If you are a tourist visiting Russia, what are Russians like when you engage with them out in public?
If you are a tourist visiting Russia, what are Russians like when you engage with them out in public?
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Not a tourist but I have some Russian coworkers who left (or fled depending on how you wanna see it) Russia as the war started.
Unsurprisingly, they are just... Well, people. Sure they have a certain culture or mannerisms but not much different from my other eastern european coworkers.
But obviously the ones that would leave Russia might not be quite the same as the ones that are still there today.
An interesting thing I've noticed with Russian and Chinese co workers is their attitude towards propeganda. If you start the sentence:
"All governments are lying to you, so:"
A typical western completion might be "so I need to validate what I'm hearing against what I'm actually seeing"
I've met Russian and Chinese people who would finish it "so none of it matters, the real truth is unknowable, and so I'll choose to believe the truth that facilitates the path of least resistance for me and my family"
I hear the same from many of my eastern european colleagues. It's an attitude you pick up when living under corrupt governments. It's sad, it makes people feel like they can't do anything to make things better.
I think that it's one of the goals of propaganda in such places. Drown everyone in conflicting information and let them abandon any agency.
I also heard that this may pose a problem for the Russian govt as this makes people passive and totalitarian turn Russia undergoes requires people to be active but brainwashed.
I've had a Russian co-worker too, and the thing that stood out about him to me is how much he hated the cold. He came from a city that can get six feet of snow on the ground overnight. Here he would bundle up in a coat, hat, scarf and gloves on a day when I would just roll my shirt sleeves down.
Coming from another place that regularly gets 6 feet of snow and where it is cold as fuck. I perfectly understand him, the cold suckes. I strongly dislike anything below 10C.
Coming from a place that regularly got triple digit temperatures I'm not a fan of hot. I think when you move to a more temperate climate you realize what you were missing and don't want to be tortured further :)
I'm Dutch, we have 50 words for rain, and 49 start with some version of "fucking".