People's relationships in Russia

People relationships

Relations towards “Non-Russians”

It all depends on your native country - racism is also a big issue here. If you are from ex-USSR countries, especially from the South (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan) - you would be treated with much less respect - often blamed to be dirty, careless and lazy, whereas they do jobs that no citizen would do (building roads and houses, garbage men, cleaning the streets). Same things happen all over the world I guess. There are also many rumors of drug trafficking and other illegal activities attached to immigrants, and it is therefore assumed these people are living illegally in Russia. I even heard that 12 000 000 people live officially in Moscow and 12 million more unofficially.

Sometimes this inequity towards foreigners is officialized by national and regional laws, inner law of a company. For example, an acquaintance of mine coming from Dagestan (republic of Russia), told me she couldn’t take a bank credit for buying an apartment: “your region is on the black list – no credit for you.” Even real estate agents refuse to show them flats for rent, not to have to make afterwards official contracts with them.

Besides, Russians have a famous proverb with reference to one of their regions - Tatarstan: An unsolicited guest is worse than a Tatar. I won’t comment on this a lot – everything is already said. But to help you interpret this idiom “correctly”, just know that Russia was occupied by Tatars for 200 years, with all the consequences of an military occupation can cause.

I’d like to add a bit about my experiences as a foreigner, who doesn’t look like a French girl, but as a person from Southern countries (Italy, Spain, for Europe, Georgia, or Caucasus). Until Perestroika, the Russian frontiers were closed to foreigners (except for the one called for work, like the Germans), people are therefore frightened by them: they don’t understand why they go to their territory, what they do there, and what they wait or want from them; these people living mostly in the provinces often ignore foreigners, are mean to them, sometimes insult them. Fortunately, that is a minority.

The other groups of people who are not used to being in contact with foreigners either, adore them before even talking to them. And when they get to know them, they still admire them, forgiving them everything - what they did right or not. They usually open them their home and their heart, keeping apologize when they live in a “modest home”. They surely will tell them about how bad they live, and how good it is in occidental countries, but that’s a detail on which we’ll come back a bit later.

On the other hand, if Russian people find out that you come from an occidental country – they will usually roll out the red carpet for you, but still giving you from time to time the feeling that you are not “one of them.”

Russians towards Russians

On the contrary to France (famous country of assisted people), Russians were used to fight for everything in order to survive, not afraid on walking on the head of others to achieve their goals:

• even if you have 1 product, nobody will let you go first at a grocery checkout, and people won’t even ask for this
• rarely people would let you go in front of them when you are queuing up, even if you are old, pregnant or handicapped
• rarely Russians would apologize when accidently pushing you, walking on your foot or rushing someone (French would ask a 100 times for forgiveness, until the injured one would almost feel guilty himself!). An acquaintance business-trainer, told me an example he keeps saying in his talks: “When someone rushes you in Europe, he automatically says “I’m sorry” and thinks it. In Russia, only well-educated people would apologize, and would think at the same time: “F* you, moron!”

As a matter of fact, Russians aren’t so courteous when talking to others, especially when they don’t know each other (metro, street, shop). I could give many examples, but I’ll just give a couple of them - I don’t want to make you afraid! And thank God! Everybody is different and Russians have many other qualities!

I can remember one of my neighbors in Perm: a tall big man. Early morning, we got together in our small lift; I stayed behind. The lift stopped at the next floor, as a young man wanted to get in. Seeing the lift full, he didn’t even try and surely couldn’t, as my neighbour looked at him in the eyes and said with a deep male voice: “Go on foot.” And the door closed.

I was shocked. Was this a joke ? Was he in a bad mood? Was it due to lack of education? Why did he say that? Why to be ironic and mean? I thought right away how French people would have reacted: silent, with a smile or laughter, saying something funny or even apologise “sorry, no space for you, but don’t worry, I’m sure you won’t wait long.”

Another example: Moscow, in the metro; many people in the wagon and a young man gets in, listening to music at full volume. After a station or 2, a man behind him yells: “I tell you now – not so loud”. Without any “please, would you mind?”

Why such disrespectful, cold or impolite behaviors?

I read not long ago about it and discussed with a professor at the university; she is of the opinion that Moscow was built quickly (and Moscow is just an example – other cities were built that way). The government therefore needed many workers and invited them from provincial cities and villages. These people were not much educated and this lack of education and civility has been spread through the generations. The same thing happened with the new oligarchs – usually low-educated people, coming from nothing, who got to politics or to business thanks to corruption, lies, and fraud. In spring started a scandal about it – the majority of politics bought diplomas, and they are the ones who lead a country of almost 150 000 000 people...