Pulling the Blanket to One's Side

Russian, like any living language, develops according to its own rules. No matter how high the protectionist barriers put up by linguistic purists around so-called “literary Russian,” borrowings from the “less desireable” representatives of Russian society are bound to slip through.

Take the lingo of prisoners. How can one stop Russians from using prison slang when tens of millions of Russians served time under Stalin and when, even now, Russia has the highest per capita prison population in the world? It is no wonder that many idioms that once belonged only in Solovki or Kolyma can now be found in newspaper headlines or heard on the radio.

We hear that our politicians, when forging politicial alliances or holding negotiations, tend to тянуть на себя одеяло (pull the blanket to their side), prison argot for trying to secure one-sided benefits or better conditions for oneself. In fact, in the run-up to the 2000 presidential elections, the whole of Russia looked like an immense blanket which each politician was trying to pull to his side.

Nor is it unusual to hear about all sorts of разборки in the political arena (разборки is slang for “a settling of accounts,” which was a term once used only by thick-necked banditos).

By now, most Russians know well how to ботать по фени (speak thieves’ argot). Many idioms born behind bars have become classic, namely thanks to movies inspired by prison topics. Thus, after millions laughed at the 1970s Russian comedy Gentlemen of Fortune (Джентльмены удачи), adolescents, let alone adults, began repeating the now famous threats from the film “Пасть порву! Моргалы выколю!” – “I will tear off your mouth and gouge out your blinkers!” (from the verb моргать, to blink). In another borrowing, one hears Russians call each other редиска (“radish”, a “bad person”).

If you really want to make a solemn promise and make it an especially strong one, you can say “век воли не видать!” (“may I not see freedom again for a whole -century”). This now widely used idiom comes directly from the зона (prison zone) as Russians call their system of camps and other penitentiary establishments, where they cook their very strong, drug-like tea, чифирь, and call their uncomfortable collective toilet the параша.

In fact, the etymological roots of prison-related colorful idioms no longer seems to bother representatives of the middle- and younger-aged generations. They seem to embrace this heritage of their elders. So you hear them talking about катить бочку (literally “to roll the barrel,” to give somebody a hard time, to be rough with somebody) or лепить горбатого (literally “to model a hunchback,” to lie).

Thanks to such detective movies as Место встречи изменить нельзя (Don’t Change the Meeting Place), any Russian kid knows at least three synonyms for a police officer: мент (cop), легавый (from легавая собака, a “hunting dog”), and мусор (literally, “rubbish”). Given the “respect” Russia’s law-enforcement bodies have engendered with their lax approach to upholding the law, all three terms are in wide usage.

Воры в законе (“thieves in law”) – the highest rank of thief in the зона hierarchy – espise not only the “hunting dogs” but also their стукачи (“knockers,” i.e informers). When thieves-in-law detect a “knocker” they will мочить (“wet,” kill) the despicable informer either with a пушка (“cannon”, slang for “gun”) or a перо (“feather” slang for “knife”). By the way, the English “wet job” becomes simply “мокрое дело” in Russian (from the verb мочить, “to wet”) and the criminal who commits a murder is a мокрушник. And there is a label for every type of criminal, be they a домушник (“apartment burglar,” from the word дом), or a медвежатник (a “bear’s man,” someone who specializes in safe cracking). Petty thieves who serve as aides to the big time thieves are called “six” – шестёрка – nd all they are good for is to стоять на шухере, to “stand lookout” for cops and other unwanted visitors while a robbery is being commited.

Thieves-in-law certainly have little tolerance for those who spill the beans (расколоться, literally “to split”) during an interrogation. Actually, quite often when the investigator has little evidence he will try to “embroider a case” (шить дело) on the arrested suspect, meaning to frame them. This prompts the now classic response to false accusations (we Russians have a lot of experience with this): “обижаешь, начальник” (“you’re hurtin’ me, chief”).

This brings to mind a popular joke. It seems there was this nanny in a Soviet kindergarten, watching over kids whose parents were serving time in prison. She spotted a kid who didn’t make it to the toilet fast enough: “Ah, Petrov,” she said, “I see you peed in your pants again.” To which little Petrov replied, “You’re hurting me chief! You’re stitching a wet job on me.”(Обижаешь, начальник! Мокрое дело шьёшь.)

If the менты succeed in “stitching a case” on someone, then the poor guy will have to срок мотать (literally, “wind a term,” meaning to serve a term). If, however, a former thief decides to go straight, other thieves will say он завязал (literally “knotted up,” quit robbing). This phrase itself has gone “straight” and has been assimilated into wider usage. It simply means “to quit.”

One who doesn’t quit and continues his criminal activities, becomes a repeat offender, a “рецидивист.” But this is hardly slang; it is the same as in English. What is a slang word is the вышка (literally “high tower”) that violent recidivists often get. The term derives from the penal code term высшая мера наказания (supreme measure of punishment), i.e. execution.

Of late, however, Russia has been pressed by the Council of Europe to завязать with вышка. While some argue leniency lets criminals pull the blanket over to their side, others point out that governments really shouldn’t be in the business of carrying out wet jobs.