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, 2026The 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
| я | меня |
|---|---|
| ты | тебя |
| он | его |
| она | её |
| оно | его |
| мы | нас |
| вы | вас |
| они | их |
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
У брата нет времени. 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
- The nominative case in Russian
- The dative case in Russian
- The accusative case in Russian
- The instrumental case in Russian
- The prepositional case in Russian
All six cases on one page, with the full chart ›The Russian grammar map: where the cases fit in the whole system ›Download this chart as a free printable PDF (A4) ›
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Written by
Aurélien Cuvelier Founder, NuanceDeck
Aurélien Cuvelier builds NuanceDeck, the app that teaches Russian and French words in context. Each course follows the official proficiency word lists and a frequency corpus for its language, and every word comes with real, annotated example sentences.
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