5 Russian words to use instead of swearing
Imagine you hit your pinky toe on a chair leg, but your boss is nearby, so you can't let your emotions out and express your pain with cursing and obscene language. Well, you’re in luck, because Russian is very rich with all kinds of euphemisms!
1. ‘Blin’ (‘блин’)
Keep in mind this word. Russians use it in all possible situations, both negative and positive. Actually, it’s the most popular and legal alternative to the Russian b-word (a kind of English f-word, but considered much more rude and not at all accepted in public). Interestingly, 'blin' is actually a pancake…!
2. ‘Chort’ (‘чёрт’)
'Chort' literally means the devil. This word is considered a little more rude than blin, because Russians are very superstitious and vainly mentioning God or the devil is not very welcomed. However, you can hear many Russians saying this word more often than not. And frequently this way: “Chort-chort-chort-chort-chort!”
There is even a verb 'chertykhatsya' (‘чертыхаться’), which means saying 'chort' too much!
3. ‘Yoshkin kot’ (‘ёшкин кот’)
This expression has deep folk roots. ‘Kot’ is actually a cat. While ‘yoshkin’ is most likely related to Baba-yaga, an old witch from Russian fairy tales. Sometimes, she is called ‘Babka-yozhka’. Indeed, in some tales, she had an evil or magic cat.
In the Russian city of Yoshkar-Ola, even a monument dedicated to ‘yoshkin cat’ (however, they spelled it not ‘ёшкин’, but ‘йошкин’, referring to the city name ‘Йошкар-Ола’).
4. ‘Yoprst’ (‘ёпрст’) or ‘yoklmn’ (‘ёклмн’)
Actually, there are many banned curse words in Russian, starting with letter ‘ё’ (which should be pronounced as ‘yo’, like in yogurt). So, don’t try to look for logic here. This is not an abbreviation, as many might think. This is just a set of letters. In the Cyrillic alphabet both sets of consonants stay in order one after one: ‘прст’ and ‘клмн’. And instead of using the right vowels in front of them, Russians use ‘ё’. So, it’s not ‘иклмн’ and ‘опрст’, but ‘ёклмн’ and ‘ёпрст’.
5. ‘Blyakha-mukha’ (‘бляха-муха’)
This phrase sounds very rude, however, as Gramota.ru (Грамота.ру) emphasizes, it is not a curse phrase. It's a perfect example of an euphemism and, at the same time, of something just sounding like a bad word, but not being it.
‘Blyakha’ is actually a belt buckle, while ‘mukha’ translated in Russian as ‘a fly’. There are many legends and jokes on how this expression was born, but all of them sound quite fantastic. Most likely, it’s just another similar sounding word to the notorious Russian b-word!
