From the section “Pictures of the Russian language and everyday life”
in the book “Linguisms – 2”
From various sources
FROM N. S. KHRUSHCHEV’S DIPLOMATIC “PREARS”
“We will show you Kuzka’s mother!” On June 24, 1959, while inspecting the American exhibition in Sokolniki, Khrushchev told US Vice President R. Nixon: “We have at our disposal means that will have grave consequences for you. (...) We’ll show you Kuzka’s mother!” The translator, in confusion, translated the phrase verbatim*: “We’ll also show you Kuzma’s mother!” The Americans were dumbfounded: what is this? A new weapon, even more formidable than a nuclear missile?” The phrase was repeated by Khrushchev in the report of the CPSU Central Committee to the 22nd Party Congress on October 17, 1961.
______________________________
* It is always extremely difficult to translate national idioms and even synchronously without prior preparation into another language. Possible more or less adequate translation options in this case could be: “We'll teach you a good lesson yet!”, “We'll give you your gruel yet!”, “We'll give you a good dressing down ( thrashing, beating) yet!” etc., i.e. convey the general meaning of the expression: “teach a lesson,” “give a beating,” “scold,” etc. A.T.
***
Cafe, a group of teenagers is crowding around the counter. The saleswoman tells them:
- Move away from the counter!
-Who did you call these suckers?!
WHAT LANGUAGE DOES HE SPEAK?
...At one event a foreign guest speaker speaks. He speaks in not very good Russian, often greatly distorting the words, but, in general, it is understandable. A mother is sitting in the hall with a child of five or six years old, who, having listened carefully to the speaker, some time later pulls the mother and says: “Mom, what language does he speak?” Mom sternly shushes him so as not to make noise, but explains that the uncle speaks Russian. A minute passes, the boy again asks his mother: “Mom, what language do we speak?”
A.Kim
***
People who lead round dances are round dances,
and people who study the creativity of round dances -
choir dancers...
***
If one dollar is a “buck”,
then one ruble is “babka”?
RUSSIAN
(an attempt at a collection of some traditional historical socio-linguistic more or less established cliches-epithets, compiled completely haphazardly as they came to mind due to my somewhat well-read, but rather leaky memory, but beginning and ending with “speech” and “language” – key defining elements of the character of any people, their soul, history and culture)
Russian (and also accordingly), Russian, Russian, Russians:
Speech, character, vodka, tea, women, bone, sloppiness, maybe, laziness, ballet, folklore, birch tree, open spaces, steppe, winter, patience, cuisine, customs, fairy tales, literature, music, man, man, pickles, proverbs and sayings, traditions, gems, beauty, people, dialect, faith, accent, soul, feast, forest, nature, hero, spirit, roller coaster, roulette, snack, mafia, woman, question, painting, revolution, poetry, type, oven, dance, language...
A.T.
***
A man puts his son to bed. And the son points to an antique checker on the wall and asks:
- Dad, what is this?
- Saber.
- What the hell?
- Sleep, damn it!!!
***
- What would be better:
to Ukraine or to Ukraine?
- Better to go to Switzerland!
***
There is an opinion that the word “vobla” originated
from the surprised exclamation of the fisherman.
***
Lieutenant Rzhevsky plays in the play
officers' theater "Woe from Wit" by Chatsky:
“I’m not a rider here anymore... Hmmm, not a rider...
Hmmm, not a rider... Ah, fuck you all!
Give me a carriage, a carriage!”
***
At one time I wanted to marry a black man,
but I was still embarrassed - I don’t know the Negro language...
Reviews
Thank you, dear Tatyana!
They say that when a person laughs heartily, takes a steam bath, looks into the eyes of a loved one (probably this is where we should start), spends time at sea, in the forest, in nature in general, doing what he loves, then time seems to stop for him, even at such moments does not count towards his age.
Wishing you endless youth!
Sincerely,
Albert
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One of the most prominent Soviet leaders, Nikita Khrushchev, was born exactly 124 years ago - on April 17, 1894. In people's memory, he remained a sharp-tongued master of the folk word. He successfully brought his peasant humor into foreign policy, shocking foreign leaders and confounding their translators.
Having burst into international politics, Khrushchev looked eccentric compared to the cold-blooded diplomats of the Soviet school. He did not mince his words, entering into discussions with ideological opponents without hesitation. He was emotional and did not restrain himself in his expressions. And maybe that’s why Western leaders treated him with trust, which ultimately made it possible to bring the world out of the threat of nuclear war, which could have broken out as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962.
“We will bury you!”
In November 1956, Khrushchev became embarrassed in a conversation with American diplomats in Moscow. The Soviet leader led a discussion about the irreconcilable contradictions between the capitalist and socialist systems. He wanted to quote Marx’s thesis that socialism is the gravedigger of capitalism, but instead he came out with the phrase “We will bury you.”
Khrushchev liked this expression, and he repeated it again at a meeting with foreign journalists in September 1959. These words went down in history, later transforming into “we will bury you.”
There is a legend that Khrushchev, during his speech at the 15th UN Assembly, threatened Western countries with “Kuzya’s mother” and translators translated these words unknown to them as “Kuzya’s mother.” Subsequently, another translation option appeared - “we will bury you.” In fact, the head of the USSR then promised at the UN to prepare “the grave of colonial slavery.” But the expression “Kuzka’s mother” entered the political lexicon for a long time, as a synonym for the atomic bomb and the aggressive policy of the USSR.
"Mother Kuzi"
According to the recollections of translator Viktor Sukhodrev, Khrushchev first used this expression in 1959 in Moscow before US Vice President Richard Nixon at the opening of the first American exhibition. In the heat of the argument, the Soviet leader promised Nixon that the Soviet Union would catch up and surpass America, and, they say, in general: “We will show you Kuzka’s mother!” The translator was taken aback by surprise and uttered an awkward phrase about Kuzma’s mother. The Americans did not understand what was meant then.
Khrushchev repeated the expression he liked during his visit to the United States in the same 1959. He drove around Los Angeles, looked at his full life and again remembered Kuzka and his mother. And again he confused the translators, but this time he himself came to their rescue. “Why are you translators suffering? I just want to say that we will show America something it has never seen!” said the head of the USSR.
During that significant visit to the USA, Khrushchev enriched his vocabulary with more than one catchphrase. Considering himself an expert in agriculture, he visited an experimental pig farm in Iowa. One representative of the host party presented the Soviet leader with a figurine of a pig. Which Lavrov jokes went down in the history of diplomacy?
“Look: a wonderful American pig. But it has all the properties of a Soviet pig. The American pig and the Soviet pig - I am convinced that they can coexist together. So why can’t the people of the Soviet Union and America coexist in this case?” Khrushchev asked.
At that time, the eccentric head of the USSR was generally friendly. Khrushchev asked one American senator whom he liked: “Where are you from?” - “From Minneapolis.” Khrushchev walked up to the world map, circled Minneapolis with a pencil and said: “This is so that I don’t forget that this city must survive when our missiles fly.”
“We have enough missiles!”
The international situation was deteriorating, the world was heading towards the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Khrushchev’s jokes became increasingly gloomy. In 1959, the Soviet leader told US Central Intelligence Agency chief Alan Dulles: “I think we are getting the same information and perhaps from the same people.”
During his only meeting with US President John Kennedy, which took place on June 4, 1961 in Vienna, Khrushchev managed to cut down the young and charismatic American leader. The owner of the White House said: “We have enough missiles to destroy you (USSR) thirty times.” To this Khrushchev calmly replied: “We only have enough for one time, but that’s enough for us.”
“And if we had not conceded, maybe America would have conceded more? May be so. But it could have been like a children's fairy tale when two goats met on a crossbar in front of an abyss. They showed goat wisdom, and both fell into the abyss,” Khrushchev responded to criticism then.
Ilya Erenburg is a Soviet writer who published the story “The Thaw” in 1954, which gave its name to the period in the socio-political development of the country. With the beginning of the “thaw,” many political prisoners were released, and peoples deported in the 30s and 40s were allowed to return to their homeland.
The "Thaw" also manifested itself in the condemnation of Stalin's personality cult and the weakening of censorship, primarily in literature, cinema and other forms of art. Some literary works of this period, such as "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Solzhenitsyn and "Not by Bread Alone" by Vladimir Dudintsev, became famous in the West.
The main films of the “thaw” were “Carnival Night” by Eldar Ryazanov, “I Walk Through Moscow” by Georgy Daneliya, “Welcome, or No Trespassing” by Elem Klimov.
Kuzka's mother's anniversary
In 2009, the famous “Kuzka’s mother” turned 50 years old. On June 24, 1959, thanks to Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, the whole world learned about the existence of this powerful woman.
This happened during the visit of Vice President Richard Nixon to Moscow. While examining the American exposition in Sokolniki, Nikita Khrushchev decided to discuss Soviet-American relations with Nixon and unexpectedly uttered a phrase that shocked the translators: “We’ll show you Kuzka’s mother!”
According to one version, the American translator was taken aback by surprise and translated his words literally - “Kuzma’s mother.” Nixon never understood what the Soviet leader meant.
According to another version, the American translator translated Khrushchev’s phrase somewhat differently: We will show you what is what! (“We’ll show you what’s what!”).
After this, a myth spread that the Americans considered “Mother of Kuzma” to be a new top-secret weapon of the Soviet Union. And indeed, over time, Soviet nuclear scientists began to call their products “Kuzka’s mother.”
However, according to Nikita Khrushchev’s son, honorary professor at Brown University in the USA, Sergei Khrushchev, the expression “I’ll show you Kuzka’s mother!” was uttered by Khrushchev not so much to intimidate those present, but to mock the translators.
The next time the world heard this idiom was during the UN session on September 23, 1960. As American newspapers wrote, the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee hit the podium with his shoe and shouted threateningly to the American delegation: “I’ll show you Kuzka’s mother!”
The New York Times published on the front page a photograph of Soviet leader Khrushchev with a shoe in his hands and the comment: “Russia threatens the world again, this time with the shoe of its leader.”
Later, the “old-timers” of the UN admitted that the Soviet leader knocked his shoes not from the podium, but from his place in the hall, and not in order to intimidate anyone, but to demand the floor.
This is how the son of the Soviet leader Sergei Khrushchev describes it in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta: “When Nikita Sergeevich entered the hall, journalists surrounded him on all sides, and one of the journalists stepped on his heel, and because of this, the shoe, or rather "sandal" fell off. Khrushchev did not put it on, since it was inconvenient for a fat man to bend over and try to put on shoes in front of the cameras. He left and sat down in his place, and the employees brought him the shoe, covered it with a napkin and placed it in front of him.
At this time, a representative of the Philippines spoke and carelessly said that the peoples of Eastern Europe themselves are in the role of colonized countries. And then there was a real outcry: a Romanian representative jumped out and started shouting at the Filipino. At this time, Khrushchev raised his hand, intending to take the floor, but the Irish ambassador presiding at the meeting did not see him.
Khrushchev waved with one hand, the other, and then took his sandal and waved it, then, as I think, he knocked on his table with it and was finally noticed."
"Khrushchebs"
The first “Khrushchev buildings” - panel and brick three- and five-story houses - appeared during the reign of Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev and were intended as a temporary solution to the housing problem that worsened after the war. The buildings were designed to last 25 years, but some of them are still in good technical condition.
The world's first "Khrushchev buildings" were installed in the late 40s under the leadership of the Soviet scientist, developer of air-raid shelters, Konstantin Ivanovich Bashlay. The houses he created helped millions of families, who had previously lived in barracks and communal apartments, finally find a separate apartment. For his breakthrough in panel construction, Bashlay was awarded the Stalin Prize.
From 1959 to 1985, “Khrushchev” buildings accounted for about 10 percent of the country’s total housing stock, writes regions.ru. The apartments of such houses did not have spacious rooms, the ceiling height was only 2.5 m. In addition, such houses had poor sound insulation of the internal walls and there were no elevators. However, they were available to ordinary Soviet families.
Over time, due to the unremarkable appearance of the “Khrushchev-era” houses, they were popularly called “Khrushchev” (from the word “slum”), and because of their low thermal insulation, these houses began to be called “Khrushchev’s refrigerators”.
“Khrushchev refrigerators” were also called special built-in closet-type cabinets for storing food. They were located under the kitchen window of a brick Khrushchev-era apartment building and during the cold season they replaced the refrigerator.
"Nikita the corn grower"
This year, the American state of Iowa is celebrating the anniversary of one of the most significant events in the history of Russian-American relations. In September 1959, Nikita Khrushchev came here as part of his first official trip to the United States.
Seeing the vast corn fields, Khrushchev began to teach Iowa farmers how to plant corn correctly: according to him, Americans plant too thickly and the plants do not turn out as tall as they should be.
After this trip, corn fields began to be enthusiastically cultivated throughout the European part of the USSR, and Khrushchev acquired the nickname “Nikita the Corn Farmer.” The luckiest ones were the farmers of the American outback, who received a large order for the bred corn seeds and advanced technologies for sowing them.
The material was prepared by the editors of rian.ru based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources
The most popular myths about Khrushchev are stories about how the Secretary General promised to show Kuzkin his mother to the West and knocked his shoe on the podium at a meeting of the UN General Assembly. However, these stories contain more fiction than real facts. On October 12, 1960, the most stormy and sensational meeting of the UN General Assembly actually took place. And Khrushchev’s speech was the most emotional, but in reality everything did not happen quite as it was later written in the newspapers. 
The promise to show Kuzkin's mother and the episode with the shoe took place in reality, but these were two different stories. In 1959, the American National Exhibition was held in Sokolniki. US Vice President Richard Nixon attended its opening to demonstrate the achievements of capitalist economy. A clear example was the model of a typical cottage, in which one of the walls was missing, and viewers could see the details of the life of an average US citizen - a refrigerator, TV, washing machine and other household appliances and furniture. Khrushchev said that the USSR would soon catch up and surpass the United States in terms of living standards and, in general, “show everyone Kuzkin’s mother.” The translator hesitated with the interpretation of the “untranslatable play on words” and as a result chose the option of a literal translation. "Kuzma's mother" has puzzled the Americans. 
For the second time, Khrushchev uttered his signature phrase during a visit to the United States in the same 1959. The Secretary General’s personal translator, Viktor Sukhodrev, described this incident as follows: “We were driving around Los Angeles, Nikita Sergeevich looked for a long time at the well-fed life around him, and then suddenly I remembered Kuzma and his mother again. Once again there was a problem with the translation, but then Khrushchev himself came to the rescue: “Why are you, translators, suffering? I just want to say that we will show America something that it has never seen!” 
And the following year the same 15th UN Assembly took place. In 1960, 17 African countries gained independence from their mother countries, and the topic of colonies was actively discussed at the meeting. Khrushchev made an emotional speech on this occasion, in which he denounced the colonialists. And after the Secretary General, a representative of the Philippines came to the podium and said that we should talk not only about those countries that remain under the yoke of Western colonial powers, but also about the countries of Eastern Europe, “swallowed by the Soviet Union.” 
In response to this remark, Khrushchev exploded. He raised his hand, demanding to be given the floor, but this gesture was either not noticed or ignored. And this is where the famous incident occurred. To attract attention, he pounded the table with his fist, but without getting a reaction, he began waving his shoe. One of the women serving the conference room that day later told how the Secretary General’s shoe came to be at his fingertips: “When Khrushchev had literally a step left to take to his place, one of the correspondents accidentally stepped on his heel, the shoe flew off . I quickly picked up the shoe, wrapped it in a napkin, and when Khrushchev sat down in his seat a moment later, I quietly handed him the bundle under the table. There is very little space between the seat and the table. And the heavyset Khrushchev could not bend over to the floor to put on or take off his shoes; his stomach got in the way. So he sat for the time being, turning his shoe under the table. Well, when he was outraged by the speech of another delegate, he, in a temper, began to bang on the table with an object that accidentally ended up in his hands. If he had held an umbrella or a cane then, he would have started banging with the umbrella or cane.” 
How it really happened... When Khrushchev stood up to the podium, he no longer had any boots in his hands. He waved his fist, but didn’t hit the podium with anything. The shoe in his hand that appeared later in the photo in some newspapers is nothing more than a photomontage. There is only one photograph in which the Secretary General is sitting in his place, and the shoe lies in front of him on the music stand. Khrushchev suggested to the Filipino “to take a spade and bury imperialism deeper,” and the newspapers later wrote: “An enraged Khrushchev hammers his boot on the podium of the UN General Assembly and shouts in a frenzy: “We will bury you!” And so the myth was born. 
... and how it was presented in the media.