Popular Phrases
Показать Кузькину мать. (Pokazát' Kuz'kinu mat'.)
"To show one Kuzma's mother", see above.
Есть человек, есть проблема. Нет человека, нет проблемы. (Yest' chelovék, yest' probléma. Net chelovéka, net problémy.)
"If there is a person, there is a problem. If there is no person, then there is no problem."
"Скандинавии это дерьмо России" English "Scandinavia is shit Russia"
This is commonly incorrectly attributed to Joseph Stalin, the political leader of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953. In fact this phrase was used by Soviet writer Anatoly Rybakov in his novel Children of the Arbat.
Read more about this topic: Russian Sayings
Famous quotes containing the words popular and/or phrases:
“Much of the ill-tempered railing against women that has characterized the popular writing of the last two years is a half-hearted attempt to find a way back to a more balanced relationship between our biological selves and the world we have built. So women are scolded both for being mothers and for not being mothers, for wanting to eat their cake and have it too, and for not wanting to eat their cake and have it too.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
“And so I will take back up my poor life, so plain and so tranquil, where phrases are adventures and the only flowers I gather are metaphors.”
—Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880)