If a friend told you he earned dva kuska grinov a month, would you know what he meant?


What if he asked you if he could borrow paru zelyonenkykh?


Unless you are fluent in Russian money-speak, you would not know that he earns $2, 000 and wants to borrow $2.


Russian is an especially rich language when it comes to money. and in these inflationary times, mani, also called kapusta (cabbage) or babki (dough) is on everyone's minds.


In the early days of Russia's dollarization, there were dollary, which quickly became a generic term for all forms of hard currency, including Deutsche marks or French francs. For those who preferred official terms, there was SKV - svobodnokonvertiruyemaya valyuta (freely convertible currency).


But the black marketeers were more imaginative. They knew what Americans called their dollars, and quickly adopted the term baks (bucks). For example, once upon a time a fur hat at Izmailovsky Park cost 10 baksov. Others preferred to refer to dollars more discreetly - by their color. For them, dollars were zeiyoniye, or, as above, the diminutive zelyonenkiye


But why use a Russian word to describe something American? Zelyoniye, after all, means green, which led to grin, or, adopted into Russian grammar, griny.


So the friend who wants a couple of zelyony also earns griny.


With all this imagination with names for hard currency, it is amazing that no one has coined a term for the new Lenin-less 5, 000-ruble note. Virtually every other ruble note - rubles, by the way, are called derevyanniye (wooden) or derevyashki, a poke at their inconvertibility - has its nickname.


A 1-ruble note, for example, is a rvany (torn), which is how 1-ruble notes usually look.


A 100-ruble bill is called a Katya, supposedly because the prerevolutionary banknote had Catherine the Great on it (but some Russians today also believe that its name comes from prostitutes who, in the lean days before inflation, used to charge customers 100 rubles).


A 10-ruble note is a chervonets, a name whose origin is also debated. Some believe that it is derived from a prerevolutionary nickname for the red-colored note chervon is a word for red). But a chervonets was also a specially created convertible 10-ruble note during the NEP (New Economic Policy) period of the 1920s.


A thousand derevyanniye or grin (rubles or dollars) is called a shtuka (thing) or kusok (piece).


Now, for teaching you all these new words, that'll be a shtuka. If you want, give me 10 Katyei. Best of all, how about five baksov?