Origins of the myths

[gera.livejournal.com]

I'd like to share some insight as to the origins of the recently mentioned myths.

When Russians drink their vodka, they lift their glasses and say "На здоровье".

In the movie "Fiddler on the roof" there is a song called Lechaim (Лехаим) which means "To life" (За жизнь) in Hebrew. During this song the Jews and the Russians dance together in the local tavern and toast to each other. The Russian toasts appear as "За ваше здоровье" (which is quite correct) and "На здоровье" (not used as a toast).
"Fiddler on the roof" is a well known movie and "Lechaim" is probably its most famous song, so it is very likely that it was through that movie that Americans got exposed to the wrong version of the toast.

Russians have no word for freedom.

As it was already explained, there are at least two Russian words which stand for "freedom".
On the other hand, there is no Russian word for "privacy". This was observed by Hedrick Smith in his book "The Russians".
Apparently, someone who heard about that, didn't remember it right and thus started the myth.