Russian jokes: Encyclopedia II - Russian jokes - Stereotypes

Russian jokes - Stereotypes

Russian jokes - Fixed characters

Standartenführer Stirlitz, alias Colonel Isayev is a character from the Soviet TV series “Seventeen Moments of Spring” (“Семнадцать мгновений весны”, based on a novel by Yulian Semyonov) played by the popular actor Vyacheslav Tikhonov about a Soviet intelligence officer who infiltrates Nazi Germany. Stirlitz interacts with Nazi officials Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Martin Bormann and Heinrich Müller. Usually two-liners told in parody of the stern and solemn announcement style of the background voice in the original series, the plot is resolved in grotesque plays on words or in dumb parodies of overly-smart narrow escapes and superlogical trains of thought of the "original" Stirlitz.

• Müller returns to his office and sees Stirlitz kneeling in front of the safe. "What are you doing here?" asks Müller. / "I'm waiting for the tram." / "Ah, I see," says Müller and walks out. "...Wait a minute, how can a tram go through my office?" Müller soon realises and rushes back, but Stirlitz has disappeared. "He caught the tram, then," thinks Müller.

• The words "Stirlitz is an asshole!" were written in chalk on the wall of the Reichs chancellory. The entire Nazi party was snickering about it... And only Stirlitz knew that he had been awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

• (L) "Stirlitz! You are a Jew!", suddenly barks Müller. "I'm Russian," briskly retorts Stirlitz, and Müller responds: "Well, I'm a German one" (wordplay: "Russian" and "Russian one" are the same in Russian).

• Stirlitz sits in his office. Someone knocks. "It's Bormann," thinks Stirlitz. "Yes, it's me," thinks Bormann.

• Stirlitz opened the door. The light went on. Stirlitz closed the door. The light went off. Stirlitz opened the door again. The light went on! Stirlitz closed the door. The light went off! "Fridge!!!" concluded Stirlitz.

• Stirlitz thought. He liked it and thought once again.

Poruchik (lieutenant) Rzhevsky is a cavalry officer, a character from Hussar Ballad, a popular 1960s comedy. In the jokes, he's often seen interacting with characters from the novel War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Unlike the movie character, a sophisticated Don Juan type, the Rzhevsky in jokes is vulgar and incredibly dumb.

• Kniaz Obolenski asks Poruchik Rzhevsky: "Tell me, Poruchik, how come you're so good with the ladies? What's your secret!" / "It's quite simplement, Kniaz, quite simplement. I just come over and say: 'Hey, wanna fuck?'" / "But Poruchik, you'll get slapped in the face for that!" / "Oui, some of them slap, but some of them fuck!"

• Poruchik Rzhevsky asks his aide: "Stepan, there is a grand ball tonight. Got any new puns for me to tell there?" — "Sure, sir, how about this rhyme: 'Adam had Eve... right on the eve... of their very last day in the Eden...'" — "That's a good one!". Later, at the ball: "Messieurs, messieurs! My Stepan taught me a funny chanson ridicule: 'Adam fucked Eve at dawn...' Pardon, not like that... 'Adam and Eve fucked through the night ...' Er... Hell, basically they fucked, but it was absolutement splendid in the verse!"

• "Colonel," Poruchik Rzhevsky asked, "What were your main hobbies when you were younger?" "Hunting and women," said the colonel." "What were you hunting for?" "For women."

• Poruchik Rzhevsky puts his clothes on and is about to leave a lady he met the day before. "Hey, what about the money?" the girl asks. Rzhevsky turns around and proudly says: "We, Hussars do not take money from women!"

The popularity of the jokes branched over to other areas of Russian culture. http://www.cafepress.com/russian/21396

Rabinovich is an archetypal Russian Jew. He is a weaselly type, hates the Soviet government, and is sometimes a otkaznik (refusenik), who is refused permission to emigrate to Israel.

• Rabinovich fills out an application form. The official is skeptical: "You stated that you don't have any relatives abroad, but you do have a brother in Israel." / "Yes but he isn't abroad, I am abroad!"

• Seeing a pompous and luxurious burial of a member of the Politburo, Rabinovich shakes his head: "What a waste! With all this money I could have buried the whole Politburo!"

• Every day Rabinovich takes a paper from the newsstand, glances at the front page, and puts it back. After some time the salesman asks him: "What are you looking for in there?" "An obituary." "But the obituaries are in the back!" "The one I am looking for will be on the front page."

Vovochka is the Russian equivalent of Little Johnny. He interacts with his school teacher, Marivanna, a spoken shortened form of Maria Ivanovna. a common Russian name. The name itself is a diminutive form of Vladimir, creating the "little boy" effect. His fellow students bear similarly diminutive names. This "little boy" name is used in contrast with Vovochka's wisecracking, adult, often obscene statements. Some of these jokes also play on "Vovochka" being a diminutive for "Vladimir", the first name of the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, as well as the current president Vladimir Putin.

• Vovochka comes back home very depressed: "Mom, mom, I got an 'F' in math". His mother is in tears. "Ah, leave me alone, you. Your brother Sasha just threw a bomb at the Tsar!!!" (Lenin's older brother Aleksandr Ulyanov was a bomb-throwing terrorist).

• Since the election of Vladimir Putin, all jokes about Vovochka are considered political. (This is actually a joke and not a fact.)

• In biology class, the teacher draws a cucumber on the board: "Children, could someone tell me what this is?" Vovochka raises his hand: "It's a cock, Marivanna!" Maria Ivanovna bursts into tears and runs out. In a minute the principal bursts in: "Alright, what did you do now? It's something new every day! Yesterday you break a window, and today...," he looks around, "...and today you draw a cock on the blackboard?"

• The teacher asks the class to produce a word that starts with the letter "A"; Vovochka happily raises his hand and says "Asshole!". The teacher, shocked, responds "For shame! There's no such word!". "That's strange," Vovochka thinks to himself, "an asshole exists, but the word for it doesn't?"

• First English lesson. The teacher asks if anyone knows the English (i. e. Latin) alphabet. Vovochka, a son of a software engineer replies, “I do!”. The teachers asks Vovochka to name the letters of the ABC in the alphabetical order. Vovochka replies, “Q, W, E, R, T, Y…”

• Marivanna asks the pupils, what are they going to be in the future. "Petya, what will be your occupation?" "I'll be a kosmonaut" "Masha, what will be your occupation?" "I'll be a ballet dancer" "Vovoshka, what will be your occupation?" "I'll be a sexopatologist" "What?!! Do you ever know what is it?!" "Yes, I do. Look in the window: there are three women eating ice-cream. The first one is biting, the second one - licking, and the third one - sucking. Which of them is married?" The blushed teacher answers: "The sucking one..." "No, the biting one. You know why?" "Why?" "She has a wedding ring on her finger. And that's the people like you I'm going to heal."

Vasily Ivanovich Chapayev, a Red Army hero of the Russian Civil War, was featured in a very popular 1934 biopic. Other characters from the biopic like his aide-de-camp Petka (Peter), Anka The Machine-Gunner, and commissar Furmanov, all based on real people, are also featured in the jokes. Most common topics are about their fight with the monarchist White Army, Chapayev's futile attempts to enroll into the Frunze Military Academy, and the circumstances of his death; he was machine-gunned by the Whites while attempting to flee across the Ural River.

• "I flunked again, Petka. The question was about Caesar, and I told them it's a stallion from the 7th cavalry squadron." / "Oh, sorry about that, Vasili Ivanovich, I had him moved to the 6th!"

• Chapayev, Petka and Anka, in hiding from the Whites, are crawling across a field. Petka says, "Your mother must have been a dancer -- your legs are so fine!" Chapayev responds, "And your father, Petka, must have been a plowman: you are leaving such a deep furrow!"

• On the occasion of an anniversary of the October Revolution, Furmanov gives a political lecture to the rank and file: "...And now we are on our glorious way to the shining horizons of Communism!" / "How did it go?", Chapayev asks Petka afterwards. "Exciting!... But unclear. What the hell is a horizon?" / "See Petka, it is a line you may see far away in the steppe when the weather is good. And it's a tricky one -- no matter how long you ride towards it, you'll never reach it. You'll only wear down your horse." (Many other folk characters have starred in this joke as well, including Rabinovich.)

• A teacher learns that Vovochka's grandfather met Chapaev during the Russian Civil War. She asks him to come to the class on the eve of the anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution and tell the kids about his memories. The old man reluctantly agrees. Kids meet him with excitement: "Say, gramps, did you see Chapayev with your own eyes?" / "Indeed I did. There I was, on the bank of the Ural river, a Maxim machine gun firmly in my hands. Suddenly I see someone swimming across the river! His Excellency orders me, fire Ivan, fire! Well, kids, that was the last I ever saw of Chapaev!"

• Petka is writing something on a piece of paper. "What are you writing?" asks Chapaev. "I am writing a complaint to the Supreme Soviet. This is about the condoms. They tear." Chapaev replies: "Great idea, Petka. In addition, write that they bend."

Some older jokes involve Fantomas, a fictional criminal and master of disguise from a French detective series by the same name, films based on which were once wildly popular in Russia. His archenemy is Inspector Juve, charged with catching him. Fantomas's talent for disguise is usually the focus of the joke, allowing for jokes featuring all sorts of other characters:

• "Haha!" said Fantomas as he snuck out of Sophia Loren's bedroom and took off his Carlo Ponti mask. "Haha!" said Inspector Juve later as he snuck out of Sophia Loren's bedroom and took off his Sophia Loren mask.

• (From the days of Golda Meir) Fantomas sneaks into Mao Zedong's private chamber as the latter is on his deathbed, and takes off his mask. "Well, Petka, fate sure does has a way of scattering friends all over the world, doesn't it?", says Mao. "Ah, if you only knew, Vasily Ivanovich," responds Fantomas, "what our Anka has been up to in Israel!"

Vanka and Manka (i.e., Ivan and Mariya) are a rustic couple with typically Russian names, visiting a large city and confronted with urban civilization.

• Vanka and Manka came to Moscow and went to a restaurant. Noticing that they were horribly out of fashion, they rush into a restroom, Manka cuts a deep decollete, using the cut fabric to hack bell-bottoms for Vanka's pants. Fixed up, they order lunch. The orchestra plays soft music. Manka purrs moodily: "My breast is on fire from Tchaikovsky's music!" Vanka looks up: "Dummy, take your tit out of your borscht!"

Russian jokes - New Russians

New Russians, i.e. the nouveaux riches, arrogant and poorly educated post-perestroika businessmen and gangsters, are a new and very popular category of characters in contemporary Russian jokes. A common plot is the interaction of a New Russian in his Mercedes with a regular Russian in his modest Soviet-era Zaporozhets after having had a car accident. The New Russian is often a violent criminal or at least speaks criminal argot, with a number of neologisms (or common words with skewed meaning) typical among New Russians. In a way, these anecdotes are a continuation of the Soviet-era series about Georgians, who were then depicted as extremely wealthy. The physical appearance of the New Russians is often that of overweight men with short haircut, thick gold chains and crimson jackets, with their fingers in the horns gesture, riding "600th Mers" and showing off their wealth.

• "Daddy, all my schoolmates are riding the bus, and I am the black sheep in this 600th Mers." / "No worries, son. I'll buy you a bus! So you'll ride as everyone else!"

• "Look at my new tie," says a New Russian to his colleague. "I bought it for 500 dollars in the store over there." "You got yourself conned," says the other. "You could have paid twice as much for the same one just across the street!"

• What did the New Russian say to the Old Jew? "Can I borrow some money, Dad?"

• A New Russian and his son are walking along the shore. They see an artist painting a picture. "You see, son?" says the New Russian. "That's how bad it is without a camera."

Russian jokes - Animals

Jokes set in the animal kingdom also feature stereotypes, such as the violent Wolf, the sneaky (female) Fox, the cocky coward Hare, the strong, simple-minded Bear, and the multi-dimensional Hedgehog.

• The bear, the wolf, the hare and the fox are playing cards. The bear warns, shuffling: "No cheating! If I catch anyone cheating, I'll punch her in the face... that's right, her smug red-furred face!"

• "If something has spilled from somewhere, then that must mean that something has poured into somewhere else," the drunken hedgehog mused philosophically when the campers quarrelled over a broken bottle. ("Drunken hedgehog" is a kind of multipurpose Russian cliche.)

Animals in Russian jokes are and were very well aware of politics in the realm of humans.

• A bunch of animals, including a rooster sit in a prison and brag why they had landed there. <Scores of versions of funny tales by Fox, Wolf, etc.> The rooster doesn't take part in this. Someone asks: "And what was with you?" - "I am not talking to you criminals. I am a political prisoner!" - "How come?" - "I pecked a Young Pioneer in his ass!"

Often animal jokes are in fact fables, i.e., their punchline is (or eventually becomes) a kind of a maxim.

• The hare walks through a forest and meets the running camel. The hare asks: "What's a matter? Why such a haste?" "The camels there are caught and shot." The hare starts running too. The camel asks: "Why are you running? You're not a camel!" "When you are caught and shot, try to prove you're not a camel!" (This joke is the origin of the popular Russian say "try to prove you are not a camel" in the sense "try to prove postfactum that you did not do anything wrong".)

• The hare sits in front of the bush and writes something. There comes a wolf. "Hey, what are you writing?" "My Ph.D. thesis." "And what is its subject?" "'Hares eating other beasts'" "But how is it possible?" "Look behind the bush, you will know." The wolf enters the bushes and never comes back. Then there comes a bear. The same happens. In the evening the hare collects his papers and looks behind the bushes. There, on a heap of bones, sits a well-fed lion. Moral: The thesis subject doesn't matter, but who your academic advisor is, does.

Russian jokes - Drunkards

• Two drunks get onto a bus. One of them asks "Will this bus take me to 25th Street?" The bus driver says, "No, it won't." After a pause, the other man inquires "What about me?"

• A drunkard takes a leak by a lamp pole in the street. A policeman tries to reason him: "Can't you see the latrine is just 25 steps away?" The drunkard replies: "Do you think I got me a damn fire hose in my pants here?"

• Drunk #1 is slowly walking, bracing himself against a fence and stumbling. He comes across Drunk #2, who is lying next to the fence. "What a disgrace! Lying around like a pig! I'm ashamed for you." "You just keep on walking, demagogue! We'll see what you're gonna do when you run out of fence!"

Russian jokes - Policemen

These often revolve around the supposition that the vast majority of Russian and Soviet militsioners accept bribes. Also, they are not considered to be very bright.

• An intelligence test was conducted among the OMON (Russian Special forces) involving variously shaped and sized holes and pegs. The conclusion states that the OMON can be divided into two groups: very clever and very strong.

• Three prizes were awarded for the successes in Socialist competition of militsia department #18. The third prize is the Complete Works of Vladimir Lenin. The second prize is 100 rubles and a ticket to Sochi... The first prize is a portable stop sign. (There are several of versions with this punch line about stop sign. This one depicts a Soviet peculiarity. A portable stop sign allows the militaman to put it on an unexpected or hard to see place on a road and fine everyone who passed it and appropriate most of the fines for himself.)

• Q: Why does the militsiaman's uniform have five metal buttons on the cuffs of the sleeves?

• A person on the bus tells a joke: "Do you know why policemen always go in pairs?" / "No, why?" / "Specialization: one knows how to read, and another knows how to write." / A hand promptly grabs him by the shoulder — a policeman is standing right behind him! "Your papers!" he barks. The hapless person surrenders his papers. The policeman opens them, reads, and nods to his partner: "Write him up a citation, Vasya."

• A policeman stops a car and asks the driver to breathe into an alcohol detection device. The driver breathes, the device shows no alcohol. So comes the next car and the next driver, the detector still shows 0% alcohol, and so it goes on… After having examined about a half a dozen drivers, the policeman says to himself, — "Is this bloody detector broken?". He shortly breathes into the device, looks at the BAL, and confirms — "Nah, it still works!".

Russian jokes - Army NCOs

Probably any nation big enough to have an army has a good deal of its own barracks jokes. Other than for plays on words, these jokes are usually international. In the Soviet Union, however, military service was universal (for males), so most people could relate to them. In these jokes a warrant officer (praporschik) is an archetypal bully of limited wit.

There is an enormous number of one-liners, supposedly quoting a praporschik:

• Private Ivanov, dig a trench from me to the next scarecrow!"
• Private Ivanov, dig a trench from the fence until lunch!"

The punchline "from the fence until lunch" has become a well-known Russian cliché for an unpleasant assignment with no defined purpose.

Some of them are philosophical, and apply not only to warrant officers.

• Scene One: A tree. An apple. An ape comes and starts to shake the tree. A voice from above: "Think, think!" The ape thinks, grabs a stick, and hits the apple off. / Scene Two: A tree. An apple. A praporschik comes and starts to shake the tree. A voice from above: "Think, think!" / "No time to think, gotta shake!".
• Warrant officer to privates: "Write down: the temperature of boiling water is 90°." One of the privates replies, "Comrade praporschik, you're mistaken - it's 100°!" The officer checks in the book, and then replies, "Right, 100°. It is the right angle that boils at 90°."

Commander and intellectual trooper:

• A commander announces: - The platoon has been assigned to unload luminum - Aluminum, not luminum, corrects a trooper. - The platoon is going to unload luminum, repeats commander, - and the intellectual here is going to unload ironum.

Until shortly before perestroika, all fit male students of higher education had obligatory military courses from which they graduate as junior officers in the military reserve. A good deal of military jokes originated there.

• "Soviet nuclear bombs are 20% more efficient than the Atomic Bombs of the probable adversary. American bombs have 4 zones of effect: A, B, C, D, while ours have five: А, Б, В, Г, Д!" (A, B, V, G, D - the first five letters of the Russian alphabet.
• "A nuclear bomb falls exactly on the epicenter."

• "Suppose we have a unit of M tanks... no, M is not enough. Suppose we have a unit of N tanks!"
• "The attack is signaled with three green sirens into the zenith." ("a green whistle" - "зеленый свисток" is a common nick for a green-flame SHT signal rocket that whistles at the start)

• "An ellipsis is a circle inscribed into a square with dimensions 2 by 4."

Sometimes, these silly statements can cross-over, intentionally or unintentionally, into the realm of actual wit:

• "Student, justify why you have come to class wearing pants of our probable military opponent!" (here the teacher means jeans made in USA) The right answer, as mentioned sometimes, is: "Because, teacher, they are a probable war trophy."

There is also an eternal dispute between servicemen and civilians:

• Civilian: "You servicemen are dumb. We civilians are smart!" / Serviceman: "If you are so smart, then why can’t you march in files?"

Russian jokes - Ethnic stereotypes

Russia (and especially the former Soviet Union) has been multiethnic for many centuries, and throughout their history several ethnic stereotypes have developed, often shared with those produced by other ethnicities (with the understandable exception of the ethnicity in question, but not always).

Chukchi, the native people of Chukotka, the most remote northeast corner of Siberia, are the most common minority targeted for generic ethnic jokes in Russia -- many other nations have a particular one they make fun of (c.f. Poles in American humor, Belgians in French and Dutch humor). In jokes, they are depicted as generally primitive and simple-minded, but clever in a naive kind of way. A propensity for constantly saying "odnako" - "however" - is a staple of Chukcha jokes.

• "Chukcha, why did you buy a fridge if it's so cold in tundra?" / "Why, is minus fifty Celsius outside, is minus ten inside, is minus five in the fridge - a warm place!"

• A Chukcha comes into a shop and asks: "Do you have color TV's?" "Yes, we do." "Give me a green one."

Chukchi do not miss their chance to retaliate.

• A Chukcha and a Russian go hunting polar bears. They track one down at last. Seeing the bear, the Chukcha shouts "Run!" and starts running away. The Russian shrugs, raises his gun and shoots the bear. "Russian hunter bad hunter, however", — says the Chukcha, — "Now you haul this bear ten miles to the yaranga yourself!"

• A Chukcha and a Russian geologist are chased by a polar bear. Geologist pants out, "Why are we running? It's impossible to outrun a bear!". Chukcha replies, "I don't need to outrun a bear, I need to outrun a geologist".

Chukchi in jokes, due to their innocence, often see the inner truth of situations.

• A Chukcha returns home from Moscow to great excitement and interest. "What is socialism like?" asks someone. "Oh,", begins the Chukcha in awe, "There, everything is for the betterment of Man. I even saw that Man himself!"

Ukrainians are depicted as rustic, greedy and fond of salted pork fat ("salo"), and their accent, which is imitated in jokes, is perceived as funny.

• A Ukrainian and an African are sitting in a train compartment. The African takes out a banana. The Ukrainian wonders what that is, and the African shares his banana with him. The Ukrainian then takes out some salo. The African wonders what that is and asks if he may try it. The Ukrainian replies "Salo 's salo, what's there to try?"

In addition, Ukrainians are perceived to bear a grudge against Russians (Moskali.)

• The Soviet Union has launched the first man into space. A Ukrainian shepherd, standing on top of a hill, shouts over to another Ukrainian on another hill to tell the news. "Mykola!" / "Yes!" / "Moskali (Russians) have landed on the Moon!" / "All of them?" / "No, the only one." / "So why are you bothering me?"

Georgians are depicted as masculine and hot-blooded. Recently they are often depicted homosexual . A very loud and theatrical Georgian accent, including the grammatical errors typical of Georgians, and occasional Georgian words is considered funny to imitate in Russian and often becomes a joke in itself. For instance, the joke below uses genatsvale, the Georgian equivalent of American English buddy, and "M"-reduplication, akin to Shm-reduplication in Yiddish and English. (In fact, "M"-reduplication is only typical for Azeri and Central Asians: "cultura-multura", but joke tellers don't care much about such details.)

In Soviet times, Georgians were also perceived as running a black market business. It should however be noted that at that time Russians often applied the word "Georgians" (gruziny) to all people from the Caucasus, regardless of their actual nationality. There is a funny expression, probably based on a real event, that in some police reports they are termed as "persons of Caucasian nationality" (Russian: лицо кавказской национальности). In Russia itself, most people saw "persons of Caucasian nationality" mostly at marketplaces selling fruits and flowers. Many of jokes about Georgians are being recently retold in terms of "New Russians".

• A plane takes off from the Tbilisi airport in Georgia. A passenger storms the pilot's cabin, waving an AK-47 gun and demanding that the flight be diverted to Israel. The pilot shrugs OK, but suddenly the hijacker's head falls off his shoulders, and a Georgian pops from behind with his blood-drenched dagger, and a huge suitcase: "Lisssn here genatsvale: no any Israel-Misrael; fly Moscow nonstop — my roses are fading!"

• In the zoo, two lasses are discussing a gorilla with a huge penis: "THAT's what a real man must have!" A passer-by Georgian sarcastically remarks: "You are badly mistaken. THIS is what a real man must have!", and produces a thick wallet.

Armenians are often used interchangeably with Georgians, sharing the some of stereotypes. However their unique context is the fictitious Armenian Radio, usually telling political jokes (see below).

• An Estonian stands by a railway track. Another Estonian passes by on a handcar, pushing the pump up and down. The first one asks: "Iis iit faaar tooo Tallinn?" — "Noot faaar." He gets on the car and joins pushing the pump up and down. After two hours of silent pumping the first Estonian asks again: "Iis iit faaar tooo Tallinn?" — "Nooow iiit's faaaar."

• A promotion from Estonian mobile phone providers: the first two hours of a call are free.

• After the Olympic 2020 ends, the whole Estonian team was woken up during the last night there by their Estonian coach. He yelled: "We've got victory!". He just understood that his team got the first place in biathlon two weeks ago.

• "I've told some Estonian blokes that they're slow" / "What did they reply?" / "Nothing, but they beat me the following day. "

Jewish humour is a highly developed subset of Russian humor, created largely based on the Jews' self-image. These Jewish anecdotes are not the same as anti-Semitic jokes. Instead, whether told by Jews or non-Jewish Russians, these jokes show cynicism, self-irony and wit that is characteristic of Jewish humour both in Russia and elsewhere in the world, see Jewish humor. The jokes are usually told with a characteristic Jewish Accent (stretching out syllables, mispronouncing the rolled "r", etc.).

• Avram cannot sleep, rolling about from side to side... Finally his wife Sarah protests: "Avram, what's bugging you?" / "I owe Moishe 20 roubles, but I have no money. What shall I do?" / Sarah bangs on the wall and shouts to the neighbors: "Moishe! My Avram still owes you 20 roubles? Well he isn't giving them back!" Turning to her husband she says: "Sleep, Avram! Now let Moishe lose sleep!"

• Avram lies dying. "Sarah, are you here?" he asks. "Yes, I'm here." "Is Moishe here?" "Yes, he's here." "Is Rebecca here?" "She's here too." "Are the cousins here?" "Of course." "And all the grandchildren too?" "Here they are." "Then who's minding the store?"

• "Why do you Jews always answer with a question?" / "Why do you want to know this?"

• A Jewish student is caught studying Hebrew. He has an appointment with a representative of KGB, who asks him: "You're such a good student, nice extra-curricular activities, all the package, why do you need to study Hebrew?" / "So that if I die and go to Heaven, I can speak the local language." / (Cynically) "And what if you go to Hell?" / "Well, I figured, I already speak Russian."

• One Odessa Jew meets another one. "Have you heard, Einstein is going to America!" / "Yeah, what for?" / "Haven't you heard, he developed this Relativity theory." / "Yeah, what's that?" / "Well, you know, five hairs on your head is too few. Two hairs in your soup is too many." / "What, and he goes for that to America?!"

Russian stereotypes about Chinese are probably the same as elsewhere in Western world: enormous numbers of Chinese people, their unusual-sounding language, and that Chinese are cunning, industrious and hard-working. They are capable of amazing feats by primitive means (e.g., from the history of the Great Leap Forward).

• During the Damansky Island incident the Chinese military developed three main strategies: The Great Offensive, The Small Retreat, and Infiltration by Small Groups of 1-2 Million across the Border.
• When a child is born in a Chinese family, there is an ancient tradition: a silver spoon is dropped on the jade floor. The sound the spoon makes will be the name of the newborn.
• The first report of the first Taikonaut: "Devices OK, boiler-men on duty!"

A good deal of jokes are puns based on the fact that a certain widespread Chinese syllable sounds exactly as the Russian obscene word for penis (хуй). For this reason since cca. 1956 the Russian-Chinese dictionaries render the Russian transcription of this syllable as "хуэй" (huey), the most embarrassing case probably being the word "socialism" (社会主义; pinyin: shè huì zhǔ yì), rendered previously as "шэ-хуй-чжу-и".

Russians are a stereotype in Russian jokes themselves when set next to other stereotyped ethnicities. Thus, the Russian appearing in a triple joke with two other Westerners, like a German, French, American or Englishman, will provide for a self-ironic punchline depicting him as simple-minded and negligently careless but physically robust, which often ensures he retains the upper hand over his naive Western counterparts.

• A French, a German, and a Russian go on a safari and are trapped by cannibals. They are brought to the chief, who says, "We are going to eat you right now. But I am a civilized man, I studied human rights at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, so I'll grant each of you the last wish." The German asks for a mug of beer and a bratwurst. He gets it, and cannibals eat him. The French asks for three girls. He has crazy sex with them, and then follows the German. The Russian asks: "Hit me hard, right on my nose." The chief is surprised, but hits him. The Russian pulls out a Kalashnikov and shoots all the cannibals. The mortally wounded chief asks him: "Why hadn't you done this before we ate the German?", the Russian proudly replies: "Russians do not attack unprovoked!"
• A German, a French, and a Russian fly in an airplane. The German puts his hand out of the window. "We must be above Germany."/ "Why?" / "My hand smells like gun powder." They fly further. The Frenchman sticks his hand out. "We must be above France... My hand smells like perfume." They fly further. The Russian sticks his hand out. "We must be above Russia." / "Why?" / "My watch got stolen."

(this joke exists in England also but featuring two Englishmen flying back from france and the watch is stolen over the city of Liverpool)

• A British, a German, and a Russian speak about how they kill cows in their countries. British: "In our country, we use electric shock. The cow dies swiftly, feeling no pain. The meat is very tender." German: "We let it listen to Bach first. The cow calms down, and we kill it with electroshock. The meat is even more tender." Russian: "Well, you walk in a Russian store, all you see is bones. I guess, we blow it up..."

Also when set against own minorities, Russians make fun of themselves.

• A boy asks his father: "Dad, are we Russians or Jews?" / "Why are you asking?" / "A kid downstairs offers his bike for sale, and I'm trying to decide — should I bargain over it and buy it, or steal it and break it?"

• A Chukcha sits on the shore of the Bering Strait. An American submarine emerges. The American captain opens the hatch and asks: "Where did the Soviet submarine go?" The Chukcha replies: "North-North-West, bearing 149.5 degrees" "Thanks!" says the American, and the submarine submerges. Ten minutes later a Soviet submarine emerges. The Russian captain opens the hatch and asks the Chukcha: "Where did the American submarine go?" The Chukcha replies: "North-North-West bearing 149.5 degrees" "Stop pulling my leg," says the Russian. "Just point with your finger!"

• An excursion around Hell. The excursion party comes to a department, where stand three cauldrons. One is covered with a lid, chained, blocked with huge rocks, and guarded with vigilant devils, two others are uncovered and unattended. The sightseer asks: "What's a matter? Why such a difference?". The guide explains: "In the first cauldron the Jews are boiling. When one flees, the others follow him. In the second one there are Russians. When one gets out, he's only going for more vodka and promptly is back. And in the third one there are Ukrainians. They constantly drag each other down, thus preventing an escape! "

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Stereotypes", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki