Baby, It's Cold Inside

Every autumn, Russians stop worrying about the economy, international relations, looming ecological disasters or even their kids’ grades. They only have one question: Когда начнётся отопительный сезон!? (When are they going to turn on the heat?)

In English, turning up the temperature is pretty easy: you use the verb “heat” for everything from raising room temperatures to serving leftovers and even to getting overexcited. In Russian — not so easy.

The verb pair отапливать/отопить is what you use for heating structures, from the mighty to the flighty. Большинство жителей отапливают дома буржуйками. (Most of the residents heat their homes with pot-bellied stoves.) Началась посадка в самолёт — на этот раз он был отапливаемый. (Boarding began for the plane, which was heated this time).

Now, if you want to describe efforts to make that house, plane or even your shoes warmer and better able to withstand the cold, you use another verb pair: утеплять/утеплить. Мы уже утеплили окна. (We already winterized the windows.) You can also winterize yourself using the reflexive form of the verb: На улице мороз. Не забывай утепляться! (It’s freezing out there. Be sure to layer up.)

And then there is the basic verb греть (to heat up), which gets a variety of prefixes to produce a mass of synonyms and new shades of meaning.  For example, нагревать is used to describe heating something up to a certain temperature:  Нагреть духовку до 180˚ C. (Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.)

But be careful: нагреть руки (literally to warm your hands) is slang for making money illegally: Там, в министерстве он хорошо нагрел руки. (He lined his pockets nicely when he worked at the ministry.) It can also mean to cheat someone: В магазине меня нагрели на 100 рублей. (I got ripped off for 100 rubles in the store.)

Probably the most productive of the греть verbs is согревать/согреть, used to describe heating up hands, water, tea, sand and even someone’s cold heart. Дайте руки, я их согрею — сказала она. (“Give me your hands and I’ll warm them,” she said.) Согрей чайник – он остыл. (Warm up the kettle, it’s gone cold.) Она была согрета большой верой. (Her profound faith kept her warm.)

But if someone you know is getting hot under the collar, you need to use the verb горячиться (to get mad). This is an excellent family verb. When your teenager comes home with a tattoo and your spouse is about to go through the roof, say: Не горячись! (Take it easy!)

Although you can use the verbs нагреть or согреть for dinner, разогревать/разогреть is the standard verb pair. Ты голодный? Сядь, и я тебе разогрею котлеты. (Are you hungry? Sit down and I’ll heat up some meat patties.) To heat your room completely, you read an article entitled Как обогреть дом пока не дали отопление. (How to heat up your house before they turn on central heating.) First task: plug in обогреватель (space heater).

The tricky verb in all this is топить. For reasons not quite understood by etymologists, топить weirdly means both to heat or burn something and to drown or sink something. If you want to heat, not sink the bathhouse, make sure you say потопить.

But if you want to convey that you’re on your own in a tough situation — such as surviving in a freezing apartment with cold radiators — say: Дело помощи утопающему — дело рук самого утопающего. (The only one who can save someone who is drowning, is the drowning person themself).

Which means, get out the space heater.