The word огород means a chunk of land near your house where you grow vegetables, in other words a vegetable garden, although in English we usually just say garden. It might also have berries and apples, but it's essential to have either vegetables or greens. It's a perfectly regular 1st declension noun.

Omigosh, but the Russians love their gardens. If they have a дача, then in the summer months they get out of town and raise as much food as they possibly can. If you'd like to see some pictures of a real Russian garden, take a look here.

My language partner, Alan, and I went to an exhibition of exotic fish at one of the museums on ул. Кремлёвская. That set me thinking about aquariums. The word is fairly straight forward in Russian.

Of course the first thing I wanted to do was discuss the difference between fresh-water aquariums and salt-water aquariums, and I translated those phrases word for word into Russian. Wrong. You can't literally say ‘fresh-water aquarium’ in Russian; instead you have to say ‘an aquarium with fresh-water fish’ or ‘an aquarium with salt-water fish.’

This article would not be complete without mentioning the legendary rock band «Аквариум». Of their music I especially love the song “Rock and roll's dead, but I'm not... yet.” You can listen to it and read the words and translation here.

My language partner and I went to see «Президент Линкольн: охотник на вампиров» together, and when we sat down I thought he said to me, «Спусти этот хрен», which literally means “Lower that horseradish.” I was confused. I had misheard him. He actually said, «Спусти эту хрень» “Lower that thingamabob,” by which he meant the armrest between the seats. Here's how the word declines.

The word is what we might call substandard speech. It's very conversational, not suitable for academic reading. It's probably also a euphemism for the vulgar meaning of хрен. But the version with the soft sign you can use in front of your mom and grandma without them getting too upset. Take a look at the entry on the phrase «вот это самое» for a synonym. Here are some examples.

The word is also used to mean a useless thing or junk or worthless comment.

I'm back in Russia and I have a new language partner, Alan.¹ The first day we got together, we ended up walking 13 km around Kazan; call it 8 miles. Now mind you, I've hardly gotten any exercise at all this last year. So what happens when you have hardly walked at all and suddenly you walk mucho? You get blisters. The Russian word for blister is мозоль.

Of course you often find this word in contexts about walking.

So why do these things pop up?

I was actually embarrassed to get blisters, but it looks like I'm in good company.

Nowadays what is the standard advice if you get a blister?

That's sort of the standard advice from both Russian and American sources. I consider it hogwash. Let's say you take a needle and sterilize it and the surface of your skin decently with alcohol. If you lance dead skin, your skin is not likely to be infected. When the liquid squeezes out, most likely infection isn't going to be sucked in. In any case, that's what I've done, and I promise to post here if I get infected.

One last comment. If you look up the word blister in the dictionary, you are likely to find it translated as волдырь. Dictionaries really need to give better guidance on this issue. If a blister forms from exposure to intense heat or cold or caustic chemicals or insect bites, then the Russians usually call that a волдырь. One that forms on your foot from friction is a мозоль. But a мозоль can also just be a plain old callus on your foot as well. If you need to distinguish the two in Russian, you can call a callus «кожная мозоль» and a blister «мокрая мозоль».

¹ No, that is not a Russian name, but if the singer Prince (not Prince Harry) can change his name to an unpronounceable symbol, then why can't a Russian/Tatar kid go by Alan?

A word from English that has invaded Russian over the last umpteen years is фреш. It seems to have a couple of meanings. McDonald's in Russia seems to think they can call something фреш if the just throw a leaf of lettuce on it. Thus we have the Двойной Фреш Макмаффин™ Double Fresh McMuffin™

and the Фреш Ролл™ Fresh Roll™

That's a pretty cheesy use of the word fresh in my view.

But the word is incredibly widely used to mean freshly squeezed juices, which technically in Russian is said свежевыжатые соки. Lots of Russian restaurants do this now. If you want apple juice, they'll just throw an apple in a juicer for you and Bob's your uncle. If you want lemon juice, they'll throw in a lemon. For instance:

You'll find фреш used a lot of other ways too. For instance, you can find a restaurant called Фреш Суши. Pears with crème fraîche can be called груши с крем-фрешем. I've even seen fresh birch sap referred to as берёзовый фреш. If you readers come across other interesting uses. Do post a comment below.