How to address a person you don’t know. The words «Молодой человек!», «Девушка!»

One of the peculiarities of the Russian language today is the fact that there are no generally accepted neutral address words to appeal an unknown person – a man or a woman.

Such kind of words were used before the revolution 1917. They were сударь (sir) and сударыня (madam), господин (mister) and госпожа (mistress). The revolution changed not only life in Russia, but also the Russian language and speech. People started to frequently use the word товарищ (comrade) to address both men and women. In formal relationship, especially in the written speech and documents, the word гражданин (citizen) was used.

Along with disintegration of the Soviet Union the soviet word товарищ also vanished, but no new word took it’s stand. The empty space was filled by the expressions «Молодой человек!» (a young man) и «Девушка!» (a girl). Nowadays, if you want to address an unknow person you can say «Молодой человек!». Please note that it’s absolutely unimportant how old the person you address to is – 20 or 60 years old. Don’t be confused to use these words and expressions and don’t think about their exact meaning.

Weather in Moscow

Russia is a huge country that’s why the climate is different in different parts of the country. Foreigners usually think that winters are very cold and snowy on the whole territory of Russia. This isn’t true: the weather in the European part of Russia is not very cold in winter; some winters do not even have much snow. Of course it’s connected with the problems of global warming. It’s usually warmer in big cities and there is less snow there than in small villages.

Winter can start very early - in the second half of November. It often snows and average temperatures can be - 2 – 4 C. The snow falls but melts quickly; it doesn’t stay on the ground. In December and in January temperature can go down –10-15 C, and snow can create big problems for transport.

November and December are the darkest months in a year. It’s getting light only in 8.30 am, and it’s already dark in 4 pm. The sun appears very rarely, the sky is grey and lifeless and this is a big problem for people. There’s even a term “autumn depression”.

In February it snows a lot and the sun comes often. This is the best winter month. Sometimes winter continues in March too. It may snow in March and temperature is not higher than –2-5 C. Real spring comes only in the middle of April.

A question about nationality? Strange…

In Russia a foreigner can often hear in reply to the question “Who are you?” an answer “I’m Russian”, “I’m Ukrainian”, “I’m a Tatar”, etc. It can be explained by the fact that in Russia such notions as nationality and citizenship are traditionally synonymous, categories that are interchangeable. An American (nationality and citizenship) is from America, an Italian (nationality and citizenship) is from Italy, a German (nationality and citizenship) is from Germany.

The situation in the world has changed a lot, globalization process created societies which consist on citizens of different nationalities living in one country. But Russian language didn’t have enough time to react on this phenomenon. That’s why let us not be surprised and embarrassed, if you’re asked about your nationality! This is the same as to ask what country you are from.

By the way, people of different “non-Russian” nationalities, such as the Tatars, the Chuvashs, the Bashkirs, the Eskimos and others live in Russia. When they go abroad, all of them not being Russians by nationality become Russians automatically. That’s why “Russians” means from Russia.