The Mystery Deepens

You may recall in my Christmas blog that I was whining about not being able to find pecans here. I've since rectified the problem by ordering some from netgrocer.com (thank god for the internet), but I was still curious about their absence.

I work with a young Russian who has been studying English and lately has been learning American history. (Sadly, after a week of class she already knows WAY more about my own country than I do. She was talking about the great American still-life painter William M. Harnett, and I was like, who? Apparently he was even from Philadelphia. I suck.) So on slow days at work (which is pretty much every day), we've been talking about American odds 'n' ends.

On Thursday, we started talking about pecans. I googled an image of a pecan and said, "Hey, have you ever seen one of these?" She took one look and said, naturally, "Sure, that's a walnut." So I said, "No, it only LOOKS like a walnut. It's a pecan." She looked at me like I had worms crawling out of my ears. I explained further.

"It sort of looks like a walnut, but it's less wrinkly and darker. The shell is oblong and smooth. And it's much sweeter than a walnut. It's often used in pie."

Still utter confusion. I looked up "pecan" on www.multitran.ru. It turns out there isn't even a Russian WORD for pecan. It's just called "nut-pecan." I explained to my coworker that I had looked alllll over town and I could NOT find pecans. She reiterated that she'd never heard of them, and she wasn't surprised that no one else had either.

I looked up the history of the pecan on Wikipedia. Apparently they hail from the American south. Which sort of explains why they wouldn't be super-familiar to most Russians... but come on. "McDonalds" and "Tom Cruise" are household words over here. It's not like all things American are completely unfamiliar. They have Macadamia nuts here, and those things are friggin' Australian. I don't get it.

The question now is this: since I have a few big ol' bags of pecans, do I bring some in for my friend to try? Or would that just be cruel? "Here, have a taste of this sweet, mouth-watering nut. Mmm. Roll it around in your mouth for a while. 'Cause you'll NEVER GET ONE AGAIN."

Then again, once I get her and her friends hooked, it could prove to be lucrative. I could be a pecan dealer.

By Popular Demand...

Many a friend of mine has investigated what their "Russian" name is through a fun website and have started wondering what mine is. No offense to random-generation programs, but I thought I'd use the chance to talk about how Russian names are generated in real life. :)

The first name, like in the States, is given. My given name is Erin; the closest Russian equivalent is Irina. If you want to look up the closest thing to your given name in Russian, a good list of common Russian names is here. The list also includes diminutive forms for names that have them; this is basically a nickname. Just as someone would call Jonathan "Jon," in Russian, "Aleksandr" becomes "Sasha." The diminutive form of Irina is Ira.

The Russian middle name is patronymic- your father's name with a suffix meaing "daughter of" or "son of." Women use the suffix "ovna", men use the suffix "ovich." So my patronymic middle name would be "Leonovna."

Last names, or surnames, are either the same as one's parents, or taken from a husband when married as they (usually) are in the US. They too have suffixes which change for men and women; common endings are -ov (-ova for female), -ev (-eva) and -in (-ina). As in many other countries, the roots of surnames often lie in one's ancestry (such as "Anderson," meaning "Ander's Son") or traditional family occupation (such as "Smith"). Since my ancesters in the States were farmers for many generations, my surname could be "Farmerova."

So, all combined, my Russian name is: Irina Leonovna Farmerova. But you can just call me Ira. :)