English

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Noun

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samagon (uncountable)

  1. Alternative form of samogon.
    • 1928, Junius B[oyd] Wood, “Oyrots of Oolala”, in Incredible Siberia, New York, N.Y.: Lincoln Mac Veagh, The Dial Press, pages 64–65:
      Some months ago several young men accused a shaman of faking and in the argument which followed he was killed. They had been drinking samagon, doubly violating the laws, but it shows a changed public opinion from the old belief that anybody who laughed at or touched a shaman would be struck dead.
    • 1931, Maurice [Gerschon] Hindus, Red Bread, New York, N.Y.: Jonathan Cape & Harrison Smith, page 347:
      He shut the door, pulled out from a sack a flask of samagon and offered it to the chairman with the words, ‘Take it, tovarishtsh. I’ve made it myself, excellent brew, you will like it.’
    • 1943, Anna Louise Strong, Wild River, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, page 72:
      The swarthy young delegate from the sheet-metal shop reported: “Zaporozhe is surrounded by an ocean of samagon. The kulaks distill it in tons from last year’s surplus harvest. They flood it into the city through a joint behind the Peasants’ House. []
    • 1954, Constantine Benckendorff, Half a Life: The Reminiscences of a Russian Gentleman, London: The Richards Press Ltd, page 118:
      Beer was still home-brewed and only the strictest fiscal control could prevent the distilling of samagon, the Russian equivalent of poteen.
    • 1973, Aba Gefen, Unholy Alliance, Yuval Tal Ltd., published 1975, page 45:
      If the young men got tipsy with such frightening regularity, it was chiefly because the family earned its living by the distilling and selling of samagon, home-made vodka.
    • 1992, Leon Berk, Destined to Live: Memoirs of a Doctor with the Russian Partisans, Melbourne, Vic.: Paragon Press, →ISBN, page 222:
      There were many familiar faces around the table; the meal was lavish and instead of the stinking samagon Bobkov used to drink so heavily, there was good vodka from Moscow and excellent wines from the Caucusus.
    • 2007, Dave Bidini, “Joensuu”, in Around the World in 57½ Gigs, McClelland & Stewart Ltd., →ISBN, page 67:
      Mothers all around the Soviet Union were making samagon and giving it to their sons and daughters.
    • 2009, Colin Broderick, Orangutan: A Memoir, New York, N.Y.: Three Rivers Press, →ISBN, page 213:
      I drank a bottle of samagon with Loesha before lunchtime, blacked out, and woke up cold, huddled on a bench on the top deck at six thirty this morning.
    • 2017, Enver Altayli, A Dark Path to Freedom: Rusi Nazar from the Red Army to the CIA, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers Ltd., →ISBN:
      His hosts again washed his wounds with samagon and bandaged them.