50 facts every Russian should know

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Alexander Suvorov wrote: “We are Russians! What a delight! Let's agree with the great commander and remember 50 facts about the Russian people.

1. Koreans in the USSR called the Russians "maozy", which translates as "bearded man".

2. The hapolgroups R1a, I1b, N1c are most widespread among Russians.

3. The term "Russia", replacing the word "Rus", began to be used to a limited extent since the 16th century, when the idea of the "Third Rome" was born in Moscow.

4. As of January 1, 2015, the number of Russians in Russia is 111 million 500 thousand people.

5. The Austrian diplomat of the 17th century, Sigismund Herberstein, in his "Notes on Moscow Affairs" wrote that Russians were called "Rosseya" from ancient times - "that is, a people scattered or scattered, because Rosseya, in the language of the Russians, means scattering."

6. In China there is the Russian national region Shiwei, more than half of its population are Russians.

7. The neutral designation for Russians in Finnish is “venyaläinen”. "Ryssya" is derogatory.

8. Russian is a native language for 168 million people, for 111 million as a second language.

9. The largest dictionary of the language of the Russian people - in Pushkin. It includes approximately 25,000 tokens. Shakespeare possessed approximately the same vocabulary (in English).

10. The Russian people had 19 queens and tsars from two dynasties (Rurikovich, Romanov).

11. From the middle of the 16th century to the beginning of the 19th century, there were 10 wars between Russia and Sweden.

12. The negative designation of Russians by Estonians is "tybla". "Tybla" came from the address "you bl." The Media Council believes that the word "tibla" is primarily used to denote Homo soveticus (Soviet man).

13. Between Russia and the Ottoman Empire there were 12 wars in 241 years. On average, one Russian-Turkish war was 19 years apart from another.

14. The Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin wrote: “Soloviev counts from 1240 to 1462 (for 222 years) - 200 wars and invasions. From the XIV century to the XXth (for 525 years) Sukhotin has 329 years of war. Russia has fought two-thirds of its life."

15. The first surnames among Russians appeared in the XIII century, but the majority remained "unprotected" for another 600 years.

16. By the time of general certification in the 1930s, every resident of the USSR had a surname.

17. According to Vernadsky, the word “Russian” goes back to the Iranian “rukhs” (or “rokhs”), which means “light, light, white”.

18. During the Great Patriotic War, according to M. V. Filimoshin, almost 6 million Russians died.

19. The only monosyllabic adjective in Russian is "evil".

20. On May 24, 1945, a very important toast was pronounced by Joseph Stalin: "To the Russian people!"

21. There are 441 words in Russian with the word "love". In English - 108.

22. The fashion for surnames came to Russia from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

23. Russians in Ancient Russia called themselves Rusyns and Rusks. In the Bulgarian language, Rusyn remained an ethnonym for Russians until the beginning of the 20th century.

24. The word "rosichi" is a neologism of the author of "The Lay of Igor's Campaign." This word as a self-name of Russians is not found anywhere else.

25. The endings "-gda" in the Central Russian toponymy: Vologda, Sudogda, Shogda - the heritage of the Meryan people.

26. In the village of Russkoe Ustye (71 degrees north latitude), the Russians live - people from the Cossacks and Pomors. The dialect of Russkoye Ustye is extremely rare - not "akaying" or "okaying", but "shuffling".

27. The Russian language ranks fifth in terms of the total number of people speaking it.

28. Researchers discovered the Russian greeting “hello” for the first time in a chronicle dated to 1057. The author of the chronicles wrote: "Hello, many years."

29. The surname “Romanovs” was not immediately assigned to the dynasty. We stayed both Yakovlevs and Zakharyins-Yurievs. They became Romanovs by the name of the great-grandson of Fyodor Koshka, the son of Andrei Kobyla.

30. In every Russian hut there was always a so-called "beggar's shop" at the door. So that a beggar or other uninvited guest could sit on it.

31. In 1910, the Russian Empire ranked second to last in Europe in terms of per capita alcohol consumption; they drank less only in Norway.

32. "Bear fun" in Russia was banned twice: in 1648 and in 1867, but until the 1920s, bears really walked the streets.

33. The Russian is not afraid of the fight. Fist fights were the favorite fun of Russian guys back in 1048, when the chronicler Nestor wrote about them.

34. In Russia, men were greeted not by their clothes, but by their beards. People with poorly growing beards were considered almost degenerate. The beardless, as a rule, remained in the brothels.

35. Russian folk "measure" of alcoholic doses, recorded by Dahl: - The first cup to drink is good to be, the second to drink - to amuse the mind, to triple - to arrange the mind, to drink the fourth - I’m not skillful to be, to drink the fifth - I’ll be drunk, the sixth charm - the thought will be different, to drink the seventh - I’ll be mad, to the eighth to drag in - I cannot take my hands away, to take the ninth - I don’t get up from my place, and to drink ten glasses - they will inevitably enrage.

36. What is Russian without balalaika? Nevertheless, balalaikas were banned more than once, taken from their owners and burned outside the city - they fought against buffoonery. The instrument was reborn in the middle of the 19th century - Vasily Andreev, a nobleman and gifted musician, made the balalaika fashionable again.

37. Russian swearing is already found in Novgorod birch bark letters dating from the 11th century. It was called then "barking obscene" and initially included exclusively the use of the word "mother" in a vulgar context.

38. The Russian obscene word with the letter "B" was banned by Anna Ioannovna. Before that, it was completely legal and was often used with the meanings of fornication, deception, delusion, heresy, and error.

39. Matryoshka is actually not Russian, but a Japanese toy, but it is in Russia that it has become a real cult.

40. The Russian people are a chess player. Already in the XII century, chess in Russia was played not only by the nobility, but also by ordinary people. This was proved by archaeological excavations. However, they also wanted to ban chess in our country: at the Sixth Ecumenical Council it was proposed to anathematize chess players.

41. The most common outdoor games in Russia were: rounders, small towns, baker, hockey, siskins and horses.

42. The Great Russian bast shoe was distinguished by the oblique weaving of the bast; Belarusian and Ukrainian - direct.

43. Not all dishes that are considered Russian are in fact such. The dumplings are from China, the vinaigrette is from Scandinavia.

44. In Russia, felt boots had different names: in Nizhniy Novgorod they were called “chesanki” and “wire rod”, in the Tambov and Tver regions - “valenki”, in Siberia - “pims”. Valenki made of goat hair were called "little waves" and "antics", and from sheep - "wire rods".

45. Russian women in Russia had a lot of professions: mourners cried professionally, plastic workers interfered with the mass for marshmallows, potters made pots, forge women weaved knots.

46. The attitude to bread in Russia was strictly regulated by special "bread rules": from blessing when baking to the fact that bread cannot be broken, thrown away and put on the table without a tablecloth.

47. The cult of seeds among the Russian people is associated with the revolution. It was then that they began to "capture cities." Mikhail Bulgakov wrote in his story "The Capital in a Notebook": "For me, the designated paradise will come at the very moment the seeds disappear in Moscow."

48. A midwife in Russia stayed with the newly-made mother for as much as 40 days - she helped to bathe, heal and … whit. Swaddling used to be called swaddling.

49. The secret Russian community of the Oeni (traveling merchants) had its own special language. Here are three proverbs translated into Ofen: 1. Live and learn - you will die a fool. - Pehal of the Kindriks is a kurav, a pehal of the Kindriks lick - you will darken with a smudge. 2. He who does not work does not eat. - Kchon doesn’t shave, he doesn’t shave. 3. You cannot easily catch a fish from a pond. - Without a master, you can't smell a psalug made of dryaban.

50. The Russian man is wide! In the middle of the 19th century, two Yekaterinburg gold miners married their children. The wedding went on for a whole year.