Russians are known for their colorful language among many other things.  My father who spoke Russian, often told me smilingly of how many vulgar cuss words there were in the Russian language. There are even more combinations of these words than the mind can imagine! Art imitates life!

Russians also have specific sense of humor. Have a man dress up as a woman, that’s it, and you will see and hear unending  chuckles from the audience.

This next story captures many other aspects of Russian culture succinctly, all in one joke. Perhaps no other country except Russia could turn such a morbid story into one that becomes so incredibly funny. It is because it has all the hallmarks of a great Russian story. Death, corruption, stealing, orphans, vodka, winter, humor,…

On a dark, bleary and bone-numbing winter’s day, a would-be mass murderer/serial killer-after a bottle of vodka-decides that he wants to make a real name for himself, to be even greater than the Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs, Anatoly Onoprienko, or even Andrei Chikatilo. So he gathers a bunch of Russian ruble notes and sprays them with a deadly poison. It will kill its victims within hours of contact on their skin. He takes the money to the local orphanage with a note explaining that he would like for all of the children (more than 100) to receive some of the money as an anonymous Christmas gift. He places it on the interior of a large container’s door and as he closes the door he hears the bag of money slide down and rattle and echo in the empty metal cube. 

The next evening he prepares a great meal, and settles in to watch the evening news program to see how many children and workers at the orphanage have been killed by his diabolical plan. But, much to our psycho’s surprise the news anchor explains that the ‘director of a local orphanage is dead under strange circumstances which has been completely overshadowed by the fact that the police chief is also dead, in addition to about 20 local government deputies and the interior minister’s wife.  Another thirty single women (and two men) in the region are also dead. The police had already extracted a confession from the killer. He claims to have ties with NATO…’