Бабушка дожарила блины, а я в это время разливал чай по чашкам.

Дожарила comes from дожарить: до- + жарить.

The prefix до- often adds the idea of finishing something that was already in progress. So дожарила блины means she finished frying the pancakes.

Compare:

• жарила блины = she was frying pancakes / she fried pancakes
• дожарила блины = she finished frying the pancakes

This often suggests that some pancakes were already being cooked, and now the task was brought to completion.

This is a very common Russian aspect pattern.

• дожарила is perfective: it presents Grandma’s action as completed
• разливал is imperfective: it presents the speaker’s action as an ongoing process

So the sentence paints this picture:

• Grandma finished frying the pancakes
• while that was happening / during that time, I was pouring tea into cups

Russian often uses:

• perfective for the event that is seen as completed
• imperfective for the background or simultaneous ongoing action

If you changed разливал to разлил, the meaning would shift toward I poured out the tea completely / finished pouring it, rather than simply describing what I was doing at that time.

Here а is not a strong but. It is better understood as a contrastive and / while / whereas.

In this sentence, а connects two different people doing two different actions at the same time:

• Бабушка дожарила блины
• а я в это время разливал чай по чашкам

So а highlights the contrast between Grandma and I, not a contradiction.

A good way to think of it:

• и = simple and
• а = and meanwhile / while / whereas
• но = stronger but

Russian often drops subject pronouns, but here я is natural and useful.

Reasons:

1. Contrast
   The sentence sets up Бабушка ... , а я ...
   This clear pairing is very natural in Russian.

2. Past tense does not show person
   In the past tense, Russian verbs show gender and number, but not person:

   • разливал = masculine singular past
     This does not by itself mean I, he, or even sometimes another masculine subject in context.

So я is helpful here both for clarity and for contrast.

Разливать means to pour out / distribute a liquid into multiple containers.

That makes it a very good choice here, because the tea is being poured into several cups.

Compare:

• наливать чай = pour tea, fill tea into a cup/container
• разливать чай по чашкам = pour tea out into cups, distributing it among them

So разливал emphasizes the idea of portioning the tea into separate cups.

Чашкам is dative plural after по.

In this expression, по + dative has a distributive meaning: spreading or dividing something among multiple places or objects.

So:

• разливать чай по чашкам = pour tea into the cups, distributing it among them

This is very idiomatic Russian.

Why not just в чашки?

• в чашки focuses more literally on direction: into the cups
• по чашкам emphasizes distribution: among the cups / into each cup

With liquids being portioned into several containers, по чашкам is especially natural.

Both are direct objects, so they are in the accusative case.

But for these nouns, the accusative happens to look like the nominative:

• блины = accusative plural of an inanimate noun
• чай = accusative singular of an inanimate masculine noun

In Russian:

• masculine singular inanimate nouns often have accusative = nominative
• plural inanimate nouns also often have accusative = nominative

So:

• блины looks unchanged
• чай also looks unchanged

That is completely normal.

В это время is a very common expression meaning at that time, during that time, or meanwhile.

Its parts are:

• в = in / at
• это = this
• время = time

So literally it is something like in this time, but in natural English it is usually at that time or meanwhile.

Grammar note:

• время is a neuter noun
• это agrees with it
• in this phrase, the meaning is temporal: during that period

This whole chunk works almost like an adverbial phrase.

Russian past tense agrees in gender and number.

• дожарила = feminine singular past
• разливал = masculine singular past

That happens because:

• бабушка is feminine, so the verb is дожарила
• the speaker is presented as masculine, so the verb is разливал

If the speaker were female, it would be:

• а я в это время разливала чай по чашкам

This is something English speakers often notice because English past tense does not work this way.

Yes. Russian word order is flexible.

This sentence could be rearranged in various ways, for example:

• А я в это время разливал чай по чашкам, бабушка дожарила блины.
• Бабушка дожарила блины, а в это время я разливал чай по чашкам.

The basic meaning would stay similar, but the emphasis changes.

The original order is natural because it first gives Grandma’s completed action, then contrasts it with what I was doing at that time.

Russian word order is often guided by focus, contrast, and information flow, not just fixed syntax.

Usually, yes: it suggests the frying reached its endpoint.

But more exactly, it means she finished frying the pancakes that needed finishing. Depending on context, that could mean:

• she finished the whole batch
• she finished the last few pancakes
• she completed the frying process that was already underway

So the emphasis is less on the total number and more on the completion of the task.

Yes. The comma separates two clauses:

• Бабушка дожарила блины
• а я в это время разливал чай по чашкам

Since they are joined by а, Russian punctuation normally uses a comma here.

So this is standard clause punctuation, not anything unusual.