Mustache Wise

Whenever I “hide a smile in my mustache” (прячу улыбку в усы), a certain old friend from across the ocean (this magazine’s publisher) feels uneasy and nervous. Coupled with an enigmatic look, this expression adds an important element of mystery to the unreadable Russian soul. 

I can’t help it – neither the look, nor the mustache. Ever since I отпустил усы (let my mustache grow), it has served multiple purposes: 1) it hides the aforementioned enigmatic smile (or chuckle – hence the other idiom, усмехнуться в усы); 2) it camouflages a scar on my upper lip (from the impact of my face with barbed wire during a nighttime soccer match); 3) it gives me the look of a cолидный мужчина (well-established man) and not a безусый юнец (hairless youth). 

Mine is not the пышные (puffy) усы of the mustache-rich hussars, nor is it the ridiculous ycики (little mustache) of a twenty- something student. Instead, it is something in the golden middle (золотая середина), and enough a part of me that my wife insists I never shave it off (сбрить усы). 

That reminds me of the film Бриллиантовая рука (which I realize I have not mentioned in at least a year). In the famous restaurant scene, a tough guy sitting at the table next to Semyon Semyonovich asks, “Ты зачем усы сбрил, дурик?”  (“Why’d you shave the mustache, you idiot?”). The drunken Semyon Semyonovich (who never had a mustache) responds innocently, “У кого?” (“Whose?”). Today, the non sequitor “ты зачем усы сбрил, дурик” is as sure to garner laughs as it does in the movie. So, dear reader, мотайте себе на ус!

If someone says, “мотай(те) себе на ус” (literally, “roll it on your mustache”), they are suggesting that you take something as a lesson. To which you may respond, “мы и сами с усами” (literally, “we have mustache ourselves”), meaning “thank you, but we are smart enough to figure that out on our own.” 

The mustache can also be a bellwether. If someone does all right (e.g. he has a well-paid day job without much stress or responsibility) you can say “он сидит себе в ус не дует” (he is “sitting pretty”). And when someone is in a bad mood and feels down, you can say that his mustache is hanging down – у него усы повисли. When you are angry or in despair, you might кусать ус (bite your mustache) to vent your feelings (nota bene: mustache in Russian has both the plural and the singular form – i.e. one ус plus another ус makes an усы). 

For all its masculine appeal, however, the mustache has not been very popular with Russian rulers of late. Since the tsars, only Lenin and Stalin have sported mustaches. (The latter read Osip Mandelshtam’s famous verse about his red-haired mustache, тараканьи усища – cockroach mustache, усмехнулся в усы, and ordered the poet arrested.) As a result, our modern leaders look like безусые юнцы. To wit: according to some eyewitness-friends at the recent inauguration, the clean-shaven President Dmitry Medvedev, strolling about with champagne glass in hand, looked to be in his late thirties rather than his early forties.

Had I been invited to that inauguration reception and banquet, I could have quoted the classic ending from a Russian fairy tale: “И я там был, мёд-пиво пил, по усам текло да в рот не попало.” (“And I was there, drank honey and beer, down my mustache it dripped but never got into my mouth.”) But I wasn’t there, nor did honey or beer drip down my mustache. I did try to use connections to wrangle two invites (one for myself and one for “an old friend from across the ocean”), but to no avail. So the old friend and I got together the next day, thinking “hey, мы и сами с усами” – we don’t the Kremlin to have fun. So we sat together in my cozy kitchen over a glass of Золотая бочка beer and a bowl of garlic cheese salad (и в ус себе не дули!), during which a well-timed enigmatic smile gave birth to this column.