying the fastener)

You can also name both the clothing and the fastener:

Эти джинсы застёгиваются на пуговицы.
(“These jeans close with buttons [i.e., not a zipper]“)

And speaking of the ширинка (the “fly” on pants), here’s a sentence that’s definitely worth learning to avoid embarrassing situations:

«У тебя молния на брюках расстегнулась!
“The zipper on your pants is unzipped!”»

Notice that in the last example, the English present tense “it is unzipped” is expressed using the past perfective of the -ся form — literally “the zipper has unfastened itself.” But you can, instead, use the short-form of the past passive participle: E.g., Пуговицы расстёгнуты, “the buttons are unbuttoned”.

Застегнуть and расстегнуть will work with most clothes. But items that are secured with an узел (“knot”), such as шнурки or a галстук (“necktie”) use a different set of verbs:

• завязывать/завязать (perf. -яжу, –яжешь); PPP: завязанный (“to tie”)

 

• развязывать/развязать; развязанный (“to untie”)

Let me illustrate with a gripping domestic drama “torn from the pages of real life” — my nephew doesn’t actually speak Russian, but trust me, the rest is non-fiction. To give you a bit of sentence-reading practice as a “self test”, the English translations for each line of dialogue написаны невидимыми чернилами (“are written with invisible ink”) — or rather, in yellow-on-yellow text, which you can read by selecting the colored lines with your mouse.

«Дядя Роб, у меня шнурки развязались!» — говорит мне племянник.
“Uncle Rob, my shoelaces are untied!” — my nephew says to me.«Развязались, так завяжи-ка их сам. Тебе уже пять лет.» — я отвечаю, зевая.
“If your shoelaces are untied, then tie them yourself. You’re already five years old.” — I reply, yawning.«А я не умею!»
“But I don’t know how!”«Подойди сюда, я тебе снова покажу. Смотри внимательно! Держи шнурки вот так … сделай узел … присунь эту петлю туда… потом завяжи бантиком. Вот и всё, вот как завязывают шнурки!»
“Come here, I’ll show you again. Pay attention, okay? Grab the laces like this… make a knot… stick this loop in here… then tie it in a bow. That’s it — that’s how [people] tie shoelaces!”«Спасибо!» — улыбается племянник.
“Thank you!” — smiles my nephew.«Не за что! А теперь немедленно сними эти туфли! Ведь это твоя воскресная обувь, для цервки, а сегодня ещё вторник!»
“No problem! But take off those shoes RIGHT NOW. You and I both know these are your Sunday shoes, for church, and today is only Tuesday!”

Finally, in respect to shoes, there’s yet another pair of antonyms:

• шнуровать/зашнуровать (туфлю/туфли) — “to lace up (a shoe / shoes)”

 

• расшнуровывать/расшнуровать — “to unlace (shoes)”

Apart from расшнуровывать, these follow the normal conjugational pattern of -овать verbs: я шнурую, ты шнуруешь, etc.; imperative шнуруй(те)!

The main thing to note here is that the object of these verbs is the actual footwear, and NOT the shoelaces (we can “lace the laces” in English, but in Russian, шнуровать шнурки sounds redundant). For example:

“Я волшебным образом расшнурую кроссовки у всех игроков в команде противника!” — предложила кикимора.
(“I shall magically unlace the sneakers of all the players on the opposing team!” — proposed the house-elf.)