Interesting – it would never occur to me to describe attentive listening to a gifted storyteller as lazy! 🤔

Yes, because normally the transliteration reflects the spelling in Russian, but without the nuances of unstressed vowels, or how consonants can affect each other – I don't think I've ever seen "Chikofski" (which would be more accurate).

Strictly speaking, Russian has palatalized consonants; the trick is that in spelling, it's the choice of vowel letter that shows whether the preceding consonant is soft or hard. But yeah, not distinguishing hard vs. soft consonants is a clear marker of a foreign accent. 🙂

GRMA!