The word pучка means “little hand”; it is a diminutive of pука. It’s a tender way of referring someone’s arm or hand, but it has other meanings as well and can be used to refer to a number of different objects.

For example, the most popular use of the word pучка a person might encounter is when it stands for a pen. So don’t be thrown off balance when you are at some lowly Moscow coffee shop, solving a crossword puzzle, and a random guy leans over and says, «Пожалуйста oдолжите мне вашу ручку на пару секунд» “Please lend me your little hand for a few seconds.” Most likely he is not some creep nicely asking you to let him hold your hand, but rather a man who needs to borrow your pen.

If you ever find yourself in an overcrowded trolley, riding down Проспект Мира one early morning, you will most likely hear the irritated driver yell out the warning, «Пожалуйста, держитесь за ручки» “Please hold on to the little hands” when someone trips. In this case pучка means strap.

To open a door, you place your hand on the дверная pучка. Door handle is another translation of this word and often, it’s not even necessary to use дверная if the word “door” is already present in the text. «Kогда закроешь дверь, на всякий случай, несколько раз подёргай за ручку» “When you close the door, pull on the handle a few times, just in case.”

So, the word pучка can mean handle. But it is important to mention that the word рукоять (or рукоятка) also means handle and is more popular with certain objects. For example a knife handle is translated as "рукоятка ножа." While a handle of a teakettle is "ручка чайника."

The word pучка can confuse people at first because it has several meanings and might not work with some objects. In order to avoid misunderstandings and mistakes, try to be aware of the context it is used in by listening for other key words.

Image of the Russian doll pens is taken from rospis.net.

Here are some examples of how the word pучка can be used:

Russian word for a vacuum cleaner is пылесос. Пылесос is combination of the word пыль (dust) and the morpheme сос (suction, sucking).

In English we often make a verb from a noun, and very often there is not much difference in the endings between noun and verb, thus “This is my new vacuum” and “I vacuum the house on Tuesdays.” In Russian, when you have a noun like пылесос, you have to add additional morphemes to turn the noun into a verb. In the case of пылесос-, the Russians add the morphemes for second conjugation verbs to make an imperfective, and then they add a prefix про- 'through' to make the perfective. Thus пылесосить and пропылесосить both mean to vacuum. To say that someone is vacuuming, use the verb пылесосить. To state that someone has already vacuumed say пропылесосил (masculine), or пропылесосилa (feminine). Here's the complete conjugation:

Image of an ancient Soviet vacuum cleaner; taken from foto.sail.msk.ru

Here are some sample sentences:

The word батарея is simply translated as battery, and just as in English, it can refer to a few different objects. First, to a battery that is used to run electronic equipment, which Russians often call батарейка. Then, to a military battery, as in an artillery unit grouped on the battlefield for better tactical maneuvering and action. Thirdly, it labels the radiator, part of the traditional heat transfer system that warms all Russian apartments and houses by hot water and steam circulation in the winter, late fall and early spring.

Image of a radiator from http://obninsk.name

The Russian word наушники is translated as headphones. Just like in English, this term is used to refer to all types of headphones when the description is added in front: беспроводные наушники (wireless headphones), вставные наушники (earbuds), стерео наушники (stereo headphones), диджейские наушники (DJ headphones) and etc.

The word наушник (headphone) is a combination of the preposition на (on), the word уши (ears), and a suffix -ник that turns the combination into a noun.

Here are some example sentences:

Picture from fareastgizmos.com

The proper word for photograph in Russian is фотография, a perfectly regular second-declension noun:

Here are some sample sentences:

But of course фотография is a long word. Brevity is the soul of wit. Can't we replace it with something shorter? You bet. The Russians have come up with фотка and фото. Both are quite informal. The former is a perfectly predictable word that declines just like взятка. The latter is an indeclinable noun: