532 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



grammar. 



guage 



THE TKA-Kl-TTU 



Pliotograph by Cody Marsh 



is this voung Siberian's must valued 



POSSESSION 

 file tea habit is as firmly intrenched in Siberia as in European 



intrenched in 

 Russia. 



inunities reveal more of what is best in 

 Siberia and not so much of what is worst. 

 A large percentage of Russians have 

 some knowledge of the German Ian- 

 guage and most educated Russians know 

 French. It is said that many wealthy and 

 well-educated Russian families habitually 

 use French for mutual intercourse in the 

 home and leave Russian for their deal- 

 ings with the servants. The Russian is a 

 good linguist. I believe he learned Eng- 

 lish faster than we learned Russian dur- 

 ing the stay of the A. E. E. in Siberia; 

 but. in my opinion, the Russian has to be 

 a good linguist to speak his own language. 



This is not an asper- 

 sion on the language ; 

 on the contrary, it is 

 a beautiful and very 

 expressive one. 



It is possible to pick 

 up in a short time 

 enough Russian for 

 the ordinary transac- 

 tions of a day ; but 

 this will mean a child's 

 vocabulary and no 

 The lan- 

 has no article 

 like the French, but it 

 has about thirty-five 

 letters. The Bolshe- 

 viks are proposing to 

 eliminate many of 

 these letters. 



RUSSIAN HOMELIFE 

 AND COOKERY 



Instead of many 

 tenses, there are "as- 

 pects." many declen- 

 sions, and intricate 

 prepositions. The 

 most attractive fea- 

 ture about the lan- 

 guage is its wealth of 

 polite and gentle 

 words and its interest- 

 ing form of address. 

 I love to have a Rus- 

 sian address me as 

 "Cody Andreivitch" 

 (Cody, the son of An- 

 drew). 



It is trite to say that 

 the Russian home life 

 is beautiful. But nowadays we read so 

 many blood-curdling stories about the 

 Russians and their Bolshevist excesses 

 that I want to say that I have lived with 

 Bolshevik Russians of the reddest dye 

 and have found them among the gentlest 

 and most lovable people I have known. 

 Even the poorest peasants seem to have 

 the instincts of courtesy, and their hos- 

 pitalitv knows no bounds, if they like you. 

 If a family can afford something beside 

 the diet of black bread and tea. the guest 

 in a Russian home has a treat in store. 

 for the Russian housewife is a wonderful 

 cook. 



