RazvesistayaKlukva

RazvesistayaKlukva («Развесистая клюква») denotes a laughably wrong, ignorant, or physically impossible description of something, usually presented with an appearance of plausibility.

Originally, the term referred to exoticized nonsense invented by foreigners about Russia. In TORI, the meaning is generalized: it denotes any text, concept, or “theory” containing internal contradictions, violations of basic physics, or mutually incompatible statements — especially when presented as scientific discourse or factual reporting.

The extended TORI meaning is justified by the appearance of such contradictions in publications and the lack of a precise English equivalent for this phenomenon. One of the purposes of the TORI axioms is to provide tools for identifying such cases.

Meaning

Common (cultural) meaning

Culturally, razvesistaya klyukva refers to:

• a laughably wrong stereotype;
• a nonsensical description of a foreign culture;
• an exotic fantasy presented as “reality.”

Classic examples include nineteenth-century travelogues portraying Russia as a land of *bears walking the streets*, *balalaikas everywhere*, and *aristocrats drinking vodka from samovars*.

Technical (TORI) meaning

In TORI terminology, RazvesistayaKlukva is:

A. any text or concept that contains internal contradictions or violations of basic physics; or
B. a set of statements that cannot simultaneously be true, yet are presented with confidence and the appearance of authority.

Under this definition:

• not all fiction is RazvesistayaKlukva;
• only fiction or “theories” that contradict themselves or known science while

pretending to be realistic.

Examples include:

• pseudo-scientific claims,
• propaganda clichés,
• sci-fi scenes violating basic physics without acknowledgment,
• technical descriptions that cannot possibly work.

Etymology

The Russian word *клюква* (“cranberry”) refers to a small plant only a few centimeters tall. The adjective *развесистая* (“branchy, spreading like a large tree”) describes a big tree with wide branches.

The combination is an oxymoron: a cranberry bush can never be “branchy.” Thus the idiom itself is a model of what it describes — a self-contradictory, ignorant image.

No appropriate English equivalent exists, so the transliteration is used. The phenomenon may occur in any culture, epoch, continent, or branch of human knowledge.

Closest analogies include «fake» (see «How to Write a Fake») and «fraud», but only those fakes and frauds containing explicit internal contradictions qualify as RazvesistayaKlukva.

Scientific and Technical Examples

1. Star Wars physics

2. Torsion field

3. Gravitsapa

4. Petricgate («Чистая вода»)

5. Квантовый структурный преобразователь

With the spreading of the internet, it has become easier to identify such non-scientific concepts and classify them as examples of «RazvesistayaKlukva». They often use techniques described in «How to Write a Fake» («Как писать фейки»). The construction of motivated reasoning is described in «Female logic»; the same tools also help reveal RazvesistayaKlukva.

Several further examples appear in Place_of_science_in_the_human_knowledge .

Often, a simple Gedankenexperiment is enough to show that a concept is impossible.

Risks and Misuse

The ability of authors of fakes to promote various kinds of RazvesistayaKlukva far exceeds the ability of the Editor to comment on them one by one. To avoid analyzing each pseudo-scientific publication separately, the TORI axioms are introduced.

In the broad TORI sense, any concept that pretends to be scientific but does not satisfy the TORI axioms can be classified as RazvesistayaKlukva.

The term refers to *how* a concept is presented, not whether it is ultimately correct. A “Cranberry tree” («Клюквенное дерево») may be described in science or sci-fi if the author explains how the new biological species was found, what evidence supports its existence, and why a new term is needed.

Even a correct scientific concept may be presented in the style of RazvesistayaKlukva, using the techniques of «How to Write a Fake». Conversely, even well-described scientific concepts may later prove to be wrong.

The Editor does not hope to stop the spread of RazvesistayaKlukva. In the 21st century, nearly anyone can promote any kind of RazvesistayaKlukva for a few thousand dollars; an example is shown in the film Alternative Math .

RazvesistayaKlukva can be destructive not only for a country but for human civilization in general.

The Editor hopes that some mechanisms of history exist that collapse any empire whose official ideology is based on RazvesistayaKlukva, thereby protecting the rest of humanity.

In any case, the Editor reserves the right to call things with their proper names, to define euphemisms and other vague terms, to suggest names for common but unnamed phenomena, and to construct historic models to compare with a posteriori observations.

Acknowledgement

ChatGPT helped to polish this article.

References

1835.08.21. https://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/the_great_moon_hoax The Great Moon Hoax (1835).

Keywords

«Alternative math», «Female logic», «Fraud», «How to Write a Fake», «Propaganda», «RazvesistayaKlukva», «Rule of Newspeak», «Scientific concept», «TORI axioms», «TORI axioms and the application in physics»,

«А нас то за что», «Аксиомы ТОРИ», «Как писать фейки», «Развесистая клюква»,