Walking a Verst in Russia's Lapti

Down through the centuries, Russian reformers have repeatedly said they do not want their country to remain a лапотная Россия – Russia of the laptis, referring to лапти, the traditional footwear made from birch bark. Despite the somewhat romantic refrains of our folk song: “Лапти, да лапти, да лапти мои!” (“Oh you, my laptis-laptis! ”), this and other connotations of лапти are often negative, in this case implying backwardness.

The word лапоть (singular for лапти) also figures in the idiom “Не лаптем щи хлебаем.” The literal meaning is “we don’t eat our soup with lapti,” but the real meaning is that “we are not as simple and primitive as you may think; we do know how to use a spoon.” A similar usage appeared in the famous film, Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears. The heroine is visiting a Soviet TV studio and hears two singers offering up a 1950s-era chastushka (humorous, four line rhyme):

Пусть нас “лапотной Россией” называет Вашингтон
Мы недавно запустили лапоть в сорок тысяч тонн

Let Washington call us “Russia of the laptis”
We recently launched a 40-thousand-ton lapti

The 40-thousand-ton reference was to Sputnik.

In the even more famous Russian film, Gentlemen of Fortune, when the thieves are driving around Moscow, searching fruitlessly for an address, one of the passengers blames the taxi driver for not being able to find his way in the capital, and says, “Карту купи, лапоть!” (“Buy yourself a map, you lapot!”)

If the outer bark of the birch tree has one meaning, you can be sure the inner bark – лыко (bast) – has another, albeit similar meaning. Лыко is associated with something primitive or elementary. For example, one of my schoolteachers used to remind us that she took very seriously the writing of her recommendation for our academic files – the характеристика. “Please, don’t shy from social work,” she would say, “You are in your final class and your характеристика will have каждое лыко в строку.” In other words, everything you do or don’t do will be reflected there. Likewise, when you say about someone, “Он не лыком шит” (literally, “He is not sewn with bast”), it means “He is no idiot.” Consequently, when someone drinks himself into oblivion, a folksy way to describe his condition is to say “Он лыка не вяжет” (he is so bombed, “He cannot weave bast”).

A few words should also be said about the all-important Russian сапоги (boots). These footwear, though not as ancient as lapti, also occupy a special place of honor in the Russian lexicon.

For decades, a fine pair of boots has been a sign of prestige and wealth. In Soviet times, women would line up for hours to buy a pair of foreign-made, leather сапоги. So, in the mid-1990s, a TV spot for the infamous MMM pyramid scheme showed the company’s happy spokes-man, Lenya Golubkov, leaving MMM offices with cash dividends and voicing the now cliché phrase, “Куплю жене сапоги!” (“Now I am going to buy some boots for my wife!”)

When you want to say that two people are very much alike (usually in a bad way), you can say, “Два сапога – пара” (“Two boots make a pair”). And when someone who is good at doing or making something does not take advantage of his own product, you can call him a Сапожник без сапог (a barefoot shoemaker).

Just as in English, you kick someone out of something by “giving them the boot” – пнуть сапогом. Thus, in a song sung by Alexander Malinin (lyrics by Yev-geny Yevtushenko), the author warns against two awful fates:

Дай Бог, чтобы твоя страна тебя не пнула сапожищем,
Дай Бог, чтобы твоя жена тебя любила даже нищим!

God forbid your country gives you the boot,
And may your wife love you even if you are a beggar!

Before sending this column to print, I decided to try the latter line out on my wife (a fan of Malinin), to make sure it resonated well (and to make sure I was still in good standing). She reassured me she will love me even if I went bust, adding with a laugh, “Though, I hope it won’t happen.” After which, I said to myself, “No, dear, you are definitely not sewn with лыко!”

Or maybe I should have paraphrased Lenya Golubkov and replied to her reassurance with, “Come on, honey, let’s go buy you some new boots!”