Learn Hardcore Russian: После границы мы долго ждали багаж у ленты. - After the border we waited a long time for the baggage at the belt.

Modern, everyday Russian tends to prefer the accusative with concrete, specific objects, especially in spoken language. That’s why ждать багаж sounds very neutral and natural.

You might still see or hear ждать багажа:

in more formal/literary style, or
with a slight nuance of some baggage / an indefinite amount (this nuance is often weak or absent in practice).

In your sentence, ждали багаж is perfectly standard and probably the most common choice.

Why is there no preposition before багаж? In English we “wait for the luggage.”

In Russian, ждать is a verb that directly governs its object with no preposition:

ждать поезд – to wait for the train
ждать маму – to wait for mom
ждать багаж – to wait for the luggage

So adding a preposition like для, за, or для багажа is wrong here. The idea of “for” is built into the verb ждать itself.

What does лента mean in this context?

The noun лента literally means “ribbon,” “strip,” “tape,” “belt.”

At an airport, the moving baggage carousel is called:

багажная лента – literally “baggage belt”

In conversation, if it’s obvious we’re talking about the airport, Russians often shorten it to just лента:

ждать багаж у ленты – to wait for luggage by the belt (baggage carousel)

So here лента = the baggage carousel / conveyor belt.

Why is it у ленты and not на ленте?

Because the sentence is about where the people are standing, not where the luggage lies.

у ленты = by / next to / near the belt
(preposition у
- genitive: у ленты)
на ленте = on the belt (physically on top of it)

We stand у ленты, but the bags are на ленте:

Мы ждали у ленты. – We were waiting by the belt.
Багаж ехал на ленте. – The luggage was moving on the belt.

So у ленты is the natural choice here.

What case is ленты, and why is that case used?

Ленты here is genitive singular of лента.

The preposition у (“at, by, near someone/something”) always takes the genitive:

у дома – by the house
у окна – by the window
у двери – by the door
у ленты – by the belt

So the structure is: у + ленты (gen. sg.).

Could we say у багажной ленты instead of у ленты? Is there a difference?

Yes, you can say:

у багажной ленты – “by the baggage belt”

This is a bit more explicit and would be very clear even without any context.

In real speech, if it’s already clear that we’re in the airport in the arrivals area, people often shorten it to simply у ленты; the word багажной is understood from the situation. So:

у багажной ленты – neutral, fully explicit
у ленты – neutral, slightly more colloquial/elliptical, but just as correct here

Can the word order be changed, for example: Мы долго ждали у ленты багаж or Мы багаж долго ждали у ленты?

Yes, Russian word order is flexible, and these variants are grammatically possible, but they differ in naturalness and emphasis.

Most neutral versions:

После границы мы долго ждали багаж у ленты.
После границы мы долго ждали у ленты багаж.

Both are fine; the second slightly highlights багаж at the end.

Less natural / marked:

После границы мы багаж долго ждали у ленты.

This is not wrong, but it sounds more styled/emphatic and is rarely needed in simple narrative.

The original version is one of the most idiomatic word orders for a straightforward statement.

Why do we say долго ждали, not много ждали?

Because долго describes duration in time, while много describes quantity/amount.

долго ждать – to wait for a long time
много ждать – sounds wrong or very odd in standard Russian

So for “we waited for a long time,” the only natural adverb is долго:

Мы долго ждали багаж. – We waited a long time for the luggage.

Why is ждали (imperfective) used, and not подождали or прождали?

Ждали is the imperfective past tense of ждать, which emphasizes the process / duration of waiting.

ждали – we were waiting / we waited (focus on the ongoing action)

Perfective options:

подождали – waited (for a bit / successfully waited); often sounds like “we waited and that was enough.”
прождали – waited (all that time, often with a complaining or emphatic tone: “we (ended up) waiting X time”)

In your sentence, the goal is to state that for a long time, we were in a state of waiting. That’s why the imperfective ждали with долго is the most natural choice:

мы долго ждали багаж – we waited for a long time for the luggage.

If you said мы долго прождали багаж, it would sound more emotionally loaded, like “we spent ages waiting for the luggage (ugh).”

Why don’t we say наш багаж (“our luggage”)? Is it wrong to add наш?

It’s not wrong; you can say:

После границы мы долго ждали наш багаж у ленты.

But in Russian, possessive pronouns are often omitted when it’s obvious whose thing it is (family members, body parts, personal belongings, luggage, etc.):

я мою руки → usually just: я мою руки (not мои руки every time)
он позвонил маме → usually: он позвонил маме (his own mother is assumed)
мы ждали багаж → it’s understood it’s our luggage

So the version без “наш” sounds more natural and less redundant here. Adding наш may slightly emphasize “our (and not somebody else’s) luggage,” but normally that contrast isn’t needed.

How do we know if границы here means “the border” or “a border,” since Russian has no articles?

Russian doesn’t grammatically mark definiteness (“the”) vs indefiniteness (“a”). The meaning comes from context.

In typical travel context, граница here is understood as the specific border you just crossed (e.g. the state border and its control point), so we translate naturally as:

После границы → “After the border / After the border crossing”

If, for some reason, the context required ambiguity, you could translate as “after a border,” but in normal travel narrative English we’d almost always say “after the border”.