полтора землекопа (poltora zemlyekopa)

Literally: One and a half diggers

Example: “На лекцию пришло полтора землекопа.” — Two men and a dog turned up to the lecture.

English equivalent: Two men and a dog

Origin: From Liya Geraskina's children's book В стране невыученных уроков (In the Land of Unlearned Lessons, 1965), in which the lazy hero solves an arithmetic problem wrongly and gets the answer "one and a half diggers," whom he then meets in person. The cartoon made of the book in 1969 spread the phrase, now used for any absurdly small group of people.