- You know more than 30 Olgas, Annas and Natashas.
- You are familiar with Cheburashka, Baba Yaga, Eralash, Ded Moroz and Snegurochka
- If you don’t know how to play Durak which is a card game loosely translated as “fool,” you can be disinherited.
- You can't have a boyfriend when you are 17 but you have to be married at 18. It’s a tragedy if you’re 25 and single.
- Someone is talking and you sneeze, it means they’re saying the truth.
- You eat Smetana (sour cream) with absolutely everything. When you got sunburned, you put Smetana on your burns. And you re-use old sour cream containers as “tupperware”
- At one point in your life, you had a carpet hanging on your wall
- If a fork, spoon or a knife falls on the ground, someone's going to visit you
- When anything could be cured by Zelyonka (brilliant green), Smetana (Sour Cream), Vodka or Tea. And we mean..anything..
- You make a wish while sitting between two people with the same name
- You never leave an empty bottle on the table
- You consider Plombir to be the best ice-cream in the world
- You celebrate Christmas on January 7th. And you have a second opportunity to celebrate the New Year, which falls on January 14th
- You don't ever sit on the corner of the table because that means you'll get married only in 10 years
- If you didn’t finish your babushka’s seven course meal including salads, potatoes, fish, meat, soup, more meat, and finally desert, it meant you don’t love her.
- If a bird defecates on you or your property (your car), it’s good luck, and may bring you money!
- If you put your clothes on backwards, you will be punched.
- Your name has a special short form which sounds nowhere close to your real name (for example, Alexander – Sasha, Leonid – Lenya, Vladimir – Vova, Vyacheslav – Slava)
- You were practically born in high heels
- If you oversalt something, it means you are in love
- You talk for an hour at the front door when leaving someone's house.
- You can only gift purses with money in them
- You eat a lot of cabbage so your boobs grow
- You giggle at Russian accents in American movies
- You say "let's meet at 9″; you actually mean "I'll wake up at 9, take a shower, eat, watch tv and meet you at 12″.
- When you get sick, your parents will always find a reason why it happened.
- You can make Pierogis (baked or fried dumplings) in 18 different flavours.
- You never kill a spider at home.
- You sing at every party you go to
- You sit in silence with your eyes shut for a few moments before leaving on any long journey.
- You know what “grechka” (buckwheat) is
- When your relatives are the only people who can pronounce your last name
- When knocking on wood you add a symbolic three spits over one’s left shoulder and knock three times as well. Traditionally one was spitting on the devil (who is always on the left).
- When olivier salad, kholodets (meat jelly) and salo (cured slabs of fatback) are served almost with every celebretionary dinner.
- When you know a perfect cure for hangover - pickle (rassol).
- You never demonstrate something negative using yourself or someone else as the object. For example, when describing a scar you never show it on your own face or someone else’s.
- When you can’t drink without a toast
- You are silent until the success has been achieved or even sound pessimistic. Because talking about future success (bragging) can bring bad luck.
- When your phone has a ringtone of the Russian National Anthem
- If you return home for forgotten things it is a bad omen, and you should look in the mirror before leaving the house again, otherwise the journey will be bad.
- When you know, without any shadow of a doubt that any other cartoon, is pure bullshit compared to the Russian Classics.
- You never whistle indoors as it would bring misfortune to the household.
- When you're eternally bruised if people call pelmeni are ravioli
- You only give women an odd number of flowers, since even numbers are for the dead.
- When you eat open-faced sandwiches made of rye bread, butter, and sliced soft sausage for breakfast. And it makes for a perfect match with a cup of black tea!
- When you know what the words “kuz’kina mat', yolki palki, obaldet’, kto tam...cto gram” mean (untranslatable)
- You change into tapki (slippers) and wash your hands as soon as you walk into your apartment.
- You wear a wool hat in the sauna (excuse us, the banya), where you are going for business meetings with your colleagues.
- When you drink Russia Cola!
…To be continued
