The translation programs aren’t much help, since what I want is probably slang, or colloquial, but basically I would like an expression that someone born in 1950’s urban Russia would say if they saw something very beautiful and surprising to the point of unbelievability.
Help?
Borjemoi! (BORE-zha-moy) - “My god!”
You must be confused with Borjomi, the Georgian mineral water. There’s no ‘r’ in ‘Bozhe moi’, which also is not really ‘positive astonishment’ anymore than ‘Oh my God’ is.
‘Oho’ (ого!) might be more in line with what the OP needs.
So I guess
(Spoilered because slightly NSFW)
Da Fuq?
isn’t time and place appropriate? 
J.
(Sorry, automatic quote will not work on this message…)
I may be using an archaic transliteration, but I’ve seen it spelled that way many times in English-language fiction. Of course, “My god!” is very much a two-edged phrase, like many, but I have read and heard it used exactly the way the OP intends. (I am not a Slavic language expert, but I had a close friend who was and frequently exclaimed in Russian and Polish to amuse us. He claimed po-Ruski was MUCH more effective at cussing out balky machinery…)
Водка = Ivan, bring stronk vodka now.
I really don’t think you needed to emphasize that. Given that you’re not, why don’t you treat this as an opportunity to learn something from people that actually speak the language, instead of sticking to your guns about how to spell the Russian word for God?
I’m not sticking to anything. I’m happy to learn, and I’m quite familiar with the transliteration you gave and the explanation of the differences.
Right or wrong, “Borjemoi” is and has been a common English spelling of the phrase for many decades. If the OP wants to follow English literature tradition, that’s the way to present it. (IMHO.) To an English speaker, that “rj” is a close approximation of zhe.
If it’s more important to be correct in modern transliteration, your spelling would be preferred. However, most English language style guides frown on excessively literal transliteration when commonly accepted alternatives exist: Alexander for Aleksandr, for example.
I am not a Slavic language expert, but I am not an Идио́т, either. 
Could you maybe post an English expression that conveys the same thought?
The following come to mind:
Вот такие чудеса. Behold such miracles/wonders!
Вот какие чудеса. Behold what kind of miracles/wonders! (Slightly more incredulous that the previous.)
“Borjemoi” might be a nonce British rendering that caught on for a time – perhaps by a writer whose own English dialect weakens postvocalic “r”.
Amateur Barbarian is right about Russian zhe (ж) sounding a little r-flavored to many English speakers. That is because zhe and sha (ш), in most Russian dialects, are pronounced both with retroflexion and lip rounding.
[QUOTE=AB]
If it’s more important to be correct in modern transliteration, your spelling would be preferred. However, most English language style guides frown on excessively literal transliteration when commonly accepted alternatives exist: Alexander for Aleksandr, for example.
[/QUOTE]
But ‘borjemoi’ is not commonly accepted, it’s not a common phrase to begin with, it’s just a freak transliteration mistake that you’re presenting to be some sort of everyday English vocabulary.
Sure. Is that what you were saying, Amateur Barbarian? Retroflexion in the ж?
Wanted to follow up because I got intrigued by this ‘r’ in ‘bozhe moi’ and thought I’d look it up. Turns out that it is really rare in English, even compared to bozhe moi. Running a google n-gram for a couple of versions of ‘bozhe moi’ (one word v two, with or without exclamation point) shows some usage for that but there’s no evidence of borjemoi in the corpora used by google. A straightup google search returns only 283 results, including this thread. A fair number of those results are about Heinlein, so maybe that’s where you read it. Still, this is clearly not ‘common English spelling of the phrase for many decades’ by any stretch of the imagination.
FWIW, I agree that “bozhe moi” is the standard way I’ve seen the phrase transliterated into English. I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever seen it with the “r,” but I can see it being used, for the reasons articulated by bordeland. The “j” is completely new for me, but, once again, I can see where it’s coming from, as “zh” is not a usual English digraph. Still, it’s certainly not a mainstream spelling of the phrase.
It’s really not that important to me. If mine is an archaic or oddball transliteration, so be it.
I didn’t expect the Russian Inquisition.
Archaic, oddball, AND INCORRECT.* But hey, whatever sinks your Kursk.
*With the above-mentioned barely possible exception for non-rhotic dialects
The -j- is used by the French to transliterate the -zh-, but for English it’s not actually accurate because of the initial -d- sound.
Amateur, yours is not an archaic translation, it’s just wrong. You obviously don’t know Russian and that’s fine but I think you should just own up to your ignorance rather than call me the inquisition for pointing out your mistake.
I think that if the character were speaking American English, she probably would say ‘Oh my god,’ or ‘I don’t believe it,’. If it helps, she’s a very hard-bitten character, and not prone to emotional outbursts, but she was just suddenly and unexpectedly dropped into a scene of the night sky with all these stars and a glorious display of the northern lights, which besides being beautiful, are evoking long suppressed memories of her childhood.
Does that help?
You may be hindered by Russian not being a language particularly well suited to expressing positive thoughts… Maybe try tak krasivo (or tak grasiwo - ask svejk) “tak красиво” - so beautiful.
могло быть и хуже, which, in something approaching meta-irony, google translates as Dutch comfort…
I would propose any of the following exclamations:
Ничего себе! If you want to preserve the spelling, the transliteration would be Nichego sebe, but if you’d prefer to indicate how it is actually pronounced it would be Nichevo.
Вот это да! Vot eto da
Ух ты! Ukh ty
Обалдеть! Obaldet’
Hope this helps.
This won’t stop someone from fashioning a nonce transliteration, though. For instance, Hugh Walpole writes in his novel The Dark Forest (1916):
Then he was aware of a sanitar standing below the cart, looking up at him with great agitation and saying again and again: "Borjé moi! Borjé moi! Borjé moi!"
98 years later, in William Johnstone’s Flames from the Ashes (2014):
… General Striganov exploded with fury. "Borjemoi! Kotorohye solip’shim!
And, as mentioned above, an odd multi-lingual steam-of-consciousness reference from Heinlein’s Farnham’s Freehold (1964):
… Spilt milk butters no parsnips after the barn is burned so weep no more, my lady-but falsetto is not the pitch for detski whose horoscope reads Gemini. Borjemoi! …
One more reference – just a random message board post elsewhere about how to deal with Inturist in Russia:
**But be prepared to simulate anger whenever the log jam does not break under the
pianissimo tactics of the first – stage defense. When you refuse to sit down and
wait, the clerk will sometimes turn away and ignore you.
It is then time to throw a fit.
You must (1) hold your blocking position, (2) make lots of noise, and (3) show
that you are bitterly and righteously angry and cannot possibly be shut up short
of complete satisfaction.
Keep shouting. It helps to cuss a bit and one all – purpose word will do: “Borjemoi!”**
In sum, I think the house was unnecessarily harsh in the responses to Amateur Barbarian. I can agree that “Borjemoi” is not at all a commonly-known expression among English speakers, and that its references in English-language literature are especially sparse. I can agree that the transliteration is highly uncommon and unconventional. But I can’t call Amateur Barbarian’s post #2 incorrect, unless we’re saying the sources are incorrect – and I don’t think we can say an ad hoc transliteration is “incorrect” if it’s in the ballpark. Walpole, et al, were not trying to translate a peace treaty at the UN or something – they were telling entertaining stories, and a little impressionism is totally acceptable IMHO.