The number one killer in Russia

As some of you may have read in this post, there’s plenty of things waiting to kill you in Russia, but one thing I failed to mention was the most deadly of all the killers – the Skvoznyak.

For those of you unfamiliar with this slayer of men, skvoznyak literally translates as ‘draught’ and, according to most Russians, is the cause of almost all ailments. If you have come to Russia for any amount of time, chances are you’ll know all about this silent killer.

Skvoznyak strikes again

Russians really do fear the skvoznyak. Most of the time the windows are kept closed, especially in our office, for fear of , basically, the air. If you open the window for too long, illness will ensue. A a lot of illnesses are chalked up to the devil skvoznyak. You have a cold? Probably because you had the widow open for three minutes last night. You have Polio? Yup, skvoznyak caused that one. 

Let this be a warning to all you window openers!

I literally can’t stress how much Russians are into this, I mean sure, prolonged low temperatures will slow down an immune response, but cold air itself won’t make you ill, however the hobo-spreading tuberculosis machine standing near your podezd will.

Russians even have a verb (got to love the richness of the Russian language) продуть meaning ‘to get a chill’, i.e. get ill from the cold. Also, I should say that продуть has a few other meanings too, and there are quite a lot of prefixed meanings with дуть, but I’m not here to give a grammar lessons.

Now I open my window a lot, I leave it open in the day, and periodically have it open when I’m home, even if it’s -30 outside. My Russian flat mate constantly asks “тебя не продует?”
It's like listening to a broken record of a song I hate, every single day.

In fact, speaking of продуть and my flat mate, one time, her dad came to leave her rent money while she was away on holiday. When I answered the door, he was puffing and panting like he was fixing to have a coronary right there on our door step. He had to go and lie down for 20 minutes and, to be honest, he was not looking good. I thought it was because he had run up the stairs but when I asked him, he said that he had opened the window at work for 5 minutes it the breeze must have got to him.

Now, I’m no doctor house or anything, but I’m pretty sure breeze doesn’t cause heart attacks.

House and his rapist eyes concur

So, in a sarcastic nutshell, that is the skvoznyak. Also, as a bonus, you should know that in Russia, sitting on cold things, even in summer, will make you infertile - just in case you were wondering.