Easter eggs, he answered: "I don't know what they paint on their eggs; I haven't seen." This is reminiscent of the following joke: A Russian invites his new American friend, a student of Russian culture, to meet his family during the Easter period: "Please meet my mother!" / "Oh, your mother! My respects!" / "That's my sister!" / "Oh, your sister! Charmed!" / "And my brother is in the kitchen, painting the eggs." / "Oh, a hippie! We have them too!" Religion Some religious jokes make fun of the clergy. They tend to be told in quasi-Church Slavonic, with its archaisms and the stereotypical okanye (a clear pronunciation of the unstressed /o/ as [o]; Modern Russian or "Muscovite" speech reduces unstressed /o/ to [ɐ]). Clergymen in these jokes always bear obsolete names of distinctively Greek origin, and speak in a deep voice. (L) At the lesson of the Holy Word: "Disciple Dormidontiy, pray tell me, is the soul separable from the body or not." / "Separable, Father." / "Verily speakest thou. Substantiate thy reckoning." / "Yesterday morning, Father, I was passing by your cell and overheard your voice chanting: [imitates basso voicing] '... And now, my soul, arise and get thee dressed.' " / "Substantiatum est... But in vulgar!" (The Russian phrase that translates literally as "my soul" is a term of endearment, often toward romantic partners, comparable to English "my darling") A young woman in a miniskirt jumps onto a bus. The bus starts abruptly, and she falls onto the lap of a seated priest. Surprised, she looks down and exclaims, "Wow!" / "It's not a 'wow!', my daughter", says the priest, "it is the key to the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour!". Sometimes this joke continues: Later, priest comes to the Cathedral, tries to get the key and exclaims: "Oh, Lord, I forgot the key at home!" Afterlife Other jokes touching on religion involve Heaven or Hell. They usually focus on the attempts to settle in Afterlife in a non-trivial way, or how different nationalities/professions/occupations are treated. Jokes about specific people going to Hell and receiving fitting punishment are common as well. Rarer variants include jokes about historic figures coming back from beyond to observe or settle issues of modern Russia. A Communist died, and since he was an honest man albeit atheist, he was sentenced to alternate spending one year in Hell and one year in Heaven.