Практика местоимений чей? и у кого есть?

What does “у кого есть” mean in Russian?

Russian has no everyday verb “to have.” Instead, possession is expressed with у + a genitive pronoun + есть: literally “at whom is there [a thing]?” So у кого есть часы? means “who has a watch?” — word-for-word “at whom is there a watch?” Once you see the pattern — у меня, у тебя, у нас, у них — it unlocks how Russian talks about owning anything.

The clip drills it with everyday nouns: a watch, a dog, a laptop, a cat, keys, money, a ticket. Each exchange pairs the possession question with its answer (у меня есть ноутбук — “I have a laptop”) and then the matching ownership question: чьи это часы? — это мои часы (“whose watch is this? — it’s my watch”). The two constructions reinforce each other: у кого есть? establishes who has it; чей?/чья?/чьё?/чьи? asks whose it is. In Russian the verb иметь (to have) exists but sounds formal or bookish in everyday speech — the у + genitive + есть construction is what native speakers actually reach for.