Overview

Дождь (pronounced dozhd in English) was a trending hashtag on Twitter, which means "rain" in Cyrillic Russian. The sudden influx of "Дождь" tweets began pouring in on July 20, 2010, when a month-long drought across the Russian countryside finally came to a halt with some hard rainin'. While many Russian-speaking Twitter users genuinely celebrated the much-anticipated news of downpours, others began tweeting fabricated explanations for the meaning of "Дождь," in sarcastic response to curious tweets posted by English-speaking users.

Background

On July 20, the rain started to fall in Moscow after long draught. Russian twitter users immediately responded to it, unconsciously creating a new trending hashtag. During this time, people outside of Russia started to ask "What is дождь?," triggering all sorts of funny response tweets from Russian-speaking Twitter users.

Development

Along with the delightful news of rain, the Twitter trending phenomenon has been already reported by the local media and blogs as a flash mob effort amongst Russian internet users.

On Twitter

So far, some of the most reblogged instances on Twitter seem to poke fun at the outdated stereotypes of Russia shared by foreigners, somewhat reminiscent of In Soviet Russia… jokes.

1) дождь is the name of Putin's new pet.
2) дождь is the name of new Russian nuclear bomb.
3) дождь is a time when the vodka falls from the sky
and polar bears begin to walk on the red square with AK47.

On YouTube

Дождь

Дождь