“Party like a Russian…

..End of discussion”. These are words from a popular song by Robbie Williams, and as New Year’s Eve is close, we will speak about the way the Russians party.

Well, you know what? After I got today a message from my American friend that the only Russian celebrity he knows is Putin, and after I heard this “Party like a Russian” song with the words “Ain't no refutin' or disputin' I'm a modern Rasputin”, I have an impression that there are only two Russian celebrities - Putin and Rasputin, that the whole world knows. By coincidence their names sound alike, by coincidence they have something to do with politics, by coincidence their names are associated in the world (apart from Russia) with lots of clichés: “oppressor” and “warmonger” for the first one and “Russia's greatest love machine”(words from an old Boney M song) for the second one. I may only hope that one day the world will go beyond clichés and that Putin’s/Rasputin’s names, together with the names of other famous Russians, will be associated with more or less objective information. But…

… this is not the point. The point is: only 2 are days left till New Year’s Eve!!!

Skating rink on Patriarch Ponds

And New Year  is the most important holiday of the year in Russia (more important than Christmas for most people).

People usually celebrate it at home with a traditional meal: they cook different kinds of salads (not light salads for models, but mayonnaise-infused heavy salads) - “Оливье” (“Olivier”), aka “Russian salad”, “под шубой” (“herring under fur coat”), chicken or goose, potatoes, etc. You are supposed to have a lot of food on the table, the more you have – the better will be the year. Usually people cook so much that they can be eating the food they cooked for 31 December during the whole vacation period!

So, if you want to spend 31 December in a Russian way, do the following:

•           Wake up in the morning, full of energy. You will need it;
•           Buy and decorate Christmas tree (most people have already done it, but if you haven’t, you still have the chance to do it). You can leave it decorated till 14 January, when we celebrate “Old New year”;
•          If you spend the last day of the year as a Russian, you have already lots of food in the fridge. So, take it out and start to cook traditional Russian holiday food – it will take you from 2 to 4 hours, depends on how many guests are invited;
•          While cooking, watch favorite special New Year movies: “The Irony of Fate or Have a Nice Bath”, “Ivan Vasilievich changes profession”, etc.;
•          As soon as you have cooked everything, take a nap for an hour or start sending messages with congratulations or call the people saying “с Наступающим” (“s Nastupayustchim!”) – “happy upcoming year”;
•          Dress up and get ready to accept the guests;
•          At about 9 or 10 p.m. you will start eating with the guests, talking and enjoying the company, “seeing the old year off”. There will be toasts about the year which is about to end. The TV will be on, because there will be special new year programs that some of the guests will maybe even watch (not all of them, but still);
•          15 minutes before midnight  - make sure the TV is on! It is time to listen to the president’s speech. No matter what our political views are, every year 15 minutes before midnight we listen to the president’s wishes for the upcoming year. As soon as the speech is over, the clock tower on Red Square chimes, fireworks burst into the air and the New Year officially begins. Make sure you make a wish during the chime of the clock, it will come true! If you want to make a wish in a sophisticated way (and thus, there is almost a guarantee it will come true) – you have to write it down on a peace of paper, burn it, put it in a glass of champagne and drink the whole glass of champagne during the chime;
•          As soon as the New Year began, we welcome it by saying “С Новым годом” (“S Novim Godom!”) or “С Новым Годом, с новым счастьем!" (“To the New Year, to the new happiness!"). This is how the first toast of the year sounds;
•          You are supposed to hide your presents for the people with whom you celebrate under the tree. They will open it after the chime. If you celebrate in a company which includes children, they will believe that the presents were brought by Ded (not “dead”!) Moroz, the Russian version of Santa;
•          Now that you have “met the New year” in a proper way, with champagne and food, you can start the partying – dancing, playing, singing. Some people will do it at home, others will go to a club or join their friends for a party. Many people will meet at the square by the Christmas tree (no matter what city/town they are in) to continue the celebrations together – they will drink champagne and display the fireworks before going home/visiting friends/going to night clubs;
•          Stay up as long as you can – party hard and

Have a wonderful start of the year (and the whole year too)…!:)

Russians and the destiny

A couple of weeks ago I was watching a play in one of Moscow theatres (based on Anton Ponizovsky’s book «Обращение вслух» (I Am All Ears), 2013. The main topic of the book/play was the “mysterious Russian soul”. In the play, a number of different life stories of Russian commoners were told by those commoners and then discussed by four Russian people, who accidentally met in Switzerland. The four people, among whom there was a middle-aged guy who mainly criticized his compatriots, and a young guy, who was defending them, tried to discover the essence of ‘Russianness’ from those life stories.

There were many topics raised, and if you are interested, you can read the book/watch the play. But one of the ideas that I want to share with you today is the belief of most Russians in destiny.

The example from the play was the following: a girl loved a guy, very much. He loved her too. They saw each other from time to time, enjoying the company of each other. After some time he joined the army and was far from the place she lived. When the guy she loved came to see her for one day from the army, she knew he still loved her, but he did not say anything about future and marriage. She did not ask of course, women are not supposed to ask such things. So he left to continue his service, and she married another guy. She still loved the first guy, but she thought that since he did not propose, and she was of the age when people are supposed to get married, it was her destiny to marry the other one, who proposed.

The middle-aged guy from the play laughed at that woman – isn’t it stupid to rely on destiny in such questions? Isn’t it one of the most important choices in life? If yes, why then didn’t she at least proactively ask the guy she loved about his plans for the future with her?

White square, Moscow

Well, you know… I’ve heard some stories like this one, and I often hear from Russian people answering the question why they are not together with someone they love, or why they did not go to the university they wanted, or why they did not move to the place they wanted one short answer – “Не судьба” (“it was not meant to be”). I hear it often, but not always, because some people know that “destiny” is not something 100% predetermined, they know that we ourselves are responsible for our life, so "destiny" means circumstances we live in, and some of them we can choose (like partners for life, profession, etc.) while others we can not (parents, color of our eyes, place of birth). Yet in Russia you will often get that "не судьба" answer - probably, sometimes it will be so just because it is the shortest one:)

It is funny, but if I ask the same questions people from the west, they will more likely give a logic answer, explaining their choice – because they believe that their life and choices in it totally, 100% depend on them, not on some kind of external power.

Maybe our choices in life totally depend on us and we can logically explain them, or maybe they depend on the destiny. Anyway, I personally think that there is inner logic in our destiny (and for the definition of destiny - see above) :) 

Saying hi in Russia

Russia. Office in the morning. There are 4 colleagues sitting in one room. Another colleague enters and shakes hands with one of the four only. Why?

• He has already shaken hands with the others this morning;
• He does not know the others;
• He shakes hands with the colleague of the same level only.

Well, none of the above is true. 

The guy does not shake hands with the other colleagues just because the other colleagues are women.
So, normally, if a male colleague enters a room where there are 1 male colleague and 3 female, he will come up to the guy and will shake hands with him, and will say “hello” to the three women, maybe without even looking at them. If a guy shakes hands with a woman in Russia, then he is a foreigner.

How do women feel about that? Well… when I was younger, I thought that this is unfair: why do men get such a personal “hello” while women do not? So, I tried to shake hands with men and each time they refused, embarrassed, offering to kiss my hand instead (OK, this is a little bit archaic, so I did not accept the offer).
Now I do not try to shake hands with anyone. I just feel it is right the way it is. 
And I prefer my hand to be kissed instead of being shaken.

St. Basil's Cathedral, Moscow

Apart from this difference in male/female saying hi, women sometimes kiss each other on the cheeks, if they are close (guys do not normally do that to guys, but they can kiss women).
It is such a pleasure to be a woman in Russia, don’t you think so? 

PS: Special thanks to those male colleagues who did shake hands with me despite the rules. I appreciate it. 

Rude Russians

Back in 2008, when I was in New York on work and travel program, during a conversation with my friend John I said something which was not very polite and then apologized for being rude. I do not remember what I apologized for, but I do remember what he answered: “You are not rude, just Russian”. It was a good excuse, and I was relieved that it was not entirely my fault. And of course it was a joke, but as we say in Russia, behind every joke there is a grain of truth. I’ve heard very often that people from abroad think Russians are rude and/or arrogant.

Well, people that you meet on the street, at a supermarket or at a restaurant may seem rude to you, if you come from another culture. And sometimes they are (in any country there are rude people). But very often people come to the conclusion that Russians are rude just because we do not normally talk or smile to strangers that much. For example, today I met my friend at a coffee house, we went for a walk and had dinner at a restaurant later. In both places the waiters did not say hello to us, did not wish us a nice evening, did not ask us any questions (apart from “have you made your choice?”). They just brought us the menu and brought us the food. I guess that waiters who do not talk and do not smile could seem rude to people from other cultures, but to me it was the best way they could do their job: they were quick and the food was good, and I wanted to talk to my friend. It would even have seemed suspicious if they had started asking questions or talking about something with us.

Sign saying it is forbidden to talk to strangers (Moscow, Patriarch ponds)

Unlike in Moscow, when my sister and I were at a Vancouver restaurant, a very nice smiley waitress talked to us for some minutes about the weather, asked us what our plans for the day were, what we had done before coming to the restaurant, etc. First I thought she was a friend of my sister’s or a waitress she saw often at that place. Then I realized that this is how things are like in Canadian restaurants

When I was in France in 2006, twice a week I went to the same supermarket, and the guy who worked there always smiled to me with a broad smile and said “Bonne journée”. I was 18, it was my first trip abroad and in the shops in my town people did not say that to clients. So I thought the guy was secretly in love with me. Well, to my disappointment later I realized I was not that special: he smiled and said “Bonne journée” to everyone…

When I was 20, I read a book on psychology (something about positive thinking), where one of the exercises was to smile to people in the street. I took the task very seriously and smiled to about 7 people in the streets of Nizhniy Novgorod. The first 3 were guys and it was ok (they smiled back or accidentally on purpose showed their wedding finger). Another 3 looked at me as if I was mad. The 7^th was a woman of about 50 that started shouting: she thought I was laughing at her, and she had that reaction just because she did not expect a smile from a stranger.

The conclusion from this is the following: in general we are not rude. We just do not talk/smile to strangers that much. We keep all that for close people.

So…Dear John! If you read it, I have a confession to make. I, Tatiana Globa, was (maybe) rude in 2008. I am personally responsible for that, Please do not blame it on my nation:)

Meet A. Blok

If you live in Moscow and think where to go out of the city on the weekend, one of the ideas is to go to places like Shakhmatovo-Boblovo-Tarakanovo, which are associated with the names of Alexander Bloc, a major poet of the Russian Symbolism style, one of the most important poets of the Silver Age of Russian poetry, and with the name of the famous Russian chemist and inventor Dmitri Mendeleev, who created the periodic table of elements. All the three places are located very close to each other, and it will take you about 2 hours to get there from Moscow.

Shakhmatovo is the place where Alexander Bloc used to live, where he got his inspiration and wrote many of his famous poems, including the cycle of poems “Stikhi o prekrasnoi Dame” (Verses About the Beautiful Lady) dedicated to the love of his life, his wife Lyubov Mendeleeva. Here is one of the poems:

* * *

Shakhmatovo, November 2016

Мне страшно с Тобой встречаться.
Страшнее Тебя не встречать.
Я стал всему удивляться,
На всем уловил печать

По улице ходят тени,
Не пойму - живут, или спят...
Прильнув к церковной ступени,
Боюсь оглянуться назад.

Кладут мне на плечи руки,
Но я не помню имен.
В ушах раздаются звуки
Недавних больших похорон.

А хмурое небо низко -
Покрыло и самый храм.
Я знаю- Ты здесь Ты близко.
Тебя здесь нет. Ты - там.

Of meeting you I am frightened,
More frightened I am not to meet.
To wonder at all things I've started,
On all things a brand I have put.

On street the shadows are walking,
I cannot say - live or dead.
To the church staircase leaning,
I am afraid to look back.

People put hands on my shoulders,
But I don't remember the names.
Resounds the noise in my ears
Of recent funeral days.

And the dark sky is low -
It covers the sounds everywhere.
I know: You are here. You're close.
You are not here. You - are there.


With Lyubov (Lyuba) Mendeleeva, daughter of the chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, young Bloc often played on the stage of a small home theatre in Boblovo, the Mendeleev’s manor: he was Hamlet and she was his Ophelia. He loved her very much and said that there were only two women in his life: Lyuba and all the others. Unfortunately his married life was far from unclouded happiness: there was a love triangle between Alexander, Lyubov and Andrei Bely.

Blok had an influence on many famous Russian poets, and he was admired by his literary colleagues, such as Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Boris Pasternak and Vladimir Nabokov. He was not only admired by his fellow poets: many girls were in love with him, which was natural, as he was handsome, highly intellectual, and his thoughts and poetry made girls’ hearts beat. To one of them, Elizaveta Yurievna Pilenko, also known later as Mother Maria (Saint Mary) and who was a member of the French Resistance during World War II (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Skobtsova) he addressed his poem:

***
Когда вы стоите на моем пути,

Такая живая, такая красивая,
Но такая измученная,
Говорите все о печальном,
Думаете о смерти,
Никого не любите
И презираете свою красоту -
Что же? Разве я обижу вас?

О, нет! Ведь я не насильник,
Не обманщик и не гордец,
Хотя много знаю,
Слишком много думаю с детства
И слишком занят собой.
Ведь я - сочинитель,
Человек, называющий все по имени,
Отнимающий аромат у живого цветка.

Сколько ни говорите о печальном,
Сколько ни размышляйте о концах и началах,
Все же, я смею думать,
Что вам только пятнадцать лет.
И потому я хотел бы,
Чтобы вы влюбились в простого человека,
Который любит землю и небо
Больше, чем рифмованные и нерифмованные речи о земле и о небе.

Право, я буду рад за вас,
Так как - только влюбленный
Имеет право на звание человека.

6 февраля 1908

***
When you are standing on my path,

Boblovo, November 2016

So full of life, so full of beauty,
And yet so wearied,
You only talk about sad things,
You only think about death,
You do not love a soul,
And you despise your beauty –
What then? Could I offend you?

O, no! I’m not an oppressor,
Not a deceiver or an arrogant man,
Although I know quite a lot,
And I think too much since my youth,
And I’m too occupied with myself.
You see, I’m – a writer,
A man, who calls everything by its name,
And steals the aroma from a living flower.

Just don’t talk about sad things,
Or reflect on endings and new beginnings,
I still dare to think,
That you are only fifteen years old.
And for this reason I’d like it,
If you could fall in love with a simple person,
One, who loves the earth and the sky more than
The rhyming or non-rhyming words about the earth and the sky.

Truly, I’ll be happy for you,
Since - only the one who’s in love
Has the right to be called a human.

February 6, 1908
By Alexander Blok
Translation by Andrey Kneller

Here is on of the most famous poems by Alexander Blok:

Ночь, улица, фонарь, аптека,

Бессмысленный и тусклый свет.
Живи еще хоть четверть века -
Все будет так. Исхода нет.

Умрешь - начнешь опять сначала
И повторится все, как встарь:
Ночь, ледяная рябь канала,
Аптека, улица, фонарь.

Some night and street, some chemist's lantern
Is bringing senseless weary light.
Well, nothing changes, that's one pattern,
Live extra twenty-five and find.

You die to start a life all over,
All things repeat as did before.
That night, cold waters at quay border,
That light, that street, that chemist's store.

“

”

"The night, the street, the lantern, the drugstore..." (1912)Translated by Alexei Parphyonov

You can, of course, find a lot of information about Blok and Mendeleev on the internet. They were prominent figures known not only in Russia, and they got their inspiration here, in these villages, not far from Moscow. So, welcome to get your inspiration here too :)

Dress code and democracy

Do you think women in Russia can dress like this (chose the right option):

•           to the office;
•          to a party;
•           for a date;
•           to a night club;
•          to take out the litter;
•           for a journey by train.

The answer is – all the options are possible: in Russia women can wear (and they do wear) short skirts and high (very high) heels everywhere.

When I asked one of my ex-colleagues what he thought was special in Russia and different from abroad, the first thing that came to his mind was women’s dress code. In his opinion, no matter what a woman wears (mini skirt or long dress, etc.) – she wants to be attractive. I promised that if I write about this topic I will tell the criteria how we girls chose what to wear. I was planning  to investigate the issue thoroughly and to draw a detailed decision tree after the investigation. And you know what… I got up this morning, opened my wardrobe, realized (again!) that I have nothing to wear and chose something more or less suitable to my mood.

I was getting dressed for the office, and well, I would have probably chosen a mini skirt, if it had not been snowing (yes, it is November 3 and it snows in Moscow). Oh, sorry. Snow do not stop us from wearing mini skirts. Did I think about the dress code? Well, apart from banks and some other places which have some special strict regulations about dress code, dress code is an elastic term. If you go to a conference for lawyers, you will see men wearing jeans and shirts, not so often – suits, and women wearing all kinds of skirts, dresses and trousers of all kinds of cuts, colors and prints (flowers, deers, Mickey Mouse, etc. are OK). 

So, mini skirt, suit or jeans, it all depends on the mood. And (with some exceptions, like, maybe, gym) there are no occasions or places or time when it is inappropriate to wear high heels in Russia. This is democracy. 



Photo by Ksenia Zasetskaya

Russian soul: getting to know, basic level

You have been living in Russia (or have been in touch with Russian friends/colleagues) for quite some time now, but you still feel you do not understand Russian people? Well, it is totally fine. It is just because of the "enigmatic Russian soul". So, if you want to understand better your Russian colleagues, partners or friends, you should probably try to follow some advice given below:

• start to learn about the soul by exploring Russia and observing ordinary people: if you think that by coming to Moscow you have seen the country, you are wrong. Moscow is Moscow, Russia is Russia. Just for you not to have a culture shock, first see Moscow and only then go to other places;
• when in Moscow, use the subway: if you go only on foot/by taxi, you will be able to see only touristic places, and it is not you goal: of course, visiting the Kremlin is a must, but the subway in Moscow is also special. Apart from looking at the old stations, look at people: some of them are just fashion stars:) https://vk.com/mmfshn;
• get to know the city with the locals: thus you will not only see the must-sees, but will learn more about the life style of a typical Moscovite; 
• if you have survived after seeing different parts of Moscow (not only the centre), you are ready for the trip! Take a map of Russia, close your eyes, chose the destination. It should be a small town, about 5 hours by train so that you would not be too exhausted after the trip, but it must be not close to Moscow (you can buy the ticket online on www.rzd.ru or www.tutu.ru, if you do not speak Russian); 
• get to know Russian culture: if you like to read, then read some of the books, that are truly Russian (the list of them will be in one of the following posts), go to the theatre, listen to famous Russian composers (e.g., Tchaikovski). If you do not like all that, you will probably like one of Leningrad's music videos, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et281UHNoOU. Ask you Russian friend to translate dialogues from it so that you could understand what it is about;
• watch a movie: I do not know a single Russian who have not seen "Irony of fate" movie: this is about a middle aged guy who gets drunk with his friends in banya on New Year's Eve and accidentally goes to Saint-Petersburg instead of his friend: the rest of the story is quite touching, so if you like stories with happy endings and want to see a movie with Russian soul, watch this one;
• spend a day like a hero from a Russian fairy tale: enjoy yourself, do nothing. In Russian fairy tales and epic poems it happens often that a guy (Emelya, Ilia Muromets) is idling away his time while his brothers are constantly working, and not they but he becomes the hero because he catches a magic fish who fulfills all his dreams or conquers the bad guy because he is very strong. Follow their example: lie down, spare your strength, wait for magic to happen (I am sure it will be the most difficult tasks of all);

  

  The Bogatyrs (V. Vasnetsov, 1898). Ilia Muromets is the one in the middle.

• visit your Russian colleague/friend: you will see how people live. It depends on how close you are, but usually if you want to come to a Russian with a visit, you do not plan it long beforehand, For example, I never know who will call me and say that in an hour or so he/she will come to me for a cup of tea (in case I am home): receiving guests is a pleausre. not an inconvinience for us (if we like the guest, of course);
• try Russian food (like syrniki. pelmeni, pirozhki, Russian soups, etc.).

Hope that will be useful:) Please feel free to ask questions (if any).