Why did money start to be called 'бабки' [bahp-kee] (grandmothers) in Russia?

🔻This tradition came from the 19th century. It was then that they started printing the portrait of Catherine II the Great on hundred-ruble banknotes and she was also the grandmother of two Russian emperors – Alexander I and Nicholas I.

🔻The large 100 ruble banknote, on which one could buy four cows, started to be called Царская бабка (Tsar's babka). And in slang it was simplified to бабка.

🔻Аt first this money was called Катеринка or Катенька and based on the fact that the empress was depicted at a quite respectable age, the notes started to be called бабки.

🔻The portrait of the “grandmother” had not changed since 1886. Soon banknotes of all denominations started to be called бабки and subsequently all money.

🔻And no matter how new money might look, whether 5000-ruble notes or 100-ruble notes, for many of Russians they all remain бабки (plural).

#brief_and_interesting

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The first notebooks appeared in the Russian Empire in the 1850s-1870s.

🔻Before that time students wrote their notes on special wooden boards.

🔻Initially, notebooks were ordered from printing houses by stationery stores and did not have any lines inside. The format was a quarter of a typographic sheet.

🔻The cost was 3-5 kopecks. The standard green cover appeared before the October Revolution.

The terms 'ученическая' (literally: student) and 'общая' (literally: general) were used, depending on the number of sheets.

🔻Squared paper was used for arithmetic, lines - for writing.

#brief_and_interesting

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