which even native speakers have trouble producing this form of (either due to rarity or an actual lexical gap). A common example of this is kocherga (fireplace poker). The joke is set in a Soviet factory. Five pokers are to be requisitioned. The correct forms are acquired, but as they are being filled out, a debate arises: what is the genitive plural of kocherga? Is it Kocherg? Kocherieg? Kochergov?... One thing is clear: a form with the wrong genitive plural of kocherga will bring disaster from the typically pedantic bureaucrats. Finally, an old janitor overhears the commotion, and tells them to send in two separate requisitions: one for two kochergi and another for three kochergi. In some versions, they send in a request for 4 kochergi and one extra to find out the correct word, only to receive back "here are your 4 kochergi and one extra." (The correct answer is кочерёг (kocheryog), see its Russian Wiktionary entry.) A similar story by Mikhail Zoshchenko involves yet another answer: after great care and multiple drafts to get the genitive case correct, including the substitution of "five штук (pieces)" for "five pokers", the response comes back: the warehouse has no kocherezhek (fully regular genitive plural of kocherezhka, "little poker"). Eggs The Russian word for "testicle" is a diminutive of "egg", so the slang word is the non-diminutive form (yaitso, cf. Spanish huevo). A large variety of jokes capitalize on this: A man jumps onto a bus and falls over another man, who is holding a large sack and cries out: "Watch the eggs!" / "Are you stupid? Who would carry eggs in a sack?" / "Watch your eggs. This sack is full of nails!" There is an exhibit of a precious jeweled Fabergé egg at the Hermitage Museum. The label reads: "Fabergé / Self-portrait (fragment)" A train compartment holds a family: a small daughter, her mother, and grandma. A fourth passenger is a Georgian (See jokes about Georgians). The mother starts feeding a soft-boiled egg to the daughter with a silver spoon. / Grandma: "Don't you know that eggs can spoil silver?" / "Who would have known!", thinks the Georgian, and he hastily moves his silver cigarette case from his front pants pocket to the back one. Vladimir Putin, in one of his 2002 putinisms noticed by media, exploited this pun; when asked of his opinion about portraits of presidents painted on