Russians vs Europeans

Russians and Europeans
People’s visual aspects

When we went to Europe with my Russian boyfriend, he kept saying: “That’s amazing how the French keep a little smile on their face - even in the metro!” I’m not sure about that, but it is not the first time I can hear it. As a matter of fact, in public transport or on the street, Russians don’t seem to be the happiest humans on Earth.

If Russians rarely smile to strangers and don’t often flatter a woman, they are still very gallant in some cases: men usually hold car doors to women and help them to put on their coat. (Thank God! Winter fur-coats are sometimes so heavy!). In Europe, except for my grandfather (he’ll soon become a legend), I cannot remember many men helping women. Here, even young people do! They just have to learn a bit more how to make compliments – and they would be perfect gentlemen.

Different nationality = different mind?

I’d like to share with you an interesting evening I spent with friends: we decided to cook together and to play Imaginarium (a game based on association between images and words). A half of our group was Russian and the other half from European countries. Everybody didn’t know each other, but we quickly noticed that Europeans always had the same answers, totally different from the Russians ones. I got then the conviction that the word “mentality” really exist. I always fought against this consideration, not wanting to classify people.

This game was also a discovery for me: I thought I adapted myself quite good in this country, and changed my view on many things (life, relations to people, education…), closer to the Russian one. But still - so many things are so deeply anchored in our unconsciousness! That is not by chance that scientist believe that we know less than 5-10% of our brain and don’t use more than 2-3% of its capacities!

About humor – the Russian humor is for me very close to the British one – very fine and subtle with many plays of words, but sometimes only comprehensible for them. And here again, as they don’t smile so much – hard to tell if it was humor, or not!