Russia, Widen Your Step

Any idea why grandfathers serve in the Russian army? No, it’s not because of personnel problems. The army may be understaffed, but not to that extent. For now the Defense Ministry can do without pensioners.

In fact, the “grandfathers” serving in the Russian army are only 20 years old: деды (grandfathers) is the slang word for soldiers in their second year of service. Hence the ill-famed дедовщина (hazing).

The administrative euphemism for the word дедовщина is неуставные отношения (literally, “non-statutory relationship,” from the word устав, meaning statute or army code). So if a дед is caught red-handed, bullying or beating a новобранец (young conscript), this is what he will be accused of. The дед could then be indicted by a military court (военный трибунал).

The slang word for новобранец is салага or салабон. According to the unwritten law of дедовщина, he’s supposed to do anything a дед asks him to – polish his boots, do his share of the washing up, or give him a lion’s share of a food package received from home.

It takes each салага a year to get “promoted” to the rank of черпак (from the Russian verb черпать – to ladle out). A черпак enjoys the “privilege” of ladling soup at the canteen for his platoon. According to the unwritten code of hazing, he is supposed to give priority to деды when putting meat in the soup, but is also allowed to spare a few pieces for himself.

When the Defense Minister issues the annual приказ о демобилизации (demobilization decree) the дед becomes a дембель (slang for both demobilization and a demobilized soldier). A дембель may stay in the army for a while before he is discharged, but there is nothing a sergeant can do to him. While a дембель will almost certainly get away with going самоволка (AWOL), a салага would surely be put in the “lip” (губа), slang for guardhouse, for the same action.

Official military cliches can be fun to learn too. Like anywhere else in the world, servicemen in Russia tend to express themselves the hard way. Troops don’t “eat” in the Russian army, they “ingest food” (принимают пищу). So, lunch time is known as a “time for food ingestion” (время приёма пищи).

One of the staples of the diet “ingested’ by Russian soldiers is шрапнель (shrapnel), the slang for перловая каша (pearl barley gruel), so called because it’s invariably poorly-cooked and therefore as hard to digest as pieces of enemy shell. In the Russian army this is a universal form of “ammunition,” ingested on its own or, as a special treat, with fish.

Ordinary civilians in plain clothes usually call themselves народ or люди (people). Once they put on a military uniform, though, they become личный состав (“personnel” or, literally, “personal compound/mixture”).

When it comes to killing, Russian soldiers start to use words like живая сила (life force). In battle, they will be expected to “eliminate the living force of the adversary’ – поражать живую силу противника, i.e. kill people (убивать людей).

Military commands also sound a little unusual and салаги can have a hard time learning them. When a drill sergeant wants a marching soldier to turn right, he will say: “левое плечо вперёд” (literally, “left shoulder forward”). Of course the average conscript will need some time to work out that this just means “turn right’. (The same goes for правое плечо вперёд – turn left).

Whereas in civilian life Russians just say быстрее (faster) – or поторопись (hurry up) – in the army they opt for the enigmatic шире шаг, meaning literally “widen your step.”

Some awkward phrases from military parlance recited by generations of dembels have become proverbial: Вы трое – оба ко мне (Both you three come here); Копать от забора и до обеда (Dig from the fence till lunchtime); or Не делаете умное лицо – Вы же офицер (Stop trying to look smart – you’re an officer).

This doesn’t mean all army idioms are funny or clumsy. You should already be familiar with the famous compliment “I’d go with him on a reconnaissance mission” (page 10). There are other positive idioms from army folklore, like порядок в танковых войсках (“the tanks are in order” – a military set-phrase meaning everything’s fine).

And even the younger generation likes quoting the famous lyrics from an old wartime air force song: Первым делом – самолёты, ну а девушки – потом (Airplanes come first, girls next). Taken out of context, this just means “first things first.”

Civilians generally have no qualms about assimilating military slang. Words like деды, салага and самоволка have long been in wide use. Russian proverbs and sayings with military terms enjoy similar popularity. For instance, in Soviet times employees of state enterprises and organizations would say about their jobs: Солдат спит, а служба идёт (“The soldier sleeps, but his army service goes on”– i.e. what’s the point of working if you get paid no matter what?).

Now that a more ambitious generation of self-made Russians has emerged, you might expect their favorite military saying to be: Плох тот солдат, который не мечтает стать генералом (It’s a poor soldier who never dreams of becoming a general). And, if you take a look at the wealth of the new “generals’ of Russian business, you have to admit that their tanks sure are in order.