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Friday, October 24, 2025

Important Russian concepts: vranyo, lozh, muzhik, kormushka, nichevo

I'd translate vranyo as either a tall tale or bullshit. Vranyo are obvious lies to both the speaker and the listener, but which serve the purpose of building or maintaining a relationship. 

Lozh just means lies, same as English. It's similar to how pravda just means truth.

Muzhik means peasant or serf. In modern Russian slang, it means a tough guy or a real man. Chuck Norris is the ultimate muzhik. 

Kormushka means a feeding trough and has a similar meaning to English. It represents public wealth to which the connected get what they want and everyone else gets what's left. 

Nichevo means nothing, but as a phrase, it means something like "who cares?" or "no sweat" or "meh". 

At my NSA job, I taught myself some Russian while listening to Arabic comms. It's good to keep your brain flexible with multilingualism. 






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