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From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Russian words in English
Message-ID: <Cy8s7M.3vv@spss.com>
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References: <ag.2.00098E4E@interaccess.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 18:47:45 GMT
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In article <ag.2.00098E4E@interaccess.com>,
Andy Goryachev <ag@interaccess.com> wrote:
>I wonder if any words exist (besides, perhaps Perestroika and Glastnost) that 
>was borrowed from Russian language into English.  Particular interest is 
>pre-communist era.

Some quick, incomplete lists.

Pre-communist: astrakhan, babushka, balalaika, bistro [thru French], bogatyr, 
bogomil, blini, blintz*, boyar, comissar, Duma, kasha, kopeck, kossack, 
mendelevium, nikulturny, muzhik, nudnik*, pogrom*, Potemkin village, 
ruble, samovar, shaman, taiga, tsar, tsarevitch, ukase, verst, vodka
[* = through Yiddish]

Post-communist (tho' a few of these are probably pre-1917): apparatchik, 
bolshevik, disinformation, gulag, kolkhoz, kulak, kurgan, menshevik, 
nomenklatura, Politburo, pravda, soviet, soyuz, sputnik, troika, tovaritch
