The verb pair покупать/купить means “to buy, purchase”. Notice that the imperfective has the prefix по- and the perfective does not.

The thing purchased goes in the accusative case. In English the person for whom something is purchased can be either an indirect object or the object of the preposition “for”:

Likewise in Russian the person for whom something is purchased can either an indirect object (dative case) or the object of the preposition для, which governs the genitive case:

Some sample sentences:

You will recall that one of the differences between imperfective and perfective verbs is that perfective verbs are used when the result of the action is in focus, and you use the imperfective when the result is not in focus. Thus the following dialogs are both possible:

«Я джинсы покупал» is best translated “I shopped for jeans” because the speaker is not specifying whether there was actually a result to his shopping, whereas «Я джинсы купил» means the speaker actually made the purchase, so “I bought jeans” is the best translation.

Food prices have actually risen quite a bit recently in Russia (source|mirror). The BBC has been tracking the crisis in world food prices since July of 2008, and Moscow is one of the cities they are tracking. You can follow their coverage here.

* In English we usually discuss potatoes in the plural. Russians usually use the singular word картошка which can mean either "a potato" or "potatoes" generically.

Фамилия means last name or surname. It does not mean family. Native Russian last names often end in -ов, -ёв, -ин or -ын for men; the feminine forms add -а. Thus when a husband and wife share a last name, the husband could say his last name is Смирнов and his wife will say her last name is Смирнова, and they are not lying, even though the names actually are a bit different. When Russians come to the US, the masculine form of the last name is usually made the official one, so the name Анна Смирнова might be transliterated as “Anna Smirnov.” That's not an error; it's just standard administrative practice.

To my observation, Russian women take their husbands last names rather less often than American women do, so it's not at all uncommon to find husbands and wives whose last names don't match. When children are born, however, they are always assigned a last name that matches the father's last name if the husband and wife are married.

Russian last names -ов, -ёв, -ин or -ын are not declined like standard nouns. They are declined like short-form adjectives. In the following table you will see a complete declension. Notice the endings with the light yellow background differ from standard first- and second-declension noun endings:

Here are some example sentences where you can see how the endings of the first name and last name sometimes match and sometimes don't. First some masculine examples:

And now some feminine examples:

And now some plural examples:

Today let's think about the verb pair смотреть/посмотреть, which is conjugated like this:

The first meaning of this verb is “to watch.” The thing watched goes in the accusative case:

When you watch someone do something, like watching someone enter a room, the person and the activity are expressed in a completely separate clause introduced by как:

The verb is also used to mean “to look at,” in which case it is used with the preposition на followed by the accusative case:

When you look in a mirror or into/out of a window or into someone's eyes, you use the preposition в followed by the accusative case:

The verb can also be used to mean “to keep an eye on,” in which case it is used with the preposition за followed by the instrumental case:

That last sentence is amusingly amibiguous since the word свеча means either candle or suppository, resulting in a viable translation of “The nurses kept a sharp eye on the suppositories since there was a shortage of them.”

When talking about food, it is important to mention the concept of огород, the individual plot of land, typically small, where people grow their own vegetables. Sometimes they also plant a few fruit trees, providing them­­selves with fruit: pears, apples, cherries, etc. The importance of огород can not be underestimated. If not for the огороды, during the Soviet era and post-Soviet collapse millions of people would not have made it: literally, they would probably have starved to death. Statistics show that, for example, in Soviet times, the individual plots of land made up around 30% of arable land, whereas колхозная земля (factory farm land) was over 70% of the arable land, and yet «колхозные земли производили меньше, чем пятьдесят процентов овощей» “factory farm lands produced less than 50% of [the country's] vegetables!” The difference is startling, no?!

Many wonder how such a difference in crop yield could be explained?? There are some theories on that account that circulate. The one I like the most is the theory of “love energy.” It states that all is energy, and where we put loving energy, there life flourishes, in all its manifestations and forms, because love is the only energy that sustains life. Plants also feel it, and respond to this energy accordingly. So, on individual plots of land people tend to their plants with love, and so they respond with magnificent yields. Whereas on factory farm land all is обезличено depersonalized. Machines are in charge of everything, and so the plants are not used to their full potential. In J. Redfield's "The Celestine Prophecy" it talks a lot about it. Recently, I also discovered the long-time Russian best-seller "Anastasia: Ringing Cedars of Russia" series, where they also talk extensively on the subject. I learned about this series from an interview with L. Sharashkin, which is amazing in its content; when I listened to it, it was eye-opening in a lot of ways to me: after that interview I wanted so much to read the "Anastasia..." books. I found them on-line, and, amazingly, it also talked a lot about the "plant issue"!

Anyway, to finish off my contribution, I would say that up to this day Russians are very fond of their land plots, and grow (with love!) a significant share of their food supply on their private plots, огород. BTW, those огород vegetables are millions times more delicious than vegetables we sometimes eat from factory farms!

Every once in a while Russian throws you something so absurd that you just can't believe it, and today we'll see it in the slang phrase бум-бум which means "don't/doesn't understand":

Notice that in this phrase we write ни and not не. That's because ни бум-бум is really the equivalent of ничего, not the equivalent of a verb.

If you're in the mood for a pop song that contains the phrase бум-бум in this meaning, take a look at this video and translation of the song «Бум, бум, бум» by the group Любовные истории.