Transl. & English-speaking prisoners

[Russell Valentino]

They f-d around with her in customs for half an hour.

or, with ironic intent,

They shook her down in customs for half an hour.

At 12:52 PM 7/15/2005, you wrote:
>For what it's worth, when I visited Russia in 1988, and customs officers 
>told me to open my suitcases and looked through them with some (not 
>exhaustive) thoroughness, my (intelligentnye) relatives referred to this 
>as "ee polchasa shmonali na tamozhne".  Not brutal, no strip search, but 
>there you have it.  What would the American equivalent for this be?
>
>Sincerely,
>Svetlana Grenier <greniers at georgetown.edu>
>
>Edward M Dumanis wrote:
>
>>I does not seem that "shake down" will be a nice fit for "shmon."
>>"Shmon" is just a slang substitution for "obysk," i.e. any thorough police
>>search of any room, house, vehicle, or person. There is no hint in the
>>meaning of this word on whether it is brutal or not, or whether any
>>extortion was involved.
>>
>>Sincerely,
>>
>>Edward Dumanis <dumanis at buffalo.edu>

Russell Valentino
Associate Professor
Program in Russian
Department of Cinema and Comparative Literature
University of Iowa
Tel. (319) 353-2193
Fax (319) 353-2524  

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