Russian grammar · the case system

The genitive case in Russian

кого? чего?Possession, absence, quantity

The genitive marks the possessor, the thing that is absent, and the thing being counted. It is the busiest case in Russian and the one learners meet everywhere: after нет, after numbers, after у меня есть, after half of the prepositions.

Aurélien CuvelierAug 10, 2026

The endings, with a declined example per ending

Masculine

-а / -я

стола · музея · словаря

Feminine

-ы / -и

сестры · недели

Neuter

-а / -я

окна · моря

Plural

-ов / -ей / ∅

столов · словарей · окон

The personal pronouns in this case

яменя

тытебя

онего

онаеё

оноего

мынас

вывас

ониих

When to use it

Possession and of-phrases

книга брата (my brother's book), центр города (the center of the city).

Absence with нет

What is missing stands in the genitive: нет времени (there is no time), не было денег (there was no money).

Having: у + genitive

Russian says by me there is instead of I have: у брата есть машина (my brother has a car).

Quantity and numbers

After много, мало and most numbers: много работы (a lot of work), пять минут (five minutes).

In a real sentence

gen.gen

My brother has no time.

Watch out

The genitive plural is the least predictable ending set in Russian: стол gives столов, but неделя gives недель and место gives мест, with nothing at all. No rule covers every noun, which is exactly why every NuanceDeck card shows the real form instead of leaving you to guess.

The other cases

All six cases on one page, with the full chart ›Download this chart as a free printable PDF (A4) ›

Master the cases where they live: in real sentences

Written by

Aurélien Cuvelier Founder, NuanceDeck

Aurélien Cuvelier builds NuanceDeck: the app, and the verification pipeline behind its dictionary. Every entry is grounded in the official TORFL lexical minimum and a 20,000-word frequency corpus, and every example sentence passes a certification review before it ships.

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