From Russiya With Lyubov'yu

I (Emily) don’t speak Russian per se, but I can read it and understand it a little bit. This is because at the very outset of my relationship with my now- husband, I was very besotted and he was living in Moscow. Unlike in, say, Paris, the people you encounter in your quotidian consumer interactions in Moscow either don’t speak English or don’t want to, though I did have one memorable cafe interaction with a barista who watched me stumble through an order for chornyy chai and then asked me “Smol or lahj?” with perfect dispassionate bitchiness. Also, this was before you could swipe your debit card for everything, so imagine the horror of figuring out money. The lowest point was when I got yelled at for taking my boots off on the wrong bench at a yoga studio and I came home and cried. In the current geopolitical climate I don’t really recommend going to Moscow but, ego death aside, I had a great time there.

Many, many years later, I still don’t know Russian but I do know the Cyrillic alphabet well enough to understand it when authors interject it into their fics, which happens a lot! People are really out here learning Russian so their Ilyas can have better dialogue. I couldn’t help but wonder …. has all of HR been a Russian psy-op designed to make Americans so debilitatingly horny that we’re easy prey for invasion?

We decided to call in an expert (my husband) to weigh in on some of the Russian words and phrases that fic Ilya uses most often, and to give his opinion on whether it’s better to transliterate or use Cyrillic (transliterate!!) and also to put an end once and for all (we hope) to the use of “Shanya” as a diminutive.

• ну ебана - you prick – ok

• люблю’ (lyublyu) - love you – ok, also obozhayu

• Ты меня убьешь - you’re going to kill me – ok

• Ебать - fuck (but is it fuck or just fuck like the swear?) – more of a swear; the much more common verb for “to fuck” is trakhat’sya. You might say “budem trakhat’sya?,” “let’s fuck?”, or “ty tol’ko trakhat’sya hochesh’,” all you want to do is fuck

• Скучный - boring – ok

• Душа нараспашку - heart on your sleeve – ok

• Солнышко (solnyshko) - sunshine – yes, very common

• Мне жаль - I’m sorry – ok

• Дорогая - precious – ok

• Заткнись - shut up – yes

• Котёнок - kitten – yes

• Пидорас - f-slur – yes

• Любовь - love as term of endearment – correct but rare

• Дорогой - darling – yes

• Зайка, Зайчик - bunny (Nikki hates this one except in drag hunt) – very common

• Щенок - puppy, kinda degrading – yes

• Сокровище - treasure – yes

• ты мой - you’re mine – da

• Хозяин - owner (masc) – da

• Господин - master as in bdsm – don’t know about bdsm but yes it means “sir”

• Шлюха - slut – yes

• Soplyak - brat – not quite, it’s literally “snot-face,” so someone very young

• Хороший мальчик - good boy – yes

Additional Questions:

-Cyrillic better or no? – worse

-Ilya. Ilyusha. Ilyushenka. Ilyushenkechka. Which? All? – the middle two!

-same with Shanya etc. – no. The Russian spelling would be Sheyn, so it would become Sheynchik [masculine], Sheynochka [feminine!], maybe even Sheynok [like the word for “puppy”]

-”The word for masochist is almost the same in Russian as it is in English. That’s part of the reason Ilya knew what Shane was from the jump.” Is this accurate – yes, they are the same word. Masokhist.