chief is surprised, but hits him. The Russian pulls out a Kalashnikov and shoots all the cannibals. The mortally-wounded chief asks him: "Why didn't you do this before we ate the German?" The Russian proudly replies: "Russians are not aggressors!" (This joke has also been used as a Jewish joke; more specifically, as an Israeli joke, alluding to Israel's being constantly afraid of being seen as the "aggressor".) A Chukcha sits on the shore of the Bering Strait. An American submarine surfaces. The American captain opens the hatch and asks: "Which way is Alaska?" The Chukcha points his finger: "That way!" / "Thanks!" says the American, shouts "South-South-East, bearing 159.5 degrees!" down the hatch and the submarine submerges. Ten minutes later, a Soviet submarine emerges. The Russian captain opens the hatch and asks the Chukcha: "Where did the American submarine go?" The Chukcha replies: "South-South-East bearing 159.5 degrees!" "Don't be a smart-ass", says the captain, "just point your finger!" A Frenchman, a Japanese, and a Russian are captured by an alien. He locks them in cells and demands that they amaze him using two steel balls – the winner will be released, the others will be executed. A week later, the Frenchman demonstrates a juggling trick with the balls. The Japanese has created a rock garden. However the Russian is declared winner: he broke one ball, and lost another one. American pilots challenged Russians to find out whose planes are faster. The Americans took the latter-day supersonic aircraft, the Russians managed to get only an old, decommissioned Kukuruznik and tied it to the American plane with rope. After takeoff, the American crew says: "Sir, Russians are right behind us!" - "What is our speed?" - "400 mph" - "Raise to 500!" - "Sir, the Russians aren't falling behind!" - "Raise to 600!" - "Sir, I'm afraid we will lose!" - "Why?" - "They still haven't retracted their landing gear yet!" Linguistic quirks Like elsewhere in the world, a good many of jokes in Russia are based on puns. Other jokes depend on grammatical and linguistic oddities and irregularities in the Russian language: (L) The genitive plural of a noun (used with a numeral to indicate five or more of something, as opposed to the dual, used for two, three, or four, see Russian nouns) is a rather unpredictable form of the Russian noun, and there are a handful of words