Russian Cultural Moment Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of Russian Cultural Moment - brought to you by America's self-appointed expert on Russian affairs - desertjedi. Today, once again, we will explore Russia's love affair with large words...I mean really large words...DUDE, I MEAN HUGE WORDS!!! Due to the obvious problem of quickly telling the police or fire services of an emergency, Russia has adopted a system of abbreviations. At first, as a quick fix, people were told not to use the phrase "Пожалуйста, помогите мне!" but it still took too long to convey the details of the emergency. Note the brief and very concise English equivalent phrase - "please, help me!" So, Russia invented the "ЧП" system. Now, when someone has an emergency, they simply say "ЧП" and a number that corresponds to the exact type of emergency. For example, ЧП 1 means "help, my house is on fire!" There is now a long list of such emergency codes. Some of them are very strange. ЧП 36 means "I'm tired of making pelmeni for my husband." Hmm...okay. Next, we move to the area of Russian industry and infrastructure - specifically, gasoline and fuel oil. Few people know this but Russia imports all of its gasoline and refined fuels from other countries. Why? Well, it was originally due to a problem with their computer systems. What's the Russian word for refinery? Hold on to your hats! It's нефтеперерабатывающий завод. Unfortunately, the Windows operating system, at the time, was not able to use a word with so many characters. As such, the automation needed to build refineries simply was not available to Russia. Yes, it's a bit sad...when the simple word refinery works so well. And finally, we move to our last story...concerning the Great Patriotic War. Everyone's familiar with the Lend-Lease program of that time where America and Great Britain sent large amounts of supplies and armaments to Russia to assist in their fight against Germany. But, it is not well known that Russia received huge amounts of steel from their allies. Why? For guns, tanks, artillery? NO! Have you ever seen the street signs in Russia? Excuse me, but how do you make street signs like превысокомногорассмотрительствующий улица without huge reserves of steel??? The next time you walk down this street in Moscow, you can thank an American! ;) And so ends today's episode of Russian Cultural Moment! До скорой встречи!