Тянуть кота за хвост (Tyanut' kota za khvost)

Literally: To pull the cat by the tail

Example: “Не тяни кота за хвост, скажи, кто выиграл.” — Stop dragging your feet and tell me who won.

English equivalent: To drag one's feet

Origin: Unlike most idioms with roots lost to centuries of anonymous oral tradition, this one has a specific, documented literary origin: Russian writer Boris Guber used the phrase with its now-standard meaning — needlessly dragging out a slow, delayed action — in his 1924 story "Sharashkina Kontora." That literary usage is credited with fixing the phrase's modern sense in everyday Russian, joining a small family of closely related idioms for stalling and delay, including "тянуть резину" (stretching rubber) and "тянуть волынку" (dragging out a bagpipe drone) — all built on the same core image of physically pulling something out longer than it needs to be.