who calls themselves that

21yo, he/she/they

[mega-mr-cringe]

Maybe I should contribute something to this Fandom so

I am Russian, so please ask me anything that you've ever been interested in for your heated rivalry writings/head canons/musings etc in relation to Ilya's russianness or language.

Don't be shy, I'm really open to any discussion.

Especially if it's language related, it so happened that I have a degree in linguistics.

[mega-mr-cringe]

If Ilya and Shane are basically Ovi and Crosby

Then

Who tf are Crosby and Malkin? Because I'm not really into rpf but I checked, and as a pairing they are significantly more popular in hockey Fandom.

Are they Shane and a Russian Hayden Pike?

...

Damn

A Russian Hayden Pike.

I bestow russianness upon him. His name would be Gennadiy Shchukin.

[cowcat44artz]

Anyone else?

[mega-mr-cringe]

It all started with two attractive guys who went at it for 5 episodes straight

And now

I watch NHL playoffs at 2 fucking am till 5 am everyday

....

How

Did I end up here

[mega-mr-cringe]

I hope in season 2 they will make a nice logo for Ottawa Centaurs or whatever it will be called.

It's just

The gag with an ugly logo is not funny

It's both not funny and upsetting

Ilya and Shane deserve to have a beautiful team with a beautiful logo

And yes I agree for it to be some sort of ass/dick or straight up sexual intercourse allusion. JUST MAKE IT LOOK GOOD

They can draw a Centaur impaled on a hockey stick for all I care. Just make it look cool. And stylish. And modern.

And it doesn't help that Centaurs actual prototype Ottawa Senators fucking delivers with its logo. Not fair.

Also, I just realized that there is no way we are getting the name Centaurs for our team in the second season.

Oh well

If we get a good-looking logo I will live.

[mega-mr-cringe]

Shane will never become a coach after he retires. Just. Under no circumstances. He is not a coach, he is hopeless at teaching people and it was mentioned in the books. He is that type of genius who is simply unable to explain to someone how to do stuff, he just does it because he was born this way.

I think when it comes to Ilya no one really doubts his future in coaching. But Shane? I think he can be a general manager for some hockey club. Maybe even Voyagers/Metros, who knows. That would be fun.

I think while Shane can't really teach people how to play hockey, he will be exceptionally good at forming teams. Because that he has an eye for. Who to fire, who to trade, who to draft to make the strongest team in the NHL. Especially considering how competitive he is.

And I just realized that hollanov could even work together post retirement, for the same team, Ilya as head coach and Shane as general manager.

But it would be even cooler to see then competing again after years of playing together, say, Ilya, 50yo, head coach for Boston and Shane, GM of Montreal Voyagers.

....And they are divorced.

Okay that's going too far maybe, but still

Great potential for old man yaoi.

[mega-mr-cringe]

hello!!! Hope you’re doing good!!! I loved your posts about Ilya’s childhood and schooling in Russia. I can’t seem to let go of this headcanon that Ilya is a really good singer and has had professional vocal training since childhood? Maybe something he and Irina used to do? Could you throw some light on what kind of songs Ilya would have listened to if he was a vocalist while growing up? Is classical singing and opera a big thing in Russia?

Hi, thank you so much, I'm glad you liked the posts!

Now, this is a hard question for me, I'm pretty much tone-deaf, so I was never in any kind of musical training, but I asked around, so no worries.

Okay, generally, classical music education is veeeeery strong in Russia, we have some of the best conservatories in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but it's higher education so. Irrelevant. For children we have music schools, they are separated from general public schools, but they are still free for anyone who wants to study music. There is an admission process though.

There are some nuances tho that I think don't quite add up for Ilya specifically. If he was to attend music school, it would conflict with his hockey training, because both require a shit ton of your time. If he went both to music school and hockey training he wouldn't have time to live his little life, which is sad.

Now, I kinda got inspired by this hc of yours, and I thought that it would make so much sense for his mother to be a music teacher. She could have played the piano and sung, she could have finished the Moscow conservatory and gotten a PhD in music research or something. This way she could have taught Ilya singing herself, from early age. I can imagine them bonding like that, her teaching him to play the piano and sing. I think she would have noticed his talent, maybe even pushed for him to attend music school at 6 or 7 yo, but his father would be strictly against it because you know. Hockey. A proper manly activity for proper men.

But she would have taught him anyway, and it would have been Ilya's favorite thing in the world, something only for him and his mama.

This makes me so sad actually.

Now, I want to welcome you into the Entry-level Russian Depression™ which is children's songs.

Idk, do you have songs in your culture that are for children, and they are cool and nice, but when you listen to them in adulthood you just cry within 10 seconds and then proceed to bawl for 3 hours straight all the while feeling so much longing you can't physically put it into words? Well, in Russia, we do.

Those are mostly songs from soviet cartoons or movies for children, and I think Irina would DEFINITELY sing them with little Ilyusha.

For example we have a soviet cartoon about little baby mammoth who woke up all alone and started looking for his mama. Spoiler, his mama has been dead for years, he is the last mammoth on the planet earth. And while he was looking for her he sung about how he wants to find his only mama, how he would withstand everything just to get to her and how no child should ever be left alone without their mama. And this song is TERRIBLE for my poor soul and I can't even imagine how Ilya would listen to it or sing it considering his fate. Btw in the end the baby mammoth gets adopted by mama elephant and everything is fine. But I do think that this cartoon and this song is the formative experience for any Russian child, Ilya included.

Here is the link if you want to listen, and there are lyrics in the description for you to Google translate of you want

So this is for little little babies, and now to something he could have sung with Irina closer to 10 or 11.

The first song is Russian Depression™ final boss, Prekrasnoe Dal'yoko (Beautiful Far Away). Not only is it sad as fuck, it also requires some serious singing skills, as far as I understand. This song is from a soviet movie and it's about future, and how one hopes it won't be cruel to them and you can ask any Russian person, they have cried at least once to this song, that I can guarantee. Because when you are a child it sounds hopeful and you are exited for your future that is supposed to be bright, but then you become an adult and just. You are not so hopeful anymore.

Here is the original song and I also added link to it's lyrics, I ran it through Google translate just to check how it sounds. Well, it's... Okay, the poetry is lost completely though, but oh well.

https://youtu.be/KIJpoqwp0js?feature=shared

https://genius.com/Tatyana-daskovskaya-beautiful-far-away-lyrics

This song's cultural impact is huge, it served as an inspiration for a bunch of modern song-writers and cover artists as well, and it's generally really well-loved in Russia and post Soviet space.

Now I just want to drop some links to Soviet songs with similar vibe, just because I really can't deep dive into every single one, it would take years, so here you go, for general knowledge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk5NV6DoQZ4&list=RDQk5NV6DoQZ4&start_radio=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eu0Hp94NGY&list=RDQk5NV6DoQZ4&index=5

Now next one I want to share is interesting, because I listen to this song when I feel really bad, and it does a wonderful job of cheering me up. It has a very warm vibe, if you know, what I mean, here are some of the lyrics

The night will pass, clear morning will come,

I know, happiness awaits you and me

The night will pass, the stormy time will pass

The dawn will come

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peQqsTZ9958&list=RDpeQqsTZ9958&start_radio=1

It's also from a cartoon, so it still kinda falls under children's songs category and the next one is for everybody and I remembered it rather recently because of all the news about Artemis II. So yeah, it's about cosmos.

... And it also has lyrics about mothers and sons. So....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJQ3CIrxsV0&list=RDDJQ3CIrxsV0&start_radio=1

Yes, all of these songs are Soviet, but it's what I imagine Irina would sing with him while she was alive. I truly believe that in that context, Ilya wouldn't have any professional vocal training after her death, it would be too fresh a wound. Plus his father probably pushed for more hockey training, so no time for music lessons.

Music in 2000s is... Another matter whatsoever, it would need a separate post.

I would also love to make a post about what he would be listening to in 2020s, I have a lot of ideas.

Now I'm gonna wrap it up real quick, I always feel like I'm overstaying my welcome with these posts.

It took so much time. I listened to songs from my childhood. I smoked a lot. I cried. I thought about life. I ate kulich. Happy Easter, btw, even tho I believe that it has already passed for catholic world. We have it on the 12th this year. Happy late Easter, I guess.

Bye!

[mega-mr-cringe]

I think a lot of people don't understand what it's like to have a parent with dementia (not something I've experienced directly but it runs in my family and I've worked with a lot of people who have it), even if Ilya did hate his father, which as we've seen in canon, he doesn't, he wishes things were different but he never does anything to indicate he hates him, I imagine seeing his father deteriorate would change a lot of that. His father is clearly on the older side, and is implied to have started becoming confused when Ilya's still in his teens, which means his father had dementia for the majority of Ilya's adult life. That's fucking tough, it changes how you view someone's behaviour because they don't have full control over what they're saying or doing. I imagine Ilya would find it hard to hate his father when he's been ill for so long.

I also think you can have a complicated/difficult relationship with your family without feeling the need to change your name, I don't really believe Shane or Ilya would ever change their surnames and I can't see Ilya changing his patronymic either, I just don't think it's something that would ever occur to him to do.

I've never personally encountered dementia, but I agree wholeheartedly, I think the sickness absolutely does take it's toll. We can even see it in the series, it was shown how Ilya goes from father to papa as the time goes on, and what it is if not an indicator of this particular change in attitude.

Also, about names, I also want to add that he definitely has enough self esteem to consider the names his own, something that is exclusively his, and not just remnants of his family.

The public only knows one Rozanov, and it's neither Grigoriy nor Anrexei.

[mega-mr-cringe]

About the patronymics, btw, you probably know that Ilya's patronymic is Grigoryevich, derived from his father's name Grigoriy, and an interesting thing is that in Russia we don't really have honorifics.

If you Google translate the word mister it will probably give you the word gospodin (господин), if not straight up transliterated мистер, but we don't use that in Russian.

If someone sayes gospodin Rozanov, it gives 19s century, because USSR successfuly got rid of such honorifics, and nowadays, to address someone politely we say given name + patronymic.

So if a Russian speaker wanted something from Ilya, they would say

"Ilya Grigoryevich, I'm such a big fan, can I please have a photo with you?"

And we also never address people by their last name, it comes off rude as f

[mega-mr-cringe]

A lot of people write that Ilya hates his second name which is his patronymic or his last name and all that because he hates his father. Which. I don't really understand?

I don't see why people think that Ilya hates his father, yes, their relationship was not loving or caring, his father was very cold and maybe abusive towards his children and his wife, but never in the whole book series has it ever been alluded that Ilya harbors exclusively negative feelings towards him

Ilya took care of him till the very end, sent money, and after his death went out of his way to arrange proper burial. That is not a I-would-disown-my-surname type of behavior, no?

He did not hate him, I would die on that hill. He was scared of him, he was most likely angry at him, but I don't think that Ilya, with the amount of love he holds inside of himself for his family, would ever feel pure hatred towards this man.

Ilya's father also loved him, but in a very twisted way, in a way only someone deeply traumatized could love, and it's pretty sick.

Also I want to address him getting rid of his patronymic, which I encounter often enough in fics. I don't know, maybe somebody would disagree with me, but patronymics for Russians are so mundane, like, even a person who straight up wishes death upon their father wouldn't be thinking too hard about changing their second name or getting rid of it because this is kinda pointless, and I really don't think that Ilya would be bothered enough to do it. He probably remembers that he has it once a year. And again HE DID NOT HATE HIS FATHER.

He is too devoted a son.

[mega-mr-cringe]

If you ever wondered, short form of the name Irina is Ira.

It's also my girlfriend's name irl

My name is Anya

Love a good representation

She is dead

And I'm a dog

[thatqueerfangirl02]

Ilya: Haas has taught me new fun phrase. He says “Be gay, do crime.” This sounds very fun. We should try it!

Shane: Babe, you’re Russia, being gay is the crime.

[mega-mr-cringe]

If you're okay with some pretty open ended questions, what are some experiences that you think Ilya would have had growing up in Russia that non-Russian writers might not think or write about? Like how Americans have a very specific graduation experience (caps and gowns, etc) or specific games/movies he might have had.

what do you think his most used Russian slang would be? (can be swears or something else)- or if you don't have a headcanon for him, what are some slang words that teenage boys in the 2000s might have used?

what do you think his favourite Russian food might be? are there any classic brands of candy or soda that you think he might have had? (or what's your favourite, if you feel comfortable answering)

feel free to pick and choose which questions you answer but thank you for your offer of help either way 🩷

OK, so I already somewhat covered Ilya's childhood it the 90s, now his teenage years.

Honestly, 2000s in Russia were absolutely unhinged. Soviet Union with its Iron Curtain has collapsed, the economic crisis has passed and western shit starter flowing in in unprecedented amounts. It felt like there were no boundaries at all anymore. While Soviet union was famous for its censorship, Russia in 2000s suddenly had no censorship at all and people collectively lost their minds.

It was suddenly possible to talk about sex on TV, and make anti-governmen jokes on federal channels and also, surprise surprise, talk about gay people. You all know about t.a.t.u. and they monetized the shit out of LGBT community. They fucking have a song called "gay boy". We had pride parades in Russia at that time, there was a shit ton of gay clubs in Moscow, and public figures started coming out of the closet too. There was still a lot of homophobia, especially on governmental level, but LGBT started being represented. Of course we know now that it would only go downhill, but Ilya's teenage years were spent in a very... I wouldn't say liberal, but still rather open-minded time. (We have a TV channel called Ren.tv and it had porn films running at night time. I can imagine Ilya falling asleep watching some generic TV shows and than waking up to people fucking on screen.)

So that was general info. Now details. Russian schools, huh. First off all I want to address the fact that Ilya def graduated from public school. I just know that people often say that Shane was probably home schooled, due to being a promising athlete and shit. Not Ilya's experience, no. He was expected to go to school, have streight A's and probably get a gold medal (it's like graduating with honors in Russia, we used to get gold medals for having only As. And on that note, it's not even A's, it's 5s, because we have five-point grading scale)

OK, so, firstly, in Russian schools we have a uniform, but it's not strict, not like in Japan, it's more of a requirement to wear official style in schools, jackets, dress pants, shirts, all either in black or dark blue. I def can see Ilya being a little shit and go to school in jeans or something and then having a beef with the principal or a teacher. He would so be a rebel, and a popular rebel at that, being an athlete and all. In Russia it's common for bad kids to smoke behind schools, so Ilya would definitely do that with his group of friends. I would say he probably started smoking at 14-15. Btw, it was kinda easy to get sigaretts for underage kids, you just had to know places.

We also had school dances, but they were called discoteka and were more like club dance parties. There were also alcohol, even tho teachers usually monitored the event, the kids would still manage to sneak something in.

One of the popular activities for kids in 2000s was simple loitering and drinking terrible concoction called Jaguar. It was a sort of energy drink but also with alcohol in it, very popular among teens. And a go to snack was a pack of instant noodles, that we crashed into small pieces, added seasoning and ate dry. Also a very popular snack in Russia is this shit

I googled that it's called rye chips in English but I'm not sure. It's basically just seasoned dry pieces of rye bread. Very tasty.

Ilya's favorite soda would absolutely just be Coca-Cola like in his adulthood, but if you are interested in purely post Soviet sodas here we go.

We have Baikal, a soda that is a bit like root beer if I understand correctly, but tastes like pine.

We have Tarkhun, a tarragon soda, very green, very nice, don't know what to compare it to. And it's also Giorgian in origin.

And also we have kvass. Kvass is a fermented rye bread water. Very refreshing, everyone in Russia loves kvass especially during summer. And I know that bread water sounds meh. We also make cold soup with it called okroshka, you can Google it. We have civil wars about what a proper okroshka should be made with, kvass or kefir.

And interesting fact, when I first tried Canada dry ginger ale I thought that it tastes kinda similar to our soda called Buratino, so Ilya might also find similarities.

Irina probably made Ilya a beverage called kompot, it's like a fruit punch, made from dried apples, pears, prunes and apricots. I think it could provoke some nostalgia in him, but this beverage has a very Soviet vibe.

Since Ilya definitely has a sweet tooth I can imagine Irina buying him classic Russian cakes like medovik, napoleon or muraveinik, I think you can Google what those are, but also he would love western chocolate bars, like sneakers.

Most of the slang words were just anglicisms, really, i can highlight the cringiest one, that no one would use nowadays, it is "chick", in Russian people would say чика or чикса, or even worse чикуля and it's giving early 2000s so much it's painful. And curse words in Russian is just science, this post is long enough already. Video game slang was very popular, and it's all still anglicisms, nothing interesting.

Messenger ICQ was insanely popular in 2000s, it was colloquialy called As'ka, and Ilya would 100% use it, I would even say that he would still be using it at the moment he met Shane, it lived a long life in Russia.

OK, so, as I've already said, Russian TV was full of western media in 2000s, so he would be watching the same things as other millennial children. But there were also a lot of Russian TV show adaptations at the time, we had our own Russian versions of Everybody loves Raymond, Ugly Betty, Married with children, and The Nanny, and those were really popular.

OK that's it, too much Russian lore, maybe even more than was asked for, sorry

[mega-mr-cringe]

Oh my god why did my old a/b/o post suddenly gained attantion again, there is an embarrassing grammatical error I hate myself

[mega-mr-cringe]

This is a response to ur recent post but I’ve been wondering for a while how the collapse of the Soviet Union affected, if at all, Ilyas childhood considering finances. Would they have the water shut off occasionally, etc especially how that ties into ilyas father being relatively well known and respected/rich

Ilya's family can be considered "privileged" by Russian standards in the 90s, but they were not rich-rich. It mostly means that they vere not so impoverished that they had no food. And they lived in Moscow, which is a privilege by itself. At that time, especially early 90s, people were not payed salary for months, no matter their occupation, and food was becoming very expensive very fast.

At that time the "richest" (not money wise) were people who had access to food production and could steal some for their family. Apart from criminals, of course, they were the ones who had actual money.

It was shown in the TV adaptation that his father was a colonel "polkovnik", he was probably just police, and it is really not a very hight-paying job, even in Moscow. I think it would barely put their family in middle class, and middle class in Russia is not the same as middle class in America. Like, for example right now, 2026, a colonel makes something 1. 300 dollars a month, very roughly, situations can be different. And the 90s for police were the same as for everybody else, since police is a governmental structure. It's very likely tho that Ilya's father was deeeeep in corruption and had connections to criminal world. Even normal families had connections in the criminal world, just for survival. It was insane.

So no, Ilya's family was not rich at all, unless again his father was involved in some criminal schemes.

Also it is extremely implausible that his mother Irina didn't work. Just generally in Russia very few women are housewives, one person's salary was never enough for a family. Plus the ideology of course. Everyone had to work. So the woman was raising two kids, plus dealing with her abusive husband, plus having a full time job. Insane.

Ilya's family probably lived in an apartment in Moscow, two badrooms max, so they had central heating and central water supply. You see, I'm not from Moscow myself, so I don't know if the situation was the same there, but in provinces yes, there was no water occasionally, and no electricity. I don't think it was too bad though, especially in the capital.

And now I need to say that all of these things mostly only affected Ilya's parents, because early 90s were the hardest, Ilya was only a toddler at the time, he wouldn't really remember any of that. By 2000 the economical situation mostly leveled out. At that point his family could already afford Ilya playing hockey. But they still weren't rich, as I've already said, very low middle class, one boring car, one apartment, one dacha in podmoskovie, one vacation a year somewhere abroad, and that's it. And a son playing a very expensive sport. That's it.

Also, a little warning, I may know about all of it, but I've never experienced it, I'm a fucking Gen Z, and I'm not from Moscow, so. Take what I say with a grain of salt I suppose?

Also articles suck, tenses suck, why did I decide to dedicate my life to English language, I'm tired

[mega-mr-cringe]

I would give everything to see Ilya be The Capitan to the Centaurs in those in-between years.

Like actual sport-drama style shit.

Because in TLG there were literal crumbs. I would trade some unnecessary sex scenes for Centaurs team scenes. Yes, you can fight me for it, I will die on that hill.

I want to see him starting to figure out the new strategy, making the team click on the ice.

I want to see him starting to make a change in the team through his own struggles.

Would be cool to see Weibe and Ilya working together on making the team better.

You know, the fact that this gay shit made me really interested in the whole hockey of it is a curse. Now I just want more sport drama and less sex.

[mega-mr-cringe]

Omega Ilya would absolutely still top Shane, no metter his dynamic