Third declension nouns in Russian are feminine nouns ending in -ь. You might already be familiar with examples like тетрадь (notebook) and жизнь (life). In this chapter you learned additional nouns that belong to this category: площадь (square), крепость (fortress), мечеть (mosque), церковь (church), and независимость (independence). Let’s review the declension patterns of third declension nouns.

When reading texts about history, you will frequently encounter phrases like “был построен” (was built) or “был основан” (was founded). These phrases are instances of short form past passive participles in Russian. The emphasis in such constructions is on the action that has been carried out rather than on who performed the action. This grammatical structure is similar to the passive voice in English.

Grammatically, short form past passive participles are similar to short form adjectives. They agree in gender, number, and case with the noun they describe. For instance:

• Masculine singular subject: Город был основан, собор был построен
• Feminine singular subject: Школа была основана, церковь была построена
• Neuter singular subject: Государство было основано, здание было построено
• Plural subject: Страны были основаны, мосты были построены

Usage with Auxiliary Verb “быть”

When these participles are used in a sentence, they are combined with the appropriate form of the auxiliary verb “быть” in the past tense (был, была, было, были) to indicate the gender and number of the subject:

• Мост был построен (The bridge was built) – masculine singular subject.
• Новая школа была открыта (The new school was opened) – feminine singular subject.
• Картины были созданы (Paintings were created) – plural subject.

Formation

At this stage, our goal is for you to learn how to recognize these words. You are not expected to know how to form past passive participles. However, if you’re interested, here’s a brief explanation.

To form a past passive participle, you typically take the stem of the perfective verb and add specific endings. Here are the standard endings based on gender:

• Masculine: -н or -т
• Feminine: -на or -та
• Neuter: -но or -то
• Plural: -ны or -ты

Whether you choose -н/-на/-но/-ны or -т/-та/-то/-ты depends on the verb. Here are examples showing some verbs frequently used when talking about history:

1. Основать (to found) becomes:
   • Основан  – masculine
   • Основана – feminine
   • Основано – neuter
   • Основаны – plural
2. Построить (to build) becomes:
   • Построен – masculine
   • Построена – feminine
   • Построено – neuter
   • Построены – plural
3. Создать (to create) becomes:
   • Создан – masculine
   • Создана – feminine
   • Создано – neuter
   • Созданы – plural
4. Открыть (to open, to discover) becomes:
   • Открыт – masculine
   • Открыта – feminine
   • Открыто – neuter
   • Открыты – plural

Another way to express passive voice in Russian is by using impersonal sentences.

Impersonal sentences are used to describe actions where the subject (the doer) is not specified or is unknown. For example:

• Музей откроют в субботу.  – The museum will open on Saturday.
• По радио говорили о погоде. – They were talking about the weather on the radio.

In these sentences, the subject (who will open the museum or who was talking about the weather) is not specified and the verbs (“oткроют” and “говорили”) аre in the third person plural form.

You can often encounter impersonal sentences in texts about history. For example:

• Город основали в 15 веке. – The city was founded in the 15th century.
• Крепость построили в 1620 году. – The fortress was built in 1620.