8 modern expressions you NEED to understand Russian friends
These phrases work as cultural codes: using them, people instantly understand the context and mood of the statement. They reflect the humor, irony and sometimes cynicism of modern Russian speech.
1. ‘On complex/serious shchi’
In this case, shchi is not cabbage soup, but a face. This is said about a person who takes a trifle too seriously, attaches too much importance to an insignificant matter or event. The word "shchi" also exists in other phrases. For example, "to give/receive a blow to the shchi" means a fight with fisticuffs.
2. ‘To sit on the ears’
To torment the interlocutor or a group of people with empty, meaningless chatter. The second meaning is to deceive or to misinform. The third is to achieve your goals through persistent requests and persuasion.
3. ‘Moving/going roof’’
The roof in this case is the head. A synonym for the expression: "go crazy." This is said about a person who behaves inappropriately.
4. ‘To take out the brain’
Synonym: "drive them crazy." That is, to drive someone into a rage, an inadequate state, with actions or words. If someone "takes out your brain”, then there is a high probability that your “roof will go”
5. ‘Going cuckoo’
A sudden loss of the ability to think sensibly, the same as with the roof but now the head is a "cuckoo", like the bird. In its literal meaning, a cuckoo is a bird that makes sounds similar to its name. The popular writer Victor Pelevin loved the word "cuckoo" and actively used it in his novel ‘Transhumanism Inc.’
6.‘Turn on your brain’
This is a suggestion to start thinking, using your mind, analyzing the situation, making informed decisions, and not acting impulsively.
7. ‘Moscow Never Sleeps’
In 2008, DJ Smash released the single ‘Moscow Never Sleeps’. The composition brought the author the prestigious ‘Golden Gramophone’ music award , the song was also used in the intro of a morning program on TV, played in a popular TV series and several feature films. And in 2014, this was the name of a Russian-Irish film by director Johnny O'Reilly, which paints a portrait of the metropolis on its birthday. As a result, the phrase became a characteristic of Moscow.
8. ‘In St. Petersburg - to drink’
The title of the song and a quote from it by Sergey Shnurov and the group "Leningrad", the video for which was released on May 1, 2016. It characterizes the special vibe of St. Petersburg.
9. ‘This is St. Petersburg, baby!’
A phrase that any Russian can use to explain almost everything that happens in St. Petersburg: both the city's advantages and its disadvantages. It was coined in 2008 by Alexandra "Alfina" Golubeva. She is a philologist, who lives in St. Petersburg, writes video game scripts and draws comics. Initially, "It's Peter, baby" referred only to the weather, but the meaning was later expanded to infinity.
10. ‘To pull an owl onto a globe’
The phrase implies a falsification of facts, far-fetchedness, dubious arguments and manipulation of information. An indirect quote from the book by science fiction writers Andrei Lazarchuk and Mikhail Uspensky "Look Into the Eyes of Monsters". The idea is that an already wide-eyed owl becomes even more wide-eyed with dismay, when pulled over the desktop globe.