The original Sakha is given for some terms in parentheses. Photographs provided by Mitrofan kyyha Varvara Egorova-Dygyia, Susan Crate, and Kathryn Yegorov-Crate. The Sakha Republic, known as Sakha sire (Саха сирэ) in the Sakha language, is home to one of the most extreme climates on earth. Winter temperatures regularly dip past -45F, making it the […]

The original Sakha is given for some terms in parentheses. The Sakha Republic, or Sakha Sire (Саха сирэ), is the largest republic in Russia, more than 4.5 times the size of the American state of Texas. Its territories are a mixture of mountains, broad plateaus, and river and coastal lowlands. Although summers can be quite […]

The original Sakha is given for some terms in parentheses. Photographs provided by Mitrofan kyyha Varvara Egorova-Dygyia, Susan Crate, and Kathryn Yegorov-Crate. The Games of Dygyn or the Dygyn oonn’uulara (Дыгын оонньуулара), as they are known locally, is a multisport competition held in the Republic of Sakha, located in Siberia. It is comprised of seven […]

The original Sakha is given for some terms in parentheses. Photographs provided by Mitrofan kyyha Varvara Egorova-Dygyia, Susan Crate, and Kathryn Yegorov-Crate. Yhyakh (ыһыах) is the Sakha people’s annual summer festival during which Sakha make offerings to sky deities known as aiyy (айыы) and make merry before the laborious hay-cutting season. Yhyakh is often rendered […]

The Talking Phrasebook Series presents useful phrases and words in side-by-side translation and with audio files specifically geared to help students work on listening skills and pronunciation. Each entry below, divided by category, features an English word or phrase in the left column and its Russian translation in the right. The Russian is presented in […]