Our first breakfast “meeting” today: lots of people met for the first time, and lots of advice traded hands between the experienced and the novice. Some advice:
Don’t brush your teeth or rinse your mouth on the ship with tap water from the ship. It is desalinated water through old pipes, so it will make you not only thirsty, but sick. If we want to do a science experiment onboard, that might not be the ideal first one.
Don’t help the crew load the cargo on the boat. They don’t want help. They want to make sure they know where everything is. But get your own stuff on the boat.
Learn Russian (that’s a general directive). “Hello” is ironically one of the hardest words. It is: здравствуйте, which, if you want to phonetically pronounce it phonetically, is zdravstvutye. For all non-native Russian speakers, I dare you to try it.
The last directive of the morning – as we load the ship today, we can get on and off the ship to get snacks or extra water, but BE ON THE SHIP BEFORE IT LEAVES (AND DON’T STAND BELOW THE CRANE).
Dear Lindsey! Zdravstvuite(здравствуйте)- it is not Hello, it is- I wish you health! This word is really difficult for pronounsation. But it is traditional !
Hello in Russian- PRIVET( привет), it is very easy to pronounse, to say.But you can say it only to your friends. I hope, you understand. My English is not very well. ) Пока! Buy-buy( poka)
Thanks for the Russian lesson, because I am trying to learn! I have confirmed from m native Russian colleagues on the ship that здравствуйте is actually “hello,” and that it does come from the phrase “I wish you health,” but that it is used in formal situations for “hello.” I agree with you that привет is much easier to say, so for now I will stick to that. Thanks for the comment!
Russian language has a vast variety of welcome words that have a similar meaning but provide a mood/respect/formality/time hint. So you can say “Добрый день” (Dobry den – have a good day), “Привет” (privet – hi), “Здарова” (zdarova – very unformal form of good health wish). Russian language differs from english providing you some synonyms for almost every word. It also has mush more tangled grammar rules and overall not so strict rules with a lot of particularity and exceptions. Please say hi from me (Roman Mikheev) to Elena Khavina (a member of russian scientific student crew).
Thank you so much for the Russian lesson Roman! All of us non-Russian speakers are trying to learn, to be able to better communicate with the crew especially. I will tell Elena you said hello! (I can’t yet pronounce the formal hello in Russian, but I am trying.)