Russian students addressed the teacher in the Russian Patronymic, rather than Mister and the last name. In Russia, your middle name is a patronymic of your father’s name. If you are a boy, the patronymic would be your father’s name with ‘ovich’ at the end.

If you are a girl, the patronymic would be your father’s name with ‘ovna’ at the end.

My wife’s name is Aksana. Her father’s name is Vadim. Her name is therefore Aksana Vadimovna. My patronymic is John Donaldovich. Pretty simple.

Essentially it identifies her as Vadim’s daughter, Aksana, and me as Donald’s son, John.

Russian Patronymic

The school tried to enroll children to join the Communist party. They did a big sales job on them. They tried to portray it like they were joining the 4H Club or Cub Scouts.

Not many people joined. Yeah, some of the members of the Communist Party got ahead in life, but a lot more of them disappeared when they somehow fell out of favor. It was better to keep a low profile if you wanted to survive.

They gave out buttons with Lenin’s picture on them that you could wear on your shirt or sweater when you did something good. Lenin was portrayed as a warm, grandfatherly type guy – kind of a combination of George Washington and Santa Claus.

Despite the indoctrination, only one per cent of the Russian people joined the Communist Party.