Writing pro tip: if you write Russian characters and you want to make it more realistic, know that every Russian name has a shorter version and that is the version that's used by family, friends, classmates and people that know you long term.
For example, family and friends will never call each other Dmitry, Daria, Alexander/a or Yevgeny/a but rather Dima, Dasha, Sasha and Jenya.
It will be forever funny to me how in American movies the evil Russian spies who worked together for 20 years (!) call each other Vladimir and Tatyana (if you know each other for that long, you're Vova and Tanya) or how in Black Widow Natasha calls her fucking sister Yelena instead of Lena.
There are some exceptions to that rule such as Yana, Ilya and Alla which are already short and therefore don't have a shorter version.















