How to properly address people in Russian

In many countries, there is a respective form of addressing men and women: in English it is Miss / Mrs. and Mr., in Spanish senorita / senora and senor, in French Mademoiselle / Madame and Monsieur. And it is not only beautiful, but also very convenient! You can...

Broken dish means happiness

These are the funny Russian people.  If you break a plate or a mug, it means that happiness will soon happen.  This morning I broke a beautiful butter can. I explained to my foreign husband that it was for luck.  He smiled and said: “You still need to...

History of Matryoshka (aka Russian doll)

Matryoshka is one of the most common attributes that are always associated with Russia. The main Russian souvenir appeared in Russia in 1890, it was created by the artist Sergey Malyutin. The prototype of Matryoshka is a traditional Japanese doll. In 1900, Matryoshka...

Tattoo a word in a foreign language

Over the past two years several foreigners, who found my blog and knew that I was teaching Russian, wrote to me on social networks asking if I could give them advice on what this or that word meant in Russian, because they really wanted to get tattooed with that word....