Weekend à la Russe

It’s Sunday evening and the weekend is almost over, but - good news! – in 5 days there will be another one. So, how do Russians spend their weekends in summer?
 

Unless there are some plans in the city or special plans to travel to another place, most people leave the city (or town) to go to their dachas (if they are originally from the city) or to the place they are from (if they were born in one place and work in another).

Dacha is a summerhouse. Most dachas are located in dacha communities (where people do not live all year round, but just go on weekends or for the whole summer), others are in villages (where apart from dachas there are local people who live there all the time).

Flowers and herbs from the dacha

In summer the Russians like to spend their weekend fishing, going to forests to pick berries or mushrooms, going with friends and family to a picnic with shashlik (barbecue) by the river, enjoying the nature and the weather.

 We do not go to pick mushrooms/berries just because we want to eat them – you can always buy them during the season. But it is such a pleasure to wake up on the weekend, to put on something baggy and military-style (there are lots of mosquitos in our forests, so wearing such clothes you will not only be scary-looking, but also a hard nut to crack for them) and to go to the forest, breathe that smell, enjoy that beauty, look for the berries/mushrooms, sometimes for quite a time before you find the first one, make a competition with your companion who brings more of them home. After 4 or 5 hours you leave the forest, stop by the river on your way to swim and then come home, tired but extremely happy. You have lunch with the perfectly fried potatoes with mushrooms, then go to banya (Russian sauna) to relax.

In fact, the process of picking berries is very healthy: you make not less than 20 000 steps and you have to make squats hundreds of times for every berry (if it is wild strawberry, for example), so it is not only pleasure but also kind of sport. And aside from burned calories you breath in the smell of summer ecologically-friendly forest and then you enjoy the taste of the berries, which are so rich in vitamins and microelements.

 

Another Russian “sport” for the weekend is fishing. Well, this process is not that healthy – you have to sit on the river side for a long time (alone or together with a group of friends) and you have to drink lots of beer. It is OK if after fishing for some hours you come home without a fish (it is not the result, but the process that matters, same as with going to the forest). 

Fishing is for men, this is why I can not tell you much about that. They say in Russia that a woman at the fishing party is bad luck: you will not hook a single fish. And I want to bring luck, not bad luck. So I’d better meet you after the fishing with buckets full of water (this is of good omen in Russia :)

Russian village

If you travel to Russia for the first (second, etc.) time

(survival tactics)

First of all, be ready for disappointments: 1) we do not drink vodka all the time (some of us have never tried it, some of us  - like me - tried it twice in our lives, mixed with juice, at a party with Austrian friends), 2) KGB will not follow you – it even does not exist anymore. I will dispel other myths about Russia next time, today I will get you morally prepared for travelling to my beloved mother country.

Cathedral of Christ the Savior

·         Learn Russian or take a Russian-speaking friend with you, because not so many Russians speak English or another foreign language. Well, Moscow or other big cities are better, but if you go to a small town, at least download a phrase book on you phone. Do not repeat to Russians in Russia the phrase that some Russian friends of yours taught you when they were visiting your country– most probably they are swear words;

·         Do not ask a Russian “How are you”, unless you have an hour or so to listen to the answer. If to that question a Russian answered just “fine” or “good”, it means that 1) the person does not speak English or 2) the person does not want to speak now or 3) the person has experience in talking to foreigners;

·         Do not drink alcohol at all if you rent a car – drinking while driving (even a glass of wine/beer) is prohibited;

·         Be ready for long distances – if someone invites you to a dinner to his house and says “it’s close”, it may be an hour or more away by car/subway from where you are;

·         If a friend or colleague invited you to his house, do not eat beforehand: it is 99% probability that they will serve you a dinner. The rest 1% will at least offer you tea with biscuits or something sweet. If none of that happened – your friend is not Russian. If you are visiting a small town, the dinner will be substantial and they will be disappointed if you do not eat the food prepared especially for your visit. So, as I said, do not eat beforehandJ;

·         Take off your shoes when you come to someone’s house – we wear slippers at home, and not only after having shower (no need to bring your slippers with you though);

·         If you go somewhere by subway, and a woman on the opposite is closely watching you, do not think she is from KGB (remember: it does not exist), she is just interested – Russians are interested in foreigners and like to communicate with them;

·         Or – maybe that woman is watching you reproachfully because you are seated while an old woman is standing in front of you as there are no other seats available: we give places to the old and the pregnant. Girls also appreciate when a man gives place to them (even if they are not pregnant) – it is natural and polite, even though it does not happen often;

·         Be ready for all sorts of personal questions – it is OK if your colleagues ask you whether you are married or not, if yes, how you met your husband/wife, what books you like to read, where you go on vacation, etc. It just means we like you and we are interested. If you feel being interviewed and do not like answering such questions – just ask the person same questions and see how he/she will enjoy talking about himself/herself;

·         When in Russia, do as the Russians do – in my next posts I will tell you in more details what to wear and how to behaveJ  

“Next time you come to Moscow I will give you a romantic guide!” – I said cheerfully to my British colleague Fred when he came to Moscow office on business. Fred looked confused but smiled politely, as he was a gentleman. Well, I did not mean that some romantic person will escort him around Moscow, I just wanted to share with him a book where the most beautiful and romantic places of Moscow were marked. The conclusion from here is that even if we speak English, it is not always that understandable. So be ready to guess from Russian “English” what we mean.

Well, if you have any questions about travelling to Russia and survival tactics there, please contact me at tatianagloba@gmail.com, I will be glad to help. I still have that romantic guide (a book) that I can give youJ