Things I miss about Russia

The other day I was going downstairs and someone said, "Oh, you're done with your shower." Yes, I was. But suddenly I wanted to be in Russia and hear someone say to me, "S'lyokim parom!"

That's my own transliteration, by the way, for С легким паром.

With the s, l, and y there it's quite the consonant cluster and pretty hard to pronounce. Then after a brief vowel sound there are a g and a k together. Impossible!

The first word means "light" and the second word means "steam," and you are basically congratulating someone after he/she comes out of the bath. The Russian banya (which is like a sauna, but different) had (has) a lot of steam, and that's where the term comes from.

I still haven't been to a banya. Hmmmm, I'll have to remedy that sometime in the near future.

When we were at camp we used to say it because the communal shower rooms there get pretty steamy with the heat from the boiler. We made up our own translation: "Congratulations, you are clean!" It's a pretty rough translation, but it worked for us. :)

(Ирония судьбы или) с легким паром is also the name of a classic Russian film that I had to watch in college. I had only studied Russian for about two years at that time and didn't understand much, but the professor did a good job of explaining. Now I can understand it on my own. :) It's an entertaining movie.