Once in a while you come across a new word in a foreign language that just grabs a hold of you hard and refuses to let go for a long period of time. This word can be as plain as vanilla ice-cream, but it is more often than not an exotic word, and frequently also hard to translate fittingly into an equivalent of your native tongue. For me such a word in Russian is the verb «хлопотать» which is rather difficult to translate properly into English, though its meaning can be understood on a purely ‘logical level’ by most people, not only Russophiles I presume. But in order to truly understand what this verb stands for, and what kind of action it represents, one must have knowledge of Russian society, not only of present day but of it during the Soviet Union and even earlier in history. People in Russia – not always necessarily Russians, since this action effects everyone who happens to find themselves on the country’s territory, Tatars as well as Americans, both Germans and Ukrainians alike – are constantly forced to deal with endless «хлопоты» [a noun only existing in plural form, and I suppose no one is surprised as to why]. Let’s enter into the world of this fascinating little verb and the various words it has given birth to since entering into the reality of life in Russia.

Хлопотать [verb, impfv] (pfv. похлопотать; pres. 1 p. sg. хлопочу, 2 p. sg. хлопочешь) – 1. [impfv. only] to fuss; to bustle about, 2. (with о чём, о ком? [prepositional]) to seek; to try to get, 3. (with чтобы) to make efforts (to); to try and see to it that, 4. (with за что, за кого? [accusative]) to make efforts; intercede (on behalf of)

I remember a sentence somewhere in Dostoevsky’s “Crime & Punishment” when the narrator speaks of a poor family having arrived to the capitol (Saint Petersburg) to seek to solve some problem of theirs with the local government in the province they’re from. That sentence looked something like (quoting from memory) «Они приехали хлопотать о каком-то деле».

Often in Russia it is compulsory (whether you want to or not or have the time or not is not important because this is what everyone has to do here every once in a while) to go around to different bureaucratic establishments or administrative centers either to collect random papers and get stamps, or to show papers and receive some more stamps. At first such «хлопотьня» [bustling about; feverish activity] seem to be nothing else but a brainless waste of time both for you and the clerks involved, but even the most ‘liberal, progressive, efficient’ Westerner is bound to feel an almost euphoric feeling after the first ‘Me – Russia: 1 – 0’ and will therefore with a little bit of time learn to comply to rules and regulations. In the beginning perhaps just as to be able to run out of one of those heavy, stern-looking government buildings with a smile that says ‘Me – Russia: 2 – 0’, later out of habit or because you start believing in the system (that’s a warning sign, though: when that happens you know it’s time to ditch Yakutsk for good or fill out that application for Russian citizenship already).

You might run into a friend by the end of the day who has a bleak look on their face and who when you ask ‘what happened to you?’ answers: «Да, всё как обычно – весь день хлопотал… оказалось, что у меня не было той справки, которая была необходима, а потом поставили мне неправильный штамп, и мне пришлось оформить все сначала, и когда я это сделал, у них был обед, и я ждал час для того, чтобы услышать отказ…» [Well, everything is as always – I’ve been bustling about all day… it turned out that I didn’t have the reference that was obligatory, and then they put the wrong stamp on my [paper], and I had to do it all over again from the beginning, and when I had done that, then they had their lunch break, and I waited an hour only to get a rejection…]

Хлопотливый [adjective] 1. busy; bustling, 2. difficult; demanding; onerous (the colloquial variant хлопотный is also used for number 2)

«Можно смело назвать наш переезд из Магадана в Хабаровск с роялем на машине «Жигули» хлопотливым» [You can bravely call our move from Magadan to Khabarovsk with the grand piano on our “Zhiguli” car difficult.]

Хлопотун [noun, male] (female – хлопотунья) hustler; busybody

«Ему почему-то дело до всех соседей – настоящий хлопотун!» [For some reason he cares about all the neighbors – a real busybody!]

Хлопоты [noun, only plural] (genitive: хлопот, dative: хлопотам) 1. chores; jobs (lengthy, often domestic), 2. efforts (on behalf of someone), 3. worries; cares

There’s one idiom (that I already used above with the picking of potatoes of first year students) that I found linked to this word: «хлопот (забот) полон рот» [у кого, разговорный стиль]. My dictionary of Russian phraseology translates it into: «Очень много дел, кто-нибудь очень занят (обычно при подготовке к чему-нибудь, или при выполнении какой-нибудь срочной работы)»

I suppose that this verb plus the words around it and the fact that it is a true reflection of the society that created it (and it hadn’t if there wasn’t a need for it – in Swedish, for example, it has no direct equivalent) might be one of the reasons why so many foreigners have a hard time to get along in Russia. It is definitely no walk in the park to get registered with the local post office upon arrival the first time you do it, but it gets easier with time. The first time my university told me that I had to let them know the exact date for my departure from the country, as well as just if I was going to visit some other city for more than three days, or else they would be fined by the government, I wanted to laugh at their country right in their faces. I didn’t. I held it in. If it makes Russians feel a little more secure about themselves and their country then why not? Who am I to tell them that putting up a front of outward control does nothing else but hide the inner chaos? Besides – I love this country. «С хлопотами, или без хлопот!» [with or without worries!]