Авоски

[faustin.livejournal.com]

I found this brief lesson in the December newsletter of the School of Russian and Asian Studies, http://sras.org.

(I think a native speaker could further amplify the significance of "Авос..." -- from a discussion a few months ago, I understand this to be a culturally-laden term, fatalistic, like "Who's to say?" or the Hebrew "shtam!" -- it happened for no reason! More recently, I heard it means something "stronger than maybe".)

Try mouse-over of underlined words to see a great use of HTML; I do this using the acronym tag. I couldn't preserve their "bold red" and "bold black" (also valuable!) but the mouseover effect was my work.

Language: Авоски ...Shopping Soviet-Style

Specific language developed around the complicated process of shopping in the Soviet Union. For example, "дефицит" came to mean not only "a shortage of goods" but was used to refer to the hard-to-find goods themselves. Some of this vocabulary is still in use today (indicated in bold black), while some has become "old fashioned" (indicated in bold red).

If people were lucky enough to see дефицит for sale, they wanted to отовариться with it, even if they did not need this particular thing at that time, just for the future. There was a specific etiquette that was employed. Newcomers would ask the queue:"Кто последний?". After some person replied, usually with a simple "Я" (I am) or "Я последний", the appropriate response was: "Я за вами". With this, the newcomers занимали очередь. Sometimes some rude person tried to пройти без очереди, but the rest of the queue used to tell him «Вас здесь не стояло». This process and language is still used in Russia wherever lines form (such as at a doctor's or government office).

Women in the Soviet Union did not often rest during their lunch break, as it was regarded as valuable time to достать groceries. Ladies used to take авоськи to work and бегали по магазинам during their lunchtime. It was also not uncommon to find men carrying meat or oranges in their otherwise empty briefcases if they had found these дефицит items for sale. However, it was not just food that was often hard to find. When some scarce good appeared in the stores, people used to say, for example: "Ботинки выбросили!".

A person was lucky if he or she had блат. This person could get дефицитные товары and many other things. There was a пародоксальная ситуация – for people with connections, холодильники были забиты едой, в то время как в магазинах был дефицит продуктов.

In mid-80s, талоны were introduced. However, in the bigger towns there were кооперативные магазины where wealthier people could buy sausage and other дефицитные товары at higher prices.

Comments

[mildox.livejournal.com]

авоськи - smth like plastic bag but from cotton

авось - to rely on god.
"авось повезет и у нас все получиться"

[mophu.livejournal.com]

There always must be "," after авось.

[mildox.livejournal.com]

tnx )))))))
I know. вводное слово ибо. ))

[mophu.livejournal.com]

right :)

[oryx_and_crake]

No, you don't need a comma here. In the same way you don't need one after вдруг.

"Авось повезет! Вдруг получится!"

[mophu.livejournal.com]

I thought авось was parenthetical word in contrary to вдруг. "Может быть, получится. Авось, повезет." But I was wrong. Sorry

[megilla.livejournal.com]

plastic bags inherited this name as well

[mildox.livejournal.com]

никогда не слышал чтобы так говорили.
пакет. не более. ну иногда путают и говорят мешок.

[oryx_and_crake]

Please note that the working language of this community is English.

[mildox.livejournal.com]

ok.

[oryx_and_crake]

from a discussion a few months ago, I understand this to be a culturally-laden term, fatalistic, like "Who's to say?" or the Hebrew "shtam!" -- it happened for no reason!
---
This is completely untrue. The only meaning of "авось" is the one you describe further - "maybe" with a shade of "hopefully, if we get lucky". It is NEVER applied to things that already happened. I don't know who told you this but they were not native speakers, that's for sure. (However they might have been from a second or third generation of immigrants; I noticed that these people sometimes have the most far-fetched ideas of their ancestors' language.)

[oryx_and_crake]

P.S. It is "авоська" and "авось", not "авоска" and "авос".

[xalabuda.livejournal.com]

as i know the word "авоська" had appeared much earlier than "дефицит" of the 90ties came.for sure it was already in the 50ties.and as a thing it is a crocheted bag.
авось may be used as "вдруг" in such expressions like "авось, повезет" you may say "а вдруг повезет" with no difference.
by the way,i also observed,that this word (авоська) is the single native russian noun begins with "a",all the rest nouns starting with "a" are loan words.(but i didn't find out if the word ад is a loan one)

[oryx_and_crake]

if the word ад is a loan one
--
of course it is - coming from Greek "Hades" meaning the same

[xalabuda.livejournal.com]

спасибо!!!

[oryx_and_crake]

"дефицит" was not invented in the nineties, and the article does not say so either (quite the opposite, it mentions correctly that дефицит was part of life in Soviet Union which did not exist in the nineties any more). It started much earlier because consumer goods shortage was an intrinsic part of Soviet regime and state-governed economics. You probably confuse it with a period of time in 1991-1993 when practically all consumer goods and groceries disappeared.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

>1991-1993 when practically all consumer goods and groceries disappeared

1989-1990, to a certain extent 1991. 1992 saw the explosion of imports and dreamatic increase of food, beverages and goods supply, leave alone 1993. The only problem was that if in 1990 people had money but there was nothing to buy, in 1993 there was plenty to buy, but nobody had any money :)

[xalabuda.livejournal.com]

да,препутала.спасибо еще раз!!! i just remember how i used to buy some bread in 1990-1991 (i was actually fife years old,but... ) and it was like a battle!

[xalabuda.livejournal.com]

to the "вдруг" meaning.so авось has some connotation with something that is not expecting and might not happen.so you take авоську because авось, в магазине что-нибудь куплю (авось,дефицит закончился)))

A bit off topic, but...

[coldmacana.livejournal.com]

Does забиты in this context mean something like "bursting at the seams":холодильники были забиты едой, в то время как в магазинах был дефицит продуктов. "The refrigerators were bursting at the seams with food, at the same time as stores had food shortages?"

Re: A bit off topic, but...

[vichkin.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's what it means.

[siberian-cat.livejournal.com]

Foreign learners shoud note that «вас здесь не стояло» is grammatically incorrect. It is a jocular variation of (grammatically correct) «вас здесь не было».

[joliecanard.livejournal.com]

Oh, good, I thought I was going crazy, thinking "but, that can't be right...???"

[oryx_and_crake]

If you know the editors of the site, please tell them that the words are spelled "авоська", "авось" and "парадоксальный", and not the way they spell them. I always thought that if one undertakes to teach other people a language, one should at least know how to spell in that language.

BTW, where are underlines and mouse-overs you speak of? I don't see anything.

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

Вас здесь не стояло!

I'm confused about the use of Вас here- why not Bы? Is it because stoyat' is passive?

[oryx_and_crake]

See above (siberian_cat's comment), it is a jocular irregularity imitating colloquial speech.

Вас здесь не стояло!

[freiburg234.livejournal.com]

"Вас" is a result of the particle "не" which tends to invoke the genitive.

For example: "I was here." - "Я здесь был/а."

But: "I will not be here." - "Меня здесь не будет."

I think the difficulty for native English speakers in applying this concept is in realising that the concept consistently applies to all grammatical persons. That is, "ты" becomes "тебя", "они" becomes "их", etc.

For example: "They were not here." - "Их здесь не было."

And so on.

Pretty simple, really. But it does take some getting used to.

"Нас не было."

Re: Вас здесь не стояло!

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

this makes perfect sense to me now. thanks for the explanation; I don't think I'll have trouble remembering it, and i'll try to make use of it in the future!!

Re: Вас здесь не стояло!

[freiburg234.livejournal.com]

Glad to be of service. My pleasure, any time.

Enjoy the learning experience.

I heard this word yesterday!

[inoctiluci.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine used the word "авось" yesterday.

We'd shown up to a theatre meeting, and were the only two of our group to get there. We called the others, who said they weren't coming because there were so few others coming. Afterwards, he walked me to my next rehearsal, where the бабушка guarding the door informed me that the leader wasn't coming today and had called off rehearsal. I commented that this was strange, because we're supposed to perform on Wednesday. My friend then said that this evening was an example of "русский авось". So there's a real life contemporary example!

It also seems to me that this was referring to something that had already happened. Comments? This friend is a native speaker.

By the way, this took place in Siberia.

Re: I heard this word yesterday!

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

He meant that the scheduled performance was left for the sake of almighty русский авось :)