«Только трезвая Россия станет великой!»[Only a Sober Russia Will Become Great!] 

Since I’m back in Russia I am also fully and completely back in the blogging game, now that I once again can catch the country of interest in her everyday activities, like for example this poster above. I found it on the wall of a corridor in my university earlier today. The poster was not a complete shocker to me, as I and probably everybody else have known about Russians’ relationship with alcohol [i.e. vodka] for some time. Adding to this, last Saturday the first ever «день трезвости» was ‘celebrated’ here in Yekaterinburg. I didn’t find out about until Sunday night – as I was being served a vodka martini – but could at least pride myself at having been sober the previous day. But enough about me, let’s instead take a closer look at word of the week and it’s ‘relatives’, with ‘relatives’ meaning words that have some kind of relation to it.

трезвость = sobriety; temperance; abstinence

«трезвость ума» = cool-headedness

трезвый= 1. sober; not drunk, 2. colloq. who does not drink; teetotaling, 3. fig. sober; realistic

«У него взгляд на жизнь не очень трезвый» = His view on life isn’t very realistic.

трезво = adv. soberly

трезветь(impfv.) отрезветь (pfv.) = to sober up; become sober

«Подутроонаначалатрезветь» = Toward morning she began sobering up.

трезвенник = colloq. teetotaler

And one last very useful word when it comes to discussing sobrietry with Russians [but be warned – it is far from ‘literary’ in any means, and should only be used among good friends or with strangers that could become good friends]:

«сухой закон» = ‘dry law’

«У вас сейчас сухой закон?» =  Are you drinking now (these days)? [lit. ‘are you having a dry law now?’, a question that could be good to pose from time to time, as Russians will sometimes, not all, but some, try not to drink from in periods of sobriety].