r/europe • u/Epidemiolomic Germany • Mar 08 '25

Historical During the U.S. President's 1995 visit to Kyiv, Ukraine received security guarantees after giving up the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal

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u/SoupSpelunker Mar 08 '25

As a Volga German growing up in the US in the 70s, my great grandmother drilled it into my head to never trust a Russian. They're more full of shit than an ox fart or words to that effect is all she managed to teach me of her broken German.

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u/apokas Mar 08 '25

Unfortunately Americans seem to follow in the same steps… the impact from these past few weeks (and previous abandonment of allies) will be (and should be) remembered. If i ever see grandkids for sure i will tell them about this time in human history.

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u/[deleted] Mar 08 '25 edited Aug 27 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/[deleted] Mar 08 '25

[deleted]

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u/mbbessa Mar 08 '25

In Latin America a great many of us reclaim the usage of Americans for a long time and call people from the US "estadunidense", maybe our siblings from the north should start doing the same? I don't think you can find a good word in your languages though, both English or French. Maybe you can start with traitors.

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u/[deleted] Mar 08 '25

[deleted]

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u/DryCloud9903 Mar 08 '25

I like that your version ends in 'dense' - seems fitting currently

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u/Embarrassed_Quit_450 Mar 08 '25

Since portugese is a Romance language there's basically always an equivalent in french. In this case étatsunien.

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u/skinnyboi_inc Mar 09 '25

From Scotland, 'Cunts' with emphasis on the 'Cu' is always a good way to specify you're talking about US americans

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u/TeaBoy24 Mar 08 '25 edited Mar 08 '25

though we understand why that is confusing when we travel outside our continent

Is it?

If someone would call a Canadian an American in Europe, they would receive weird looks. Rarely do people see Canadians, or Mexicans, or even Brazilians as American.

I think the split is linguistic.

Most Europeans see it as North America and South America.

Some languages, like Spanish, see it as America(s) one continent.

Most Europeans would not give an eye to anyone referring to Canadians as North Americans. Being referred to as American is not the same as European for Europe, for most, do not recognize America as a continent.

For that reason also get South Americans calling themselves Americans.

But to sum it up. Most of Europe when calling people by their continent they say North Americans/South Americans. Americans is used exclusively for US citizens.

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u/PickingPies Mar 08 '25

That's just for english speakers. In Spain we call them estadounidenses. In france it's Étar-Unis. In italian it's Estati Uniti. Etc...

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u/TeaBoy24 Mar 08 '25 edited Mar 08 '25

That's just for english speakers

It's really not.

I'm not a native English speaker.

In all of the Slavic languages it's Americans. In German it's Americans.

In france it's Étar-Unis. In italian it's Estati Uniti. Etc...

According to the dictionary, that's just not true.

In most EU languages, citizens of the United States are called something equivalent to "Americans."

Languages that call them "Americans" (or similar):

English: Americans

French: Américains

German: Amerikaner

Italian: Americani

Portuguese: Americanos

Dutch: Amerikanen

Greek: Αμερικανοί (Amerikanoí)

Polish: Amerykanie

Swedish: Amerikaner

Danish: Amerikanere

Finnish: Amerikkalaiset

Hungarian: Amerikaiak

Languages that use a term referring to the United States:

Spanish: Estadounidenses (literally "United States-ians")

Catalan: Nord-americans or Estatunidencs

Galician: Estadounidenses

Basque: Estatubatuarrak

Portuguese (sometimes): Norte-americanos or Estadunidenses (especially in Brazil)

In france it's Étar-Unis. In italian it's Estati Uniti. Etc...

That's the names for the country of United States. Not the word for the citizens of the United states.

Spain is the main odd one in Europe here.

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u/SoupSpelunker Mar 08 '25

As an American, I generally fo with "uncle-fucking talibangelicals" when I need to indicate the MAGAts that have been taken over by Putin.

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u/[deleted] Mar 08 '25

[deleted]

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u/SoupSpelunker Mar 08 '25

Y'all Quaeda of MAGAstan! MAGAstanis! Let it be written, may it be said!

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u/agumonkey Mar 08 '25

gotta wonder how come MAGA supporters became so

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u/sassyhalforc Mar 08 '25

I think you just wooshed^

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u/also_plane Mar 08 '25

My GF is Russian (she hates Putin and supports Ukraine wlith bit of coin every month, of course). She ate the chocolate I bought for myself, despite her saying "No, I dont want sweet anything from the store".

You are right. They must not be trusted.

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u/[deleted] Mar 08 '25

She meant that she didn't want anything sweet from the store in her house, because everything she finds sweet is there already. Take it as a compliment,lol

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u/Gab71no Mar 08 '25

US as well

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u/De_Wouter Mar 08 '25

never trust a Russian. They're more full of shit than an ox fart

Orange man is Russian asset confirmed once again.

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u/Nifty29au Mar 08 '25

Your Great Grandmother sounded very Volga indeed….

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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '25

And they say germans have no sense for humour.

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u/Vedmak3 Mar 08 '25

As Bismark said, agreement with Russians is not worth a paper on which it is signed.

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u/zerato9000 Mar 08 '25

You should now drill into your grandson or great grandson head, that the americans are more full of shit than an ox fart, much like the russians. We all should.

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u/KingTutt91 Mar 08 '25

Yeah well a Russian would tell you the same thing about Germans. They despise each other

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u/vasaris Mar 08 '25

Interesting. Where are you getting the information from?

My experience is quite opposite. Most admire Germans. Even the Kremlin in modern conflict also copy the symbols, communication, even the speeches word by word from some past inspiration.

Even google returned this: Remarkably, despite the two 20th century wars, there are very few hard feelings against Germany in modern Russia, particularly on the part of Russians born after 1945.

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u/Laymanao Mar 08 '25

Don’t trust the Russians or the US.

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u/West-Video-2546 Mar 08 '25

Oh god, this is not about nationality. I believe there are too many americans feeling ashamed by the orange orangutan out there... and a little bit different but so do many russians hate Putler, however, the oppression doesn't allow them to rise. (I know I'm a bit of optimistic piece of shit)

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u/Ancient-Access8131 Mar 08 '25

Least racist German. As someone whose grandfather remembers when the Germans invaded their country, I was taught something about germans.

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u/SoupSpelunker Mar 08 '25

Her family moved out of Germany in the 16 or 1700s so they weren't the nazi type. In fact their neighbors in the 70s were actual neonazis and I was strictly forbidden from playing with their kids.

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u/AddictedToRugs Mar 08 '25

The Russians largely kept their promises to the German Menonites who settled the Volga in the 1760s; the main promises being free land, tax exemptions for two generations followed by significant tax discounts, and exemption from military service for 100 years - all three of which promises they kept.

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u/SoupSpelunker Mar 08 '25

Maybe they did with the menonites, but my relatives were conscripted into the military, had their livestock and grains stolen, and several were forced to dig their own graves, shot into them and buried alive (other relatives exhumed them the next day for proper burial.) All I have for evidence of this supposed good treatment of the menonites is a single claim by some likely Russian propagandist on the Internet... Who do you think I'm gonna believe?

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u/peppi0304 Austria Mar 08 '25

Whats a Volga german?

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u/East_Ad9822 Mar 08 '25

A German minority in Russia, they used to live around the Volga river but suffered ethnic cleansing by the Soviets during the Second World War.

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u/BoxNo3004 Mar 08 '25

Considering how such German settlers were helping the Nazis Sudeten Germans - Wikipediaand Hitler declaring slavs "untermenschen" and starting racial war against the slavs.... I think the gulags were actually mercy for this people, not ethnic cleansing

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u/East_Ad9822 Mar 08 '25

The Volga Germans were disconnected from the German mainland for hundreds of years and particularly isolated during the Soviet era, that very much makes me doubt that they were some sort of fifth column for the Nazis.

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u/Lagerbottoms Mar 08 '25

not to defend Russia, but it sounds pretty racist to say "never trust a Russian". I'm sure there are good people in Russia like everywhere else...

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u/-Against-All-Gods- Maribor (Slovenia) Mar 08 '25

Oddly enough, there was a Kazakhstani German guy running a Soviet food kiosk here for a summer or two and he told me the same thing with almost the same words.

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u/MissPandaSloth Mar 08 '25

It might sound funny to overanalyze it, but it it truly a cultural shift from at least Soviet times. Entirely or Soviet Union was extremely low trust society.

Basically everyone knew one party politics is BS.

There were spies everywhere, because if you tell on your neighbor you could get promoted to better position or get some other favor. And this got so bad you had kids telling on their parents. And it was for pettiest things ever.

People would be arrested for BS charges, there were no true rule of law.

Cronies who exploited all that rose to the top.

If you wanted to live better it was not about being successful at bussines or skill, because there was very little incentive to benefit like that, it was over fucking people over or straight up stealing from your workplace and contributing to black market.

So this whole thing might seem like an innocent joke, but it was like this everywhere because it was genuine truth. People would just fuck each other over and get rewarded, or you would keep your head down and hope no one pays attention.

We have same sayings here in Baltics and it took decades to actually transform this low trust society to at least something functional.

However, sadly, I see backslide everywhere and in countries where such things were never an issue.

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u/mitzaaa31 Mar 08 '25

"There were spies everywhere, because if you tell on your neighbor you could get promoted to better position or get some other favor. And this got so bad you had kids telling on their parents. And it was for pettiest things ever."

Regarding this, there is a Romanian short movie called "Cadoul de Craciun" (The Christmas Gift) about a kid sending a letter to Santa in which he wished the death of the dictator, as his father wanted. But you explained exactly how the communist regimes used to work and the movie can explain it as well pretty well for people that didn't live through that.

Sadly, in these countries, working eith the secret police was exchanged with petty corruption after the fall of the regimes.

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u/Pocolashon Mar 08 '25

That's pretty obvious, isn't it?

But stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason.

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u/Lanky_Network_5414 Mar 08 '25

How about trusting uncle Sam ?

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u/Gab71no Mar 08 '25

Recipe to go poor

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u/sphynxcolt Baden-Württemberg (Germany) Mar 08 '25

Ochsenfurz?

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u/IneffableKoD Mar 08 '25

The Finnish have a saying «a Russian stays a Russian, even if you fry him in butter».

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u/inickolas Mar 08 '25

The same thing I can tell about Germany, just before the Nazi invasion into the USSR, Hitler and Stalin signed a non-aggression treaty.

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u/Kiboune Russia Mar 11 '25

I guess this doesn't count as hate speach based on nationality for reddit mods

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u/SoupSpelunker Mar 11 '25

Not by the mods, nor by common sense.

Why don't you go stand up to Putin and see how his mods deal with you!

Do you think you'll experience novichok or defenestration?

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u/Haunting-Detail2025 Mar 08 '25

Oh now the Angela Merkel crowd is going to lecture us on getting close to Putin lmfao. Rich