| A | B |
|---|
| babushka | grandmother, scarf |
| balalaika | Russian guitar with triagular sound board |
| bistro | quickly, originally, an inn where soldiers demanded to be served quickly |
| blin | pancake |
| blini | pancakes |
| Bolshevik | a government revolution in Russian |
| Borshch | Russian soup with cabbage and beets |
| commissar | a military or government minister |
| Cosmonaut | a Russian astronout |
| Czar, Tsar | Russian ruler, from the word Caesar |
| duma | a representative assembly |
| glasnost | a peaceableness toward western nations |
| gulag | a vast prison system in the Soviet Union during the time of Stalin |
| intelligentsia | educated people viewed as a separate class of society |
| kadet | a cadet |
| KGB | Soviet Intelligence (spy) agency |
| kopeck | 100th of a ruble |
| Kremlin | a fortress, seat of Russian government in Moscow |
| kvass | a drink made from bread dough |
| Leninism | Lenin's philosophy of government |
| mammoth | huge |
| matryoshka | wooden doll with smaller dolls inside |
| mir | peace |
| Molotov cocktail | liquid grenade |
| Novaya Zemlya | New Land (Island in Arctic) |
| oblast | administrative district |
| okrug | administrative district |
| perestroika | reconstruction of the government for peaceable relations toward western nations |
| pirogi | pie with various types of filling |
| piroshki | small pirogi |
| politburo | a political bureau (for short) |
| ruble | unit of Russian currency |
| sable | animal (similar to mink) from which expensive coats are made |
| samovar | large Russian heated tea pot |
| shapka | winter cap |
| smetana | dairy product (heavy sour cream) |
| sobor | cathedral |
| soviet | council (of leaders) |
| sputnik | the first satellite to orbit the earth (1957) |
| Stalinism | philosophy of the government of Joseph Stalin |
| Steppe | vast prairieland under the taiga in Russia |
| taiga | vast forested area under the tundra |
| troika (means 3) | triumvirate, sled, or dance |
| tundra | vast frozen area north of the taiga |
| vodka | alcoholic beverage (from the word for water "voda") |
