The common Russian word for Mexico is Мексика, while the official name is Мексиканские Соединённые Штаты ‘The Mexican United States.’ Russian Wikipedia defines Мексика as «государство в Северной Америке, граничащее на севере с США» “a state in North America that shares a border on the north with the USA.” A Mexican man is мексиканец and a Mexican woman is мексиканка. Notice that names of nationalities are not capitalized in Russian. The language of Mexico is not мексиканский язык but испанский язык. Gosh, I wonder if there are any other countries where the name of language does not match the name of the country…

The name of Mexico City in Russian is Мехико. Curious, eh? The country is a feminine noun and declines. The capitol city does not decline and, despite its ending in -о, is masculine in gender, as you can see in this sentence «Мехикo был основан в 1325 году индейцами-ацтеками» “Mexico was founded in 1325 by the Aztec Indians” (Russian Wikipedia).

One of the great things about living in Arizona is you can make quick trips to Mexico. «В субботу мы ездили в Ногалес» “On Saturday we went to Nogales.” «Смотри, какую крутую татуировку мне сделали в Ногалесе!» “Look at the cool tatoo I got in Nogales!”