Why do Russians love acronyms SO much?

‘KGB’, ‘Komsomol’, ‘CPSU’, ‘USSR’ – generations of Russian speakers have become accustomed to acronyms and abbreviations. They really do make life a lot easier.

After all, it's much quicker to say

• ‘Главлесосбыт’ (‘Gla­vles­os­byt’) instead of ‘Главное управление по сбыту продукции лесозаготовительной и лесопильно-деревообрабатывающей промышленности (’‘Glavnoye upravleniye po sbytu produktsi lesozagotovitel'noy i lesopil'no-derevoobrabatyvayushchey promyshlennosti’, ‘The Main Directorate for the Sale of Products of the Logging and Sawmill-Woodworking Industry’) 

OR

• the well-known ‘ГУЛАГ’ (‘Gulag’) instead of ‘Главное управление исправительно-трудовых лагерей’ (‘Glavnoye Upravleniye ispravitelno trudovykh lagerei’ or‘The Main Directorate of Labor Camps, Work Settlements and Prisons’).

“The Russian language actively strives for linguistic economy, which is why abbreviations thrive in oral speech and especially in online communication,” experts from Gramota.ru (Грамота.ру) explain.

Communication on the modern Russian internet can sometimes look like a secret code: “ЛП написала в ЛС, что завтра с МЧ идем на ДР!” (“My best friend sent me a private message that we are going with our boyfriends to a birthday party tomorrow!”)

Long ago, ‘университет’ (‘university’) was shortened to ‘универ’ (‘univer’), ‘общежитие’ (‘dormitory’) to ‘общага’ (‘dorm’), and ‘Санкт-Петербург’ (‘St. Petersburg’), much to the indignation of its residents, to ‘Питер’ (‘Piter’) or even 'Спб’ (‘Spb’).

The number of acronyms pronounced letter by letter has grown significantly:

• ‘элпэ’ (ЛП, лучшая подруга – best girlfriend)
• ‘элэс’ (ЛС, личные сообщения – private messages)
• ‘эмче’ (МЧ, молодой человек – boyfriend) 
• ‘дэрэ’ (ДР, день рождения - birthday)

Many transliterated borrowed abbreviations have also appeared, predominantly from English – ‘лол’ (‘lol’, ‘laughing out loud’), ‘имхо’ (‘IMHO’, ‘in my honest opinion’), ‘омг’ (‘OMG’, ‘Oh my God’).

But, there are also Russian equivalents, for example, ‘кмк’ (‘как мне кажется’; ‘in my opinion’).

Moreover, the Russian language is so flexible that new full-fledged words emerge from borrowed acronyms: ‘пиариться’ (‘peearitsya’ from ‘PR’), ‘эсэмэска’ (‘esemeska’; from ‘SMS’).

By the way, we've already made several videos about some of the more popular acronyms:

• What is ‘ЗОЖ’? 
• The main internet abbreviations 
• office slang 
• student acronyms