First they were saddled with the word "voucher", a new entry into their language, and a concept that is not easy to explain. While privatization officials tried desperately to explain what to do with the 10, 000-ruble privatization checks, ordinary folks tried obligingly to embrace the new term.
A dog-owner in the suburbs of Moscow named his doberman pincer "Voucher". A couple in Yekaterinburg choose the name for their baby boy. One Muscovite named his new kitten "Meeowcher". In liquor stores and at kiosks throughout Russia, thirsty clients have begun calling a bottle of vodka a voucher.
Then, just as people started to understand what a voucher really was, the voucher acquired some powerful enemies.
Someone in parliament asked President Boris Yeltsin last Tuesday what he planned to do with his voucher.
"I do not recognize that word", sniffed Yeltsin. "I recognize the Russian words chek na sobtsvennost ("a check for property"). I don't know where this word voucher came from".
This was a bit of a turnaround, for the president himself introduced the term in a nationally televised address to the people in August
Parliament speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov had declared it was "unfortunate that this word voucher was chosen", suggesting that "privatization checks" would have been easier for people to comprehend.
The influential industrial union leader Arkady Volsky jumped on the bandwagon, announcing: "I consider myself to be a foe of voucher".
Volsky expressed the popular belief that vaucherizatsiya ("voucherization"), the issue of the vouchers to each Russian citizen, will spark hyperinflation. Said Volsky, "People are calling it prikhvatizatsiya (which translates best as "everybody making a grab to get whatever they can").
This popular pun on the word privatizatsiya ("privatization") demonstrates just how easy it is to make up new words that say whatever you want them to in Russian, especially with the convenient suffix -izatsiya ("-ization").
Not to be outdone, Mikhail Gorbachev got into the act at a recent press conference.
"Scandal! Failure! Hoax! " cried the former Soviet leader, referring to the voucher plan, "Volcherizatsiya! "
Volcherizatsiya?
A pun on the words volk ("wolf") and vaucherizatsiya, the best translation of this word would be "the implementation of a predatory policy which robs the people as a wolf robs a chicken coop".
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