mantras for a few minutes, and rises a couple of inches off the ground. The angel unravels his whip. SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! The Hindu is completely unfazed. "Hmm, impressive. Alright, you're free to go." / "Thank you, but only after I see how this last one makes it out of this", says the Hindu, looking at the Russian. / "Your call." / The angel turns to the Russian: "What are you going to shield yourself with?" / "With the Hindu, of course." During the tour around Hell, cauldrons with molten lead are explained to tourists. "Here we have a cauldron for Germans: it must be sealed at all times, because if one German gets out, all others realize they could all do it all along. And here we have a cauldron for Chinese: it requires extra supervision, for if one Chinese gets out, he helps all others out as well. And here we have a cauldron for Russians: it requires no extra supervision at all! / How so? / Even if one manages to get out, others will immediately drag him back in!" (this joke refers to the political stability jokes where Russians allegedly put status quo above everything, including their own comfort; some variants replace Russians with Ukrainians and Chinese with Jews) Russian military In Russian military jokes, a praporschik (warrant officer) is an archetypal bully, possessed of limited wit. A. Dmitriev illustrates his sociological essay "Army Humor" with a large number of military jokes, mostly of Russian origin. There is an enormous number of one-liners, supposedly quoting a praporschik: "Private Ivanov, dig a trench from me to the next scarecrow!" "Private Ivanov, dig a trench from the fence to lunchtime!" "Don't make clever faces at me — you're future officers, now act accordingly!" The punchline "from the fence to lunchtime" has become a well-known Russian cliché for an assignment with no defined ending (or for doing something forever). Some of them are philosophical and apply not just to warrant officers: Scene One: A tree. An apple. An ape comes and starts to shake the tree. A voice from above: "Think, think!" The ape thinks, grabs a stick, and knocks the apple off. Scene Two: A tree. An apple. A praporschik comes and starts to shake the tree. A voice from above: "Think, think!" / "There is nothing to think about, gotta shake!" A persistent theme in Russian military,