The Economist on the Joys of Russian
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shaulreznik
THE language I am fondest of is Russian. It is a bruised sort of affection, like the residue of many years with an intense but difficult lover. No other language has caused me such pain, or given me such pleasure in the discovery of its quirks and beauty. [...]
Finally, Russian is also rich in slang—so rich that it has not one slang, but two. The first, fenya, is a criminal patois similar in style to Cockney rhyming slang, Argentinian lunfardo and the mid-20th-century British gay argot, polari. It uses substitutions, as well as loan-words from other languages, to confuse the unwary: silver is “laundry”, having sex is “frying”, stealing is “buying”, and so on.
Interestingly, fenya contains a lot of Yiddish and Hebrew words: Jews entered the criminal world during tsarist times, when they were barred from owning land and from many professions. A common phrase even today in Russian is na khalyavu, “for free”, from the Hebrew khalav, “milk”, because “milk money” was the name of donations for the Jewish community in Palestine.
The second kind of slang, mat, is like a much more sophisticated version of the Chilean huevón words (see Tuesday)—an entire language derived chiefly from a handful of sexual swear-words. One of my prize possessions is a 560-page dictionary of mat that I found at Grant and Cutler, a specialist languages bookshop in London.
The dictionary, published in Moscow in 1997 by one Professor Tatiana Akhmetova, seems to be an academic lexicon rather than a survey of current usage. Most of my Russian-speaking friends have never heard of much of it. But one particular phrase is so original and colourful that I have been running a small private campaign to bring it back into everyday use. To describe something that has shown up unexpectedly, out of nowhere, you say that it appeared kak iz pizdy na lyzhakh, which translates as “like out of a cunt on skis.”
http://www.economist.com/daily/diary/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10943973
shaulreznikTHE language I am fondest of is Russian. It is a bruised sort of affection, like the residue of many years with an intense but difficult lover. No other language has caused me such pain, or given me such pleasure in the discovery of its quirks and beauty. [...]
Finally, Russian is also rich in slang—so rich that it has not one slang, but two. The first, fenya, is a criminal patois similar in style to Cockney rhyming slang, Argentinian lunfardo and the mid-20th-century British gay argot, polari. It uses substitutions, as well as loan-words from other languages, to confuse the unwary: silver is “laundry”, having sex is “frying”, stealing is “buying”, and so on.
Interestingly, fenya contains a lot of Yiddish and Hebrew words: Jews entered the criminal world during tsarist times, when they were barred from owning land and from many professions. A common phrase even today in Russian is na khalyavu, “for free”, from the Hebrew khalav, “milk”, because “milk money” was the name of donations for the Jewish community in Palestine.
The second kind of slang, mat, is like a much more sophisticated version of the Chilean huevón words (see Tuesday)—an entire language derived chiefly from a handful of sexual swear-words. One of my prize possessions is a 560-page dictionary of mat that I found at Grant and Cutler, a specialist languages bookshop in London.
The dictionary, published in Moscow in 1997 by one Professor Tatiana Akhmetova, seems to be an academic lexicon rather than a survey of current usage. Most of my Russian-speaking friends have never heard of much of it. But one particular phrase is so original and colourful that I have been running a small private campaign to bring it back into everyday use. To describe something that has shown up unexpectedly, out of nowhere, you say that it appeared kak iz pizdy na lyzhakh, which translates as “like out of a cunt on skis.”
http://www.economist.com/daily/diary/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10943973
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Date: 2008-04-07 11:54 pm (UTC)===============================
Dear friends,
Third Moscow Pride which will celebrate 15th Anniversary since decriminalization of homosexual relations in Russia is getting close. As was announced before, this year Moscow Pride will take place on 30-31 May with the public march planned for Saturday 31 May. Any of you who want to take part is very welcome in Moscow. There is still plenty of time to plan your trip to Russia.
Our friends from “Gay Liberation Network” in Chicago suggested to organise public actions in support of third Moscow Pride on Saturday 17 May which will be the International Day Against Homophobia. These public actions in several cities around the world will coincide with our official notification to Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov of our intention to conduct a Pride march on 31 May. According to Russian law, we can only apply between 15 to 10 days prior to the planned event.
Please let us know if any of you are willing to organise public events next to Russian embassies and consulates in your cities in solidarity with Moscow Pride trying to get third Moscow Pride permitted by the authorities. We will be grateful for your support!
Once again we suggest 17 May 2008 as the best date to organise such actions to put pressure on Russian authorities not to ban the third Moscow Pride in a row. No other city ever banned three Gay Prides in three years.
I would like to remind you that the complaints concerning the bans of first and second Moscow Prides in 2006 and 2007 are currently in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg awaiting consideration. In case this year’s Pride march is also banned we will send our third complaint to Strasbourg.
We thank you in advance for your help and solidarity! We need your support!
Nikolai Alekseev
Head of Russian LGBT Human Rights Project GayRussia.Ru
Head of Moscow Pride Organizational Committee