баба

Woman, babe, chick; old woman (grandma). Derived from the Old East Slavic баба, which originally denoted a grandmother, an older female relative, or a married woman of lower social standing. Its meaning depends heavily on tone and context: it can be a coarse, colloquial, or mildly derogatory term for any woman (similar to “broad” or “chick”), a warm and affectionate abbreviation for grandmother (бабушка), or a slang term for a physically attractive woman (similar to “babe”).

Бабы одеваются сейчас,
помня, что слыхали от подружек:
цель наряда женщины — показ,
что и без него она не хуже.

Women dress nowadays
remembering what they heard from their friends:
The purpose of a woman’s outfit is to show
that she looks just as good without it.

(Игорь Губерман, Гарики на каждый день, 1992)

Молчи баба твой день 8 марта (“Shut up broad your day is March 8th”),
graffiti in Saint-Petersburg (Sept. 2010), © sinkov.

Central Asian. Borrowed from the Turkic languages, where baba means “grandfather” or “old man”. In colloquial and slang Russian, the word is used informally — sometimes with an exoticising flavour or an underlying tone of ethnic condescension — to refer to migrant workers or people from the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.

Таможенник, обрадовавшийся возможности показать работу, под взорами присутствующего руководства подошел к бабаю, почему-то в зимней ушанке, завязанной под подбородком, тулупе и валенках, и к такой же закутанной старухе, которые ошарашенно глядели на мундиры, мигалки и прочее великолепие.

The customs officer, delighted at the opportunity to show off his work under the watchful eyes of his superiors, approached the old Asian man, who was wearing a winter hat pulled down over his ears, a sheepskin coat, and felt boots, and the equally bundled-up old woman, who were both staring in astonishment at the uniforms, flashing lights, and other paraphernalia.

(Вильям Савельзон, На границе тучи, 1997)