One can find swear words in each language, but an odd feature of swearing in Russia is that the majority of people like using it. I have met many people in my life in Russia, and now I can state with certainty that the social class doesn’t matter in this case, as I have met brilliant personalities with Ph.D. and deep knowledge of history, literature, art, linguistics and so on, but they still swear at times to express their emotions. It does not make them less brilliant, but it should be taken into account, while analyzing Russian national character. 

I am not going to fill this article with the examples of Russian swear words, you can perfectly find them on the Internet, let’s say on youswear.com. I need just to mention a couple of them that I’ve heard even from the most educated people. The queen of Russian swearing is Blyad’ which literally means ‘a whore’, but it can be heard in nearly any conversation or monologue, and very often in an exclamation. It is an equivalent of English Fuck. For example, when one hits a toe against a table leg, they say something like: ‘Blyad’! Blyadskii stol’ which literally means ‘Fuck! Fucking table’. It is just a way to unleash the pain or negative emotions, but Russians use it more often than other nationalities in my opinion. 

The other popular word stands for ‘son of a bitch’ and in Russian it’s Suka. Some may say it is not a swearing word, but I do not agree, as it’s pretty rude. Russians can call Suka somebody in particular or just a situation overall, or even they say this word being in a state of anxiety, irritation, fear etc. – just to release their emotions again. 

The etymology of swears in Russian is mostly Slavic and Proto-European. So, why do we do that so much, anyways? The major reason has been already mentioned above – emotions release. However there are some special ground for swearing. For example, I have a male friend, who never speaks in such way when I’m (or another female) around, but he does that often with men around, particularly at work. He explains that with simplicity to communicate this way. So one doesn’t need to use long and complicated professional terms, they just can say ‘give me that huynu’ (‘give me that shit’) and the problem is solved. 

It happens that very adequate people who don’t speak in such rude way in regular life, start swearing after vodka drinking (or other alcohol). You know, they say, a drunk mind speaks a sober heart.

Meanwhile in Soviet Russia during the opening of modern art exhibition in 1962 Nikita Khrushchev described the paintings as govno (=shit) and the artists as pederasty (=gays). Just think of it, the head of the mighty state... Today in Russian government such pieces of work still exist. For example, Vladimir Jirinovski who likes delivering swearing speeches and throwing mud at Bush family. 

We also have a range of music bands, which features are, swear words in their songs. The most famous is Leningrad (just like the city, yes). And it is just a successor of Russian great swearing art, the poets of which were Pushkin, Mayakovskii, Esenin and many others. 

Nevertheless, the majority of Russians use swear words, some of them do it more often, another ones speak less so. I’ve noticed that more irritated and unsatisfied in life people are, more they swear. In this case I blame a high level of poverty in Russia, whence it follows the irritation. Today in Russia there is a law, which forbids swearing on public, but it is so vague, that nobody follows it!