The Russian word for Moscow is Москва. It's а perfectly regular second declension noun:

Now if you are a foreigner and you want to prove how stupid an American is, simply ask “What is the name of the main river that runs through Moscow?” Sadly, most Americans will probably look at you like a deer caught in headlights and say “Idunno.” (I'm sitting in my favorite coffee shop as I type this entry, and I just tried that question on the barista. He was stumped.) It's funny. Sometimes American education produces profoundly well-rounded and insightful people, but when it comes to geography almost all Americans come up short.

So for my American readers I should point out that the main river that runs through Moscow is called… are you ready for this?… the Moscow River! (Москва-река in Russian, always hyphenated.)

A little while ago I wrote about words that can have multiple meanings because of their use in Russian slang. The verb «ломать» as well as its reflexive form «ломаться» are also such words.

The main meaning of this verb is “to break”. However, someone could say меня ломает to express a feeling of withdrawal after using drugs or when being sick and running high fever. Consequently, the word for withdrawals is «ломка».

There is also a rather well used idiom using this verb: «ломать себе голову». It means to puzzle or rack one's brains over something.

The reflexive form, ломаться, means to quit working or functioning.

However, ломаться can also mean, “crack” when referencing changes in a young’s man’s voice.

Also, ломаться has two other meanings in Russian slang. The first one is to "put on airs, while the second one is to "stubbornly refuse to concede".

Here's a video from Kira Muratova's movie. Her movies are always very unique. More often than not the main character is played by Renata Litvinova, who is the queen of putting on airs.

If you would like to see a transcript and translation of this clip, click here.

If you want to say that you met someone for the first time in such-and-such a place, then the verb to use is знакомиться/познакомиться, which is conjugated like this:

The verb can express the idea that two people met in two different ways. Either a) one person is the subject of the verb and the other is the object of the preposition с + instrumental, or b) they can both be part of the subject of the verb. Thus if Lyudmila wants to say that she met Gleb last year, she may use either of these sentences:

Other examples:

This verb cannot be used to say “I met Tanya at the airport” in the sense of “I went to the aiport to pick her up.” For that meaning you have to use the verb встречать/встретить, which we will discuss in the weeks to come.

Note the вы imperative познакомьтесь: to see a discussion of it's usage, see this blog entry.

Why is it that complicated words in a language never cause problems, but simple words do? I mean, no foreigner who studies Russian ever messes up a sentence with the phrase дезоксирибонуклеиновая кислота in it, but Americans who speak Russian misuse the word класс all the time.¹ Let's get to the heart of the matter. First of all, the word класс has multiple meanings that we will address over the next couple of weeks. Today we'll start with its most physical meaning, which is classroom, like the classrooms you find in a grade school or high school:

The trouble with the word for college-age Americans comes from the English usage “I am going to class.” In English the phrase means something like “I am about to attend the regularly scheduled event by which knowledge is passed on to me.” Even if your class is not meeting in a regular classroom, we still use the word class; for instance, “Today the professor is holding class in a conference room at the museum.” The sentence «Я иду в класс» means “I am going to the classroom.” It does NOT mean “I am going to class” in the normal English meaning. For that purpose one says “Я иду на занятия.” Notice that занятия is a neuter plural noun, but despite its plurality we will usually translate it as a singular in English, although sometimes the plural sounds okay as well:

¹ Дезоксирибонуклеиновая кислота = deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)

In Russian when we want to express how light (in weight) something is we compare it to «пух», “down” or “fluff” or a piece of fluff, «пушинка».

Пух is a noun of masculine gender that has no plural form. The diminutive is пушок. There can be various adjectives formed from the word пух: пуховый or пуховой and пушистый. The first two mean something made out of down. There can be пуховое одеяло or пуховик, which is essentially a comforter or a пуховка, “down jacket”. However, the third adjective means ‘fluffy’ and is used to describe fur, hair or fabrics. A cat can also be пушистый. In fact, a very popular cat name is Пушок, which is sort of like Fuzzball or Fluffball. Interestingly enough, Winnie the Pooh in Russian is translated as Винни Пух. The reason for it might be just similar sounding Pooh and Пух; however, it fits well – Winnie is a fluffy toy!

Also, there is пухлый that describes someone chubby, often unhealthy; while пухленький is usually used in a positive sense, as an attractive quality.

There are various expressions and idioms in Russian that use пух. For example, instead of saying “good luck”, we say, «Hи пуха, ни пера!» “neither down nor feather!” If you think this is weird, check this out! The standard response to this is «К чёрту!» “To devil!” Even though it doesn’t make much sense, I feel better, when someone says it to me before my exams.

Another good one is «в пух и прах». This idiom means “to the maximum”, “completely” or “utterly”.

Lastly, «рыльце в пушку» “snout in down/feathers” means that someone is not as innocent as they try to appear, just like “have a finger in a pie”. This idiom comes from a fable about a fox that wanted to appear innocent but its muzzle was covered with chicken feathers.

When I was little I really liked different riddles. I remember one time in class in elementary school our teacher decided to have a tricky question hour. Whoever would answer the most riddles would get a prize. It is funny that the question that got me my prize was very easy, “what is heavier: a kilogram of nails of a kilogram of down?” However, no one in my class seemed to know the answer right away. I remember I got up and said, «Они весят одинаково - один килограмм!», “they weigh the same – one kilogram!”… I couldn’t be prouder of myself that day!

¹ Don comments: Although “What a cute, chubby baby!” is an accurate translation of the Russian sentence, I should warn Russian readers never to call an American baby fat or chubby. The parents will be offended.