družba (friendship).

It was this word that summed up the country's official relationship with the Soviet Union under communism. Friendship meant that children learned Russian in school and corresponded with Russian pen-pals. It also meant study in Russia for upwardly mobile bureaucrats and politicians as well as friendship parties (družební večírky) with the Russian soldiers based in the country after the 1968 invasion. Though there was some sincerity to this friendship in the early years of communism when Russian soldiers could at least be plausibly portrayed as liberators, by the time of the invasion this friendship was purely a show to keep in the good graces of one's superiors.