babulia
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: babulias
Senses: examples: text: Efrosinya Gadzhieva has been coming to Gorky Park since Stalin’s time. ‘In those days the flowers were tended,’ she muses, her gold teeth glistening in the sun. ‘Now it’s just arcades and noise. Then you could buy sandwiches with caviar, not all these strange kebabs.’ But Babulia (granny), as the locals call her, is not one to complain. Since 1976, she has been operating the weighing scales from her spot near the shooting range.
ref: 1992 August 1, John Kampfner, “A Year in the Life of Gorky Park”, in Telegraph Magazine, London, →OCLC, page 38, column 3:
text: Even those who, out of love for the vine, are still growing their own grapes are far from sure they are doing the right thing, said Babulia Otiashvili, 55, a grandmother harvesting in giant wicker baskets the last of the grapes on her two-acre private plot.
ref: 1996 November 9, Vanora Bennett, “Georgia on the Vine: Revived Interest in the Grape Helping Ex-Soviet Republic Return from Brink”, in Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, Calif.: Times Mirror Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page D3, column 3:
text: To be sure, people of all ages were on Maidan, and the grandmothers, the babulias, were out there in full force.
ref: 2005 March 10, Trident, “Orange Revolution In Ukraine - Why It Happened”, in soc.culture.ukrainian (Usenet), archived from the original on 17 May 2025:
text: Nadia’s grandmother is that extremely rare thing in Chekhov’s work, an almost entirely negative character. This is brought out in his opening description of her, which emphasises her physical repulsiveness: ‘Grandmother, or, as she was called at home “babulia”, was very fat, ugly, with thick eye-brows and a little moustache.[…]’
ref: [2007, Joe Andrew, “‘A Room of One’s Own’, Part II: Narrative, Gender and Space in The Fiancée”, in Narrative, Space and Gender in Russian Fiction, 1846–1903, Amsterdam: Rodopi, →ISBN, page 167:
text: He greeted Faina exuberantly giving her a big hug as he affectionally called her babulia, grandmother.
ref: [2008, Joan Heron, “Thursdays with Faina”, in Chai Budesh? Anyone for Tea? A Peace Corps Memoir of Turkmenistan, Baltimore, Md.: PublishAmerica, →ISBN:
text: Here at the dacha no one ever pushes and tells me: “Babulia [diminutive for babushka], what are you doing here? Go home and do not bother me!” [laughs] And when I am in Moscow, I am constantly hearing “Babulia, come here. Babulia, come over here. Babulia . . . .”
ref: 2011, Melissa L. Caldwell, quoting Svetlana, “The Pleasure of Pain: Gardening for the Soul”, in Dacha Idylls: Living Organically in Russia’s Countryside, Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, →ISBN, page 63:
text: Alina is survived by her parents, of Oklahoma City; and her Grandma and Grandpa, of Oklahoma City; and her Diyada and Babulia (Russian grandparents), of Russia, Siberia; by relatives of both parents and grandparents, and by many close friends.
ref: 2011 November 22, “Alina Y. Fitzpatrick: 1994 – 2011”, in The Oklahoman, volume 120, number 321, Oklahoma City, Okla.: Oklahoma Publishing Co., →OCLC, “Celebrating a Life” section, page 16A, column 6:
text: There was a Babusia in Maria’s life: in family letters she bore the affectionate nickname for grandmother, babushka. But this Babusia (or Babulia as she’s sometimes called) was not a grandmotherly force for the Balanchivadze children. […] Despite what Balanchine later implied about his mother’s indifference, she stayed mostly for him, though other factors may have influenced her too: her mother (if that’s who the mysterious “Babulia” was), her cousins, the city itself.
ref: 2013, Elizabeth Kendall, Balanchine and the Lost Muse: Revolution and the Making of a Choreographer, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, pages 22 (Maria and Meliton) and 125 (Theater School: The Hungry Years):
text: They could hardly see me behind an enormous bunch of lilacs. My dear cousin Naira, Granny Nadia and Auntie Rita. […] I looked at Babulia Nadia rummaging through the chest that smelled of years.
ref: 2015, Sulkhan Zhordania, “In the Beginning Was the Fist”, in The Asylum Seeker, Berlin: Pro BUSINESS, →ISBN, page 35:
text: “Not Seamus. It was Griffith. He threatened my babulia, my grandmother.” […] “You said he threatened your babulia. Or did you forget? Most people would’ve wanted to make sure grandma was safe before they flew 2,500 miles into the Arctic.”
ref: 2021 June 22, Seeley James, Death and Redemption (A Jacob Stearne Thriller; 11), Scottsdale, Ariz.: Machined Media, →ISBN, chapters 18 and 27:
text: After his working day, he would hurry home and quickly eat a dinner prepared by Mama’s grandmother, Babulia. At the kitchen table—eating alone as Mama, Lulu, and Babulia had dinner earlier—he would call Mama over, and whisper “на-ка,” urging his daughter to steal a few dumplings or a piece of buttered bread at his “here you go.”
ref: 2022 winter, Elizabeth Provost, “Between an Atom and a Star”, in Elizabeth Provost, editor, Medium Magazine: Out with the Old, Mississauga, Ont.: Medium II Publications, pages 25–26:
glosses: Alternative spelling of babulya.