Wish your friends a happy New Year in Russian

C Новым Годом!  - S Novim Godom - With New Year!
С Новым Счастьем! - S Novim Schastjem - With New Happiness!
Желаю Вам всего наилучшего! - Zhelayu Vam vsego nailuchshego - I wish you all the very best!

New Year's Eve in Russia

When I was growing up in Russia the New Year was The official Winter Holiday. I've never even heard of Christmas. Everyone I knew, and all the businesses celebrated New Year's. There were there same decorated fir trees everywhere and the presents under the trees, except they were exchanged on New Year's Eve. The presents were distributed not by Santa Claus, but Ded Moroz (Grandpa Frost, not Father Frost! Ded means grandpa. Father is papa or otez.) and his charming granddaughter Snegurochka. Ded Moroz was basically the same guy as Santa, just a bit more pagan. His granddaughter Snegurochka had a very sad life - she died every spring, because she couldn't help herself and kept on falling in love with a human. She was ever trying to stay with her new boyfriend, instead of going back to the North Pole.

The colorful ways of Russian verbs

Russian verbs are probably the most versatile of all the world's languages.  Adding just about any preposition to pretty much any verb produces various flavors, intonations, moods, implications, double meanings, new meanings, and even entirely new words. You can make 8 words from the word "go" in Russian. How many words can you make from the same word in English? Let's see: forgo, prego - oops, that's not a verb, that's spaghetti sauce. That's about it. Most verbs in English you can do nothing with, but in Russian you can make at least 7 new words from any verb! Which makes Russian vocabulary at least 7 times more colorful than English, and, probably other languages.
Lets look at a couple of examples:

A word "Nu" - de-evolution in progress?

The word "nu" is super versatile, translates as "well" or "so". It used to be frowned upon by the intelligentsia, at least back when I used to live in Russia. It probably got a bad rep because the carriage drivers and the peasants used to say "N-nu!" to the horses to get them moving.  Somehow the word stuck and spread to the dismay of the finely bred.

How to cuten up - make cute Russian words

A wonderful feature of Russian language is to allow you to take just about any word and make it cute! From an ordinary cat, you can make a cute little kitty, from an ordinary brick - a lovable and charming brick, from a rock - an adorable baby rock.
To do that you add a special cuteness ending to the word you want to cuten up: 'чка (chka)' for a girl word, 'чик (chick)' or 'ик' or 'ок' for a boy word, and 'чко (chko)' 'це (tze)' or 'шко (shko)' for a neuter word.

Is there logic to genders of Russian words?

Russian word gender distribution doesn't seem to be random at all. Rather, it has a kind of an ironic logic to it. A tomato, for example, is a lonely guy among the majority of female berries and veggies. It was introduced to Europe in the 1800's by a couple of Catholic priests, and it became immediately associated with werewolves and avoided. This mistrust probably got the tomato its masculine gender: помидор - pomidor.  Their shapes could have had a bearing on the genders of these two: a pear - груша / grusha (fem.) and a cucumber - огурец / oguretz (masc.)

Learning that dogs hate cats

 "I talked to Barsik today," said koshka Murka.
  "What did he say?" I was super excited, and would have jumped, if my crooked little sausage legs were of any use at all.
  "He said he met many children who were still able to use All-knowing at an unusually late age."
  "How?"
  "They were deaf and mute, meaning - they couldn't hear or talk."
  "That's just great!" I attempted to bang my head on the pillow, rather unsuccessfully.
  Murka rounded her green eyes compassionately, as only she could do,

Russian alphabet and the weird letters explained

Russian letter:	Sounds like:
A, a	arm, ah
Б б	B
Б в	V
Г г	G, like in the word Green
Д д	D

Genders of Russian words explained

  Russian words can be feminine, masculine or neuter. When you talk about something, anything, like a table, you have to use the proper pronoun he - on, she - ona, or neither he or she - ono. Ono isn't the same as English 'it'. Ono is something that for some reason doesn't have a gender.

Why humans can't talk to animals and plants

  "Murka, why can I talk to you and cactuses, but the grown-ups can't?"
  "Ehhh... They can only talk in their own language."
  "And what language do we use?" I asked.
  "We don't use a language. We use All-knowing."
  "What is that?"
  "All living beings except humans use the All-knowing. Mind to mind, body to body directly. Adult humans can't do that, because they have invented their own separate language and got addicted to it. It cuts them off from all the other creatures. They come to believe that only their language is real, and any other form of communication isn't. "