Red is beautiful
You might have wondered why the Red Square in Moscow is actually called 'red'. Is it red? No, it's not. Is it because of the 'red' communists? Wrong again. The word 'red' in Russian, krasnyj, is related to the word krasivyj, beautiful. So it's not only the Red Square of Moscow but the Beautiful Square - krasnaya ploshad'.
Sent by: Katja
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In Swedish up until the 19th century, "red" (or "röd") used to mean the same thing: beautiful, but also denoting something to be coveted. You still find the word in this context in many traditional folk songs, alluding to "red gold rings", "the red horse", etc. This never made sense to me until I learned about the Russian meaning!
But surely the oddest construction is the Russian way of saying I like ... eg. bred: menya nravitsya chleb, lit. bread pleases me. The verb nravitsya is clearly based on the word nrav, character disposition, and the sya makes a verb reflexive. So the bread gives me a good character reference of itself is what is meant!
About pleasing bread - the right form is Ya lyublyu khleb. Ya lyublyu means I love. If you talk about food, the verb Lyubit' sounds much better then Nravit'sya. And if you are not a big fan of eggs, for example, you can say Ya ne lyublyu yaytsa. Nravit'sya is more about things. I like this dress - Mne nravitsya eto plat'ye. I don't like this movie - Mne etot fil'm ne nravitsya.
And in fact, the word krasnyj, red, ceased to mean 'beautiful' only in the early 20th century.
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Also in some Slavic languages, such as Czech, 'krásný' still means beautiful.
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