SEVENTH HEAVEN
СЕДЬМАЯ ВОДА НА КИСЕЛЕ: A KISSING COUSIN OR DISTANT RELATIVE
Seven (семь) is a nice, mystical number. There are seven days of creation, seven virtues, seven deadly sins, seven heavens. Long ago, people believed there were seven planets and seven main arteries in the body. Once you start looking for sevens, that's all you see. You begin to wonder if you ought to move to a seven-room flat on the seventh floor of house number seven in Semipalatinsk just to stay on the good side of the gods.
Russia is part of the sacred seven set. Some семь expressions are from other cultures, such as седьмое небо (seventh heaven). This either refers to the restaurant on the top of the Ostankino TV tower or, more often, to a state of utter happiness: Моя дочь поступила в институт! Она на седьмом небе от счастья! (My daughter got into the institute. She's in seventh heaven!) The expression за семью замками/печатями (behind seven locks/seals) is from the Book of Revelations. This is used to refer, either seriously or humorously, to something inaccessible or hidden: Она никогда не раскроет тебе семейный рецепт пирога -- он держится за семью печатями. (She won't tell you the family pie recipe; it's locked behind seven seals.)
You can certainly still feel the mystical in this newspaper ad for a modern-day wizard: Колдун в седьмом поколении решит все ваши проблемы! (A seventh-generation wizard will solve all your problems).
But in other Russian expressions the sacredness of seven seems to have dissipated over the centuries. In many cases, "seven" just means "many." For example, a person with a more mundane profession than wizardry might describe the family business with the expression до седьмого колена (going back many generations, literally "until the seventh knee"): В моей семье все мужчины до седьмого колена были военными. (All the men in my family for generations were in the military.) Or if you are referring to a "kissing cousin" - a very distant relation - you can say седьмая вода на киселе (literally "the seventh water in the jelly"). The expression до седьмого пота (literally "to seven sweats") means to do something to the point of exhaustion. Отец Сашки работал до седьмого пота на двух работах. (Sasha's father worked himself ragged at two jobs.) And the expression на семи ветрах (literally "in seven winds") refers to a place that is windswept. To say that a person has a big family and not enough money to support it or has to work a lot, the Russians often say "семеро по лавкам": "Тебе жалко сдать деньги на подарок боссу? У тебя что, семеро по лавкам?"
The expression семь пятниц на неделе - "a week of seven Fridays" - refers to people who constantly break their word or change their minds. The origin remains obscure; it may be connected with traditional Friday market days and, in this explanation, the traditional propensity of traders to go back on their word. In any case, when you get exasperated with someone's whims, you can say: У тебя семь пятниц на неделе. Вчера хотел стать врачом, а сегодня - педагогом! (You're as fickle as the wind. Yesterday you wanted to be a doctor, today - a teacher!)
If you find yourself unable to decide whether to have one more beer and then go home to your significant other, who will be angry that you had even one, you can shrug and say Семь бед -- один ответ. This is literally "seven misfortunes, one response," but is similar to the English expression, "In for a penny, in for a pound." In other words: "What the hey? I'm gonna get yelled at anyway. Might as well make it worthwhile."
Or if you are unsure about, say, investing in a company - the returns look great, but it's suspiciously registered in a country you can't find on any map - your significant other may tell you sagely, "Семь раз отмерь, один раз отрежь"; literally, "Measure seven
times and cut once." That is, check it out very carefully, because once you cut (or invest your entire pension plan), there's no going back.
And that sensible significant other might remind you that one of the семь смертных грехов (seven deadly sins) is алчность (greed).
Russians are known for not being punctual and arriving later than agreed (it may be due to long distances Russians had to go and it went into the language). Sometimes it causes irritation when you need to wait long. When a russian native wants to say that he hates waiting for somebody too long when the others are ready to start and that it is actually a good excuse to start, he will most surely say "Семеро одного не ждут" (literally "Seven don't wait for one"). For an English spekar it is "For one that is missing there's no spoiling a wedding".
The number "seven" is also used to express irritation at people who can't do anything good together "У семи нянек дитя без глазу" (Too many cooks spoil the broth) and really spoil things, that is everybody's business is nobody's business.
Do you know any other phrases that contain the word "seven"?
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