“Give me the top 10 russian memes”
No universal meme leaderboard exists, so this page leads with the one explicit editorial ranking found — Gateway to Russia's “Top 10 Russian memes” list, 10 entries with origins and meanings — and pairs it with a separate cross-source scan of 9 classic Runet memes (page and host counts from a targeted web scan, not total internet mentions).
| # | Meme | Origin | How it is used | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Preved, Medved! | A watercolor by American artist John Lurie in which a bear says "Surprise!", adapted by someone nicknamed 'Lobbz' on the dirty.ru website, who replaced "Surprise!" with "Preved!", a misspelling of 'Privet' in the 'Padonkaffsky' jargon st… | A misspelled Russian greeting meaning 'Hi'; the text version "Preved, Medved!" has almost become more popular than the graphic one. | gw2ru.com |
| 2 | How do you like that, Elon Musk? Как тебе такое, Илон Маск? | It appeared in response to the launch of the ‘Falcon’ Heavy rocket with a Tesla ‘Roadster’electric car on board, and was first used to accompany the news that scientists in Novosibirsk had learned to smoke herrings in a collider. | A phrase designed to make Elon Musk feel disconcerted at the sight of the ingenuity and versatility of Russian engineering, asked at the slightest pretext. | gw2ru.com |
| 3 | They've decorated the office | Internet enthusiasts put a festive gloss on Ilya Repin's painting 'Barge Haulers on the Volga', adding a festive tree to the scene of hired ‘artel’workers pulling a boat upstream. | A New Year meme: the addition of a festive tree completely transforms the impact of the scene. | gw2ru.com |
| 4 | It's a fiasco, bruh Это фиаско, братан | A dramatic viral video in which a Shiba Inu dog, accompanied by its owner's warnings, tries to cross a river using a tree trunk straddling the two banks, falls in, and the owner exclaims: "It's a fiasco, bruh!" | It can be uttered with reference to any failure: from homework that hasn't been done to Napoleon's unsuccessful invasion of Russia. | gw2ru.com |
| 5 | Mouse (kreeping abowt) | A stock photo of a domestic mouse creeping around; the Russian catchphrase "Mysh (krodyotsya)" includes two deliberate misspellings in the word ‘kradyotsya’. | The main point of the variations is the caption, while what is happening with the rodent is not so crucial; it can be a list of successful combos. | gw2ru.com |
| 6 | Natasha, get up! Наташа, мы всё уронили | Initially, the meme involved two cats waking up their owner to tell her it's six in the morning and they've knocked everything over. | The cats raise the alarm about all sorts of things: the falling price of oil, Covid restrictions and the reduction of daylight hours. | gw2ru.com |
| 7 | I'll flip the calendar | A chanson-style song by Russian pop singer Mikhail Shufutinsky, 'September 3', has spawned a vast array of memes; it all started with a photo of rapper Rick Ross resembling Shufutinsky with the caption: "I'll flip the calendar and it's S… | Used in diverse variations with lyrics from the song, mainly surging on September 1-2 when someone is going back to school; the caption "No time to explain, just flip the calendar" is sufficient to make the reference clear. | gw2ru.com |
| 8 | Here's your paycheck | The 'Suffering Middle Ages' project, in which witty captions are added to medieval engravings; in one of them, a saint hands a twig to a lion with the words: "Here's your paycheck." | A funny image, but a terrifying scenario. | gw2ru.com |
| 9 | Agutin presses the button | The dramatic moment in the TV Show 'Golos' (‘The Voice’), when singer Leonid Agutin is deciding whether to select a new member for his team, spread all over the public pages of VKontakte. | It encapsulates any difficult choice: like, whether to blow one's whole monthly salary in a single day or to ring one's ex. | gw2ru.com |
| 10 | Do you sell fishes? | A group of cats scrutinizing the wares at a fish market captivated users and, escaping from the public page of 'Memes about cats (wot a laugh)', went walkabout all over the web. | The dialogue "Do you sell fishes? - No, just displaying. Very nice." gave rise to a multitude of variations, with the Russian text deliberately idiosyncratic and grammatically incorrect. | gw2ru.com |
| scan | Preved Medved 60 pages / 36 hosts · 2006 | A silly painting called “Bear Surprise” by an American artist, whose title morphed into the meme in the Russian blogosphere | It set the Russian blogosphere ablaze | gw2ru.com |
| scan | Stoned Fox 48 pages / 34 hosts · 2012 | A Russian photoshop meme in which a cutout image of a stuffed fox is edited onto images for humorous effect | Became an Internet sensation in Russia and has been edited into famous paintings, photographs, videos, and other visual media | en.wikipedia.org |
| scan | Zhdun 34 pages / 26 hosts · 2017 | В 2016 году голландская художница Маргрит ван Бреворт создала скульптуру Homunculus loxodontus для Лейденского университета; через год изображение опубликовали на «Пикабу», где пользователи окрестили существо Ждуном | Стал символом ожидания всего на свете | rg.ru |
| scan | September 3 (I'll flip the calendar) 14 pages / 11 hosts · 2011 | По одной из версий, мем берёт начало в 2011 году с публикации портрета американского рэпера Рика Росса, подписанного строками из песни «Третье сентября»; пользователи заметили внешнее сходство Росса с Шуфутинским, и картинка быстро разош… | The song has spawned a vast array of memes, with the main surge naturally occurring on September 1-2, and the caption "No time to explain, just flip the calendar" alone is sufficient to make the reference clear. | gw2ru.com |
| scan | Наташа, мы всё уронили 12 pages / 11 hosts · 2019 | Initially involved two cats waking up their owner to tell her it's six in the morning and they've knocked everything over | It gradually morphed, with the owner disappearing from the picture and the number of felines significantly growing, and the cats began to raise the alarm about all sorts of things, from the falling price of oil to Cov… | gw2ru.com |
| scan | Как тебе такое, Илон Маск? 11 pages / 10 hosts · 2017 | A phrase designed to make Elon Musk feel disconcerted at Russian engineering ingenuity; it appeared in response to the launch of the ‘Falcon’ Heavy rocket with a Tesla ‘Roadster’ electric car on board and was first used to accompany the… | Things took off: Elon Musk started to be asked "How do you like that?" at the slightest pretext, and Musk himself even left a comment in Russian: "haha awesome." | gw2ru.com |
| scan | Это фиаско, братан 9 pages / 8 hosts · 2017 | From a dramatic video in which a Shiba Inu dog, accompanied by its owner's warnings, tries to cross a river on a tree trunk, falls in, and the owner exclaims: "It's a fiasco, bruh!" | Фраза завирусилась, и пользователи рунета стали применять ее для иллюстрации различных жизненных ситуаций, когда что-то происходит не так, как рассчитывал | bignewsnetwork.com |
| scan | Британские учёные 6 pages / 6 hosts · 2003 | Возник, по предположению опрошенных британских учёных, из-за статей в прессе, которые кликбейта ради искажают суть научных открытий; кое-кто усмотрел также российскую пропаганду | Мем-ветеран русскоязычного интернет-фольклора, известный настолько, что многие британские учёные, ставшие его героями, об этом не догадывались | zimamagazine.com |
| scan | Свидетель из Фрязино 3 pages / 2 hosts · 2006 | Летом 2006 года парень на свадьбе в подмосковном Фрязино заметил свидетеля, который на всех фотографиях стоял в одной и той же позе; его начали вырезать и фотошопить | Свидетеля вырезали и фотошопили везде — он стал свидетелем взятия Рейхстага, постройки египетских пирамид и других событий | woman.ru |
Method: two result sets. (1) An editorial “Top 10 Russian memes” list from Gateway to Russia — 10 rows, one per ranked meme, with rank, origin and meaning; the numbered order is that article's editorial choice, not an objective popularity measure. (2) A cross-source consensus scan — 9 rows, one per normalized classic Runet meme, with counts of source pages and independent hosts from a targeted web scan (not total internet mentions), plus origin year and a representative source. Evidence snippets behind each field were cut for space; full origin texts are shortened in the table.