The Enobling Deception

Cheating, deceit and lies are vices as familiar to Russia as its folklore and culture. Of course, no one likes to be cheated, but there is cheating, and then there is cheating. As Pushkin once proclaimed, “Тьмы низких истин нам дороже нас возвышающий обман.” (“The ennobling deception is more dear to us than the dark, base truths.”)

In Alexei Tolstoy’s fairytale Buratino, a translation of Pinnochio, the heroes Fox Alisa and Cat Bazilio cheat the hapless wooden puppet Buratino after luring him into the Field of Miracles in the Country of Fools (Поле чудес в стране дураков). The two rascals have advised Buratino to bury his golden coins under a tree, and then water the buried treasure so that it will grow to an even greater treasure. Buratino falls for the scheme and Bazilio and Alisa sing, while digging up Buratino’s money after he has gone, “На дурака не нужен нож, ему с три короба соврёшь и делай с ним что хошь” (“You don’t need a knife to rob a fool – just tell a big lie and do whatever you want with him.”)

Given this cultural “heritage,” it should be no surprise that we have many derivations for the word хитрый (cunning, perfidy, guile). The noun is хитрость (ruse, cunning, ingenuity) and there is even a proverb praising this “virtue”: Хитрость – второй ум (Cunning is your second mind). There are also some useful diminutive suffixes (-ец and -инк), with which you can declare that someone’s eyes are с хитрецой (have a little ruse in them) or с хитринкой.

Other slang words for cheating abound. There is the ubiquitous phrase крутить динамо (to turn Dinamo). It derives from the Dinamo machine of the 1920-1930s and came into modern usage in the 1960s and 1970s, when крутить динамо meant cheating taxi drivers by asking them to wait while you ran in to get your billfold, only to run out the back door, stiffing the driver. A general synonym is продинамить кого-то (to cheat or fool someone). The crook who is “turning Dinamo” is known as a динамист. Of late, the phrase’s usage has expanded widely – today, when a date fails to show-up at a rendezvous, you can say: он/она меня продинамил/а.

The more contemporary word кидать (кинуть¸ in the perfective) is not quite comme il faut, but useful nonetheless. The verb means to dump or cheat someone for money (кинуть кого-то на деньги), to not pay what’s promised or overdue. Of late, кинуть has also been applied to relationships between the sexes, and could be used as a synonym for “она меня продинамила” (thus the current pop song by Lyapis Trubetskoy: “Ты, ты-ты кинула, ты”). The slang noun for a failure to pay what is promised or due is кидалово.

The Buratinos in this world are often called a лох – an unhappy combination of a naive fool and a simpleton. The word also serves as the root for the recent addition to the Russian -language – лохотрон, which is a word play on the word лототрон (lottery drum), and means a con or scam. Con artists are called лохотронщики, and, legally-speaking, лохотрон is classified as мошенничество (fraud). The person engaging in fraud is a мошенник (swindler).

The victim of a лохотронщик – the лох – after realizing he has been fooled might ask himself, “Как я мог так лохануться?!” (“How could I have been swindled so?!”) The reflexive nature of the verb underlines that the лох had a hand in his own undoing.

Cheating in Russia, when it all comes down to it, hinges on the passion bequeathed us from Soviet times: a desire to get everything на халяву (for free). Without working for it, that is, no matter the risk. But, as the more хитрый guys are fond of saying: бесплатный сыр бывает только в мышеловке (free cheese is only found in mousetraps).