Title: Friends and Rubles

General information about item:

Verbal folklore, proverb
Language: Russian
Country of origin: Russia
Informant: Amanda Durfee
Date collected: 10/31/18
Informant Data:

Amanda is a senior at Dartmouth College. She was raised in Wisconsin, but attended a Russian camp during the summer when she was in high school, which is where she learned the proverbs she shared. She has also studied abroad in Russia, and is majoring in the subject at Dartmouth, where she is currently taking coursework in the language.

Contextual Data:

Amanda learned this proverb while at Russian camp in high school. She is also currently taking classes in Russian at Dartmouth to fulfill her major in Russian.

Item

Не имей сто рублей, а имей сто друзей.

Literal translation: “It’s better to have 100 friends than 100 rubles.”

Meaning: Friends are more important than material things.

Associated file: 

Transcript: “‘Верный друг лучше сотни слуг.’ And that translates to, roughly, ‘It’s better to have 100 friends than 100 rubles.'”

Informant’s comments:

Amanda commented that while 100 rubles would not be worth very much today, when the proverb originated this would have been a much more significant sum. She thinks it emphasizes the importance of building friendships rather than focusing on money, and of the value that friendship adds to one’s life in general.

Collector’s comments:

This proverb, like other Russian proverbs I collected, emphasized the importance of friendship, in particular, over other aspects of life. It also reinforces the idea that money is only of so much value, by directly dismissing a large amount of money as inferior to friendship. This suggests a generally collectivist mindset, emphasizing that one person cannot survive on their own without the help of the community.

Like many Russian proverbs I collected, this one follows a two-part structure in which one thing is directly compared to another, with the first one being considered superior. It also uses a large quantity (a hundred of each item) to emphasize its point. I did find this interesting, given that 100 friends is so large as to be considered almost abstract, compared to the power of naming a single friend.

Collector’s name: Zachary Benjamin