What slang do Russians use for ‘money’?

‘Krovniye’ (“earned with blood”), ‘Trudoviye’ (“earned with labor”) or even an entire phrase, signifying anything “earned with backbreaking labor”, is a nationwide favorite to use in conjunction with the subject of money. 

“Everyone in Russia wants to get rich, but hates rich people,” writer Tatyana Tolstaya claims. “Money, in the national consciousness of a Russian, is evil - but a very coveted kind of evil.” 

A still from 'Ivan Vasiliyevich: Back to the Future'

Money has its own role in the Russian cultural code. The stress over the lack of it, as well as envy and hatred for the rich, are both important aspects of everyday life, literature, cinema and beyond. Numerous Dostoyevsky novels revolve around its capacity to lead to murder. A usurer, meanwhile, was seen as an evil incarnate. An entire folk tradition around money emerged: you’ll often see it in the rich tapestry of sayings Russians have about money. A lot of them typically revolve around the idea that a smart man is an economical one or reassure us that true happiness lies elsewhere. 

Meanwhile, Russian also has numerous spoken substitutes for the word ‘money’ itself. 

‘Rubles’

Boris Kustodiev. Merchant (old man counting his money). Reproduction

This is an obvious one, given that it’s the name of the Russian currency. But, we don’t just use it for stating the price - it’s also a way to emphasize the type of currency. ‘Rubles’ is a full-fledged synonym for money: “Lyubov ne prodash’ za rubli” (“You can’t sell love for rubles”).

Many Russian banknotes have their own folk nicknames, a lot of which migrated from the criminal underworld.

• 10 rubles  – ‘Chirik’ (or the outdated ‘Chervonets’)
• 100 rubles – ‘Storublyovka’ (or ‘Katenka’, as they used to say in the old days, when Catherine the Great’s likeness still graced Russia’s banknotes).
• 500 rubles – ‘Poltonny’, ‘Pyatak’, ‘Pyatihatka’ (another possible one is ‘pyat-kat’ - basically, ‘five 100-ruble notes’).
• 1,000 rubles – ‘Shtuka’ (a slang term for a single unit of anything) or ‘Kosar’ (from the word ‘kosaya’, because in the early Soviet years, the inscription on it was “slanted”, as is the meaning of the word).
• 1 million rubles – ‘Limon’ (‘lemon’, most likely a play on the word ‘million’). The word appeared in the 1920s).

‘Cabbage’

A still from a joint Yugoslav-Soviet film 'Aleksa Dundić' (1958)

‘Kapusta’ – or ‘cabbage’– used to be merchant slang at one point in history and there are suspicions that it might have come from the Germans, who used to claim that a cross-section view of a wad of banknotes resembled cabbage. The Soviet days saw an uptick in the use of the word. Since the 1950s, prison and criminal world slang – or simply the street kind – became public property, firmly implanting itself in the Russian language (possibly due to the prisoners from labor colonies returning en masse). In 1980, late Soviet writer Sergey Dovlatov wrote: “The word ‘kapusta’ used to be a usurer’s expression.” 

In the 1990s, at the height of the emergence of new financial and trade relations, the word got a new lease on life, often used to refer to U.S. Dollars. The expression “rubit’ kapustu” – “chopping cabbage” - became slang for earning money. 

‘Babki’, ‘bablo’

Soviet banknotes and coins

These words were likewise popular in the 1990s, with ‘bablo’ being shorthand for ‘babki’, which is really the informal slang for ‘babushki’ – ‘grandmothers’. The pair was often used by the Russian nouveau riches – ‘New Russians’, as they used to be called here: Russians who’d only just made a killing, thanks to some business idea. “To sell oneself for bablo”, “to only think about babki” and other metaphors for selling out have become ubiquitous in the Russian cultural lexicon. ‘Bablo’, in such scenarios, is money that is made illegally.  

As for ‘babka’ – i.e. ‘babushka’ – there are a number of possible versions about the connection to money. One posits that the slang originated in gambling, wherein one had to literally knock down figures by rolling the bones… and, by the way, the Russian word for ‘dice’ is ‘kosti’ - literally, ‘bones’; and we also have the expression “zashibat’ babki”, in which ‘zashibat’ means both - “to knock down” and “to earn/to toil”. 

Another version claims that the origins are similar to those of ‘katenka’ - the 100-ruble banknote. You see, “babka” can also be a slightly derogatory term, along the lines of “old hag” and, by extension - a slang term for ‘woman’. So, it’s believed, again, to be in reference to Catherine the Great’s likeness, depicted on 18th-century money.   

‘Laveh’

Big money. Leningrad in the early 1990s

‘Laveh’ (‘лавэ’) is believed by some to come from the English word ‘love’. A more compelling version, however, is that ‘laveh’ arrived to us from the Romani minorities, who were no strangers to participating in all manner of fun and entertainment in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The word regained some popularity in the 1990s-2000s. 

Russians have also managed to create their own add-ons, such as the pleasant-sounding ‘lavanda’, literally meaning ‘lavender’. 

‘Green’, ‘Bucks’

A still from Lopuhi (2009) movie by Sarik Andreasyan

The 1990s saw a massive influx of foreign currency into the country - mainly, U.S. Dollars, which took on the nickname ‘zelen’ - literally ‘greens/greenery’ (something you would use to denote either green veggies or beautiful green nature).

Russians also took a liking to the American-made ‘bucks’ used to describe wads of cash.