Sunday, January 12, 2014
16 Things Russians Do That Americans Might Find Weird
http://www.buzzfeed.com/azazello/16-things-russians-do-that-americans-would-find-we-cqjf
1. Dressing up to go to the store.
Imax Tree / Via stylebistro.com
Russians, especially Russians living
in cities, love dressing up. For example, a nice dress and some heels
are perfect attire for a casual walk.
2. Sitting down for a minute before heading on a trip.
Once the suitcase is packed, most Russians will typically pause and sit quietly for a minute before leaving.
3. Making really long and complicated toasts.
New Line Cinema / Via google.com
Only the laziest of the laziest of
Russians will make a toast of “To health” or something short like that.
Seriously. Expect to hear anecdotes and too much reading into them.
4. Telling anecdotes as often as possible.
CBS / Via mashable.com
They might be in the middle of
telling a story and then say, with relish, “And, you know, this reminds
me of an anecdote…” and then proceed to tell it, even if it’s completely
irrelevant.
5. Congratulating one another on getting out of a shower or sauna.
NBC / Via funnyjunk.com
They say, “S lyogkim parom!” (Basically, “Congratulations on a light steam.”)
6. Answering “how are you?” honestly and fully.
Netflix / Via m.tickld.com
How are you?” in Russian demands an actual answer, not just “Great, thanks!”
7. Not smiling at strangers.
Paramount Pictures / Via weheartit.com
Smiling at people you randomly make
eye contact with is not a thing. Smiles are supposed to be genuine, to
be shared with friends.
8. Celebrating New Year’s more enthusiastically than Christmas.
Via trevorabroad.com
The tree is for New Year’s. Presents are for New Year’s. Forget Christmas. New Year’s is THE winter holiday.
9. Constantly rewatching old Soviet cartoons.
Felix Kandel / Via cartoonsdb.blogspot.com
“Nu, Pogodi!” (the Russian version of
Tom and Jerry), “Bremenskiye Muzykanty” (The Musicians From Bremen),
and “Snezhnaya Koroleva” (The Snow Queen), are among Russia’s favorites.
10. Calling all females “girl”.
If you want to call your female
waitress, you yell, “girl!” If you want to address a fifty-year-old
woman, you can call her “girl.” If you want to address an actual girl,
you call her “girl.” Any woman short of a babushka (grandmother) is
“girl.”
11. Sitting down at the table for a meal and staying there for hours.
Universal Pictures / Via samitdamn.tumblr.com
When groups of Russians get together for dinner, they will sit down, have dinner, and talk. Then they will talk some more.
12. Always keeping your bags.
Seriously, Russians never, ever, ever throw away any bags, just ‘cause you never know when you might need one.
13. Preparing way more food than is necessary for when friends come over.
And most of it will have tons of mayo.
14. Living with their parents.
Paramount Pictures / Via lilyincanada.wordpress.com
It is often that an entire Russian family - parents, children, grandparents - will live together in one apartment.
15. Meeting complete strangers and then becoming friends with them immediately.
Kino International Corp. / Via kino-teatr.ru
And then inviting them over for some tea after only 10 minutes of conversation.
16. And never showing up to someone’s house without a gift in hand.
It can be a dessert or a wine if it’s
dinner, or it can be chocolates or flowers (so long as it’s not an even
number of them). It’s not really important what it is, as long as you
bring something.
Restoration of Monarchy in Russia-November 13, 2013
Tsar-fetched? Almost a third of Russians favor return of monarchy
Published time: November 13, 2013 13:49
The research has been done by the All-Russian Center for Public Opinion. The results were announced by the head of this organization, Valery Fedorov, at a Moscow conference dedicated to the 400th anniversary of the Romanov Russian royal house.
According to Fedorov, 28 percent of Russians support the restoration of monarchy or said they would not object to it.
At the same time, only six percent said that a modern monarch must be from the Romanov dynasty. About 13 percent hold that a contemporary Russian politician could become a new Tsar and suggested a nationwide referendum to decide who. Only four percent admitted they had a favorite candidate but almost all monarchists agreed that the future Tsar must be an Orthodox Christian. 80 percent of all respondents said that no living Russian politician or public figure was worthy of the throne.
At the same time, 67 percent of those polled said that Russia should leave monarchy in the past and 82 percent agreed that the current republican constitution is the best for the country.
Russia was ruled by absolute monarchs from the mid-sixteenth century with Ivan IV the Terrible until the early 20th century. The last Emperor, Nicholas II abdicated after the Great October Socialist Revolution in 1917 and was executed by Bolsheviks together with his family in 1918.
http://rt.com/politics/russia-monarchy-return-poll-661/
Stalin's calendar and the ROC
A publishing house run by the Russian Orthodox Church has released
a 2014 calendar devoted to Josef Stalin, unleashing a flurry
of indignation among Russian bloggers and a discussion about
the Church's ties to the former Soviet dictator.
The calendar, published by the Moscow-based patriarchal printing house of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius monastery, presents pictures of Stalin, accompanied by excerpts from his biography. The photographs show Stalin gradually ageing as the months roll on — from a young man on the January page to a gray-haired Soviet leader in December.
The calendar, on sale for 200 rubles ($6), "would be an excellent gift for veterans and history buffs," according to the website of Dostoinstvo publishing house.
Public outcry was prompted after a historian who focuses on Russian Orthodox Church studies mentioned the calendar and posted additional pictures from it on his LiveJournal social network blog on Tuesday.
On of the photographs posted by historian Mikhail Babkin showed the back page of the calendar, which carried a quote attributed to former French President Charles de Gaulle: "Stalin didn't walk away into the past, he dissolved into the future."
"The 'patriarchal-Stalinist' calendar once again demonstrates that the link between the Moscow Patriarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church and Stalin … has been and remains something close to a sacred one," Babkin said.
"The priests are suffering from Stockholm syndrome," a reader commented on the Ekho Moskvy radio website, in an apparent reference to the Church's affinity for its Soviet-era persecutors.
Stalin's relationship with the Orthodox Church was a complex and tumultuous one. Born in Georgia, Stalin attended a Georgian Orthodox seminary in his youth, but was expelled for reasons that are still debated by historians. Russians occasionally remark that his dismissal from the seminary, which stemmed his budding religious career, turned the course of Russia's history.
The Russian Orthodox Church was heavily persecuted in the initial years Soviet rule, with many of its temples being razed to the ground while others were turned into warehouses. Stalin presided over the destruction by dynamite of Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral, having picked its site for the Palace of the Soviets monument to socialism. The cathedral was rebuilt after the 1991 Soviet collapse.
But Stalin appeared to have had an about-face during World War II, supposedly cultivating closer ties with the Church in an apparent attempt to enlist its help in galvanizing Russians in the fight against the Nazis. After the war, he allowed the Church to operate under close government scrutiny.
The Russian Orthodox Church's connection "to Stalin, as its founder, is a most direct one," another reader commented. "Only a connection to God is missing."
"Insulting the memory of the millions of victims of that ghoul and of his damned regime is quite like the" Russian Orthodox Church, another said. "Snitching and hypocrisy thrive there."
"I have no words, this is already a total [expletive]," another commentator said. "They would go so far as to include that executioner of millions in their prayers. Complete insanity."
The calendar, published by the Moscow-based patriarchal printing house of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius monastery, presents pictures of Stalin, accompanied by excerpts from his biography. The photographs show Stalin gradually ageing as the months roll on — from a young man on the January page to a gray-haired Soviet leader in December.
The calendar, on sale for 200 rubles ($6), "would be an excellent gift for veterans and history buffs," according to the website of Dostoinstvo publishing house.
Public outcry was prompted after a historian who focuses on Russian Orthodox Church studies mentioned the calendar and posted additional pictures from it on his LiveJournal social network blog on Tuesday.
On of the photographs posted by historian Mikhail Babkin showed the back page of the calendar, which carried a quote attributed to former French President Charles de Gaulle: "Stalin didn't walk away into the past, he dissolved into the future."
"The 'patriarchal-Stalinist' calendar once again demonstrates that the link between the Moscow Patriarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church and Stalin … has been and remains something close to a sacred one," Babkin said.
"The priests are suffering from Stockholm syndrome," a reader commented on the Ekho Moskvy radio website, in an apparent reference to the Church's affinity for its Soviet-era persecutors.
Stalin's relationship with the Orthodox Church was a complex and tumultuous one. Born in Georgia, Stalin attended a Georgian Orthodox seminary in his youth, but was expelled for reasons that are still debated by historians. Russians occasionally remark that his dismissal from the seminary, which stemmed his budding religious career, turned the course of Russia's history.
The Russian Orthodox Church was heavily persecuted in the initial years Soviet rule, with many of its temples being razed to the ground while others were turned into warehouses. Stalin presided over the destruction by dynamite of Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral, having picked its site for the Palace of the Soviets monument to socialism. The cathedral was rebuilt after the 1991 Soviet collapse.
But Stalin appeared to have had an about-face during World War II, supposedly cultivating closer ties with the Church in an apparent attempt to enlist its help in galvanizing Russians in the fight against the Nazis. After the war, he allowed the Church to operate under close government scrutiny.
The Russian Orthodox Church's connection "to Stalin, as its founder, is a most direct one," another reader commented. "Only a connection to God is missing."
"Insulting the memory of the millions of victims of that ghoul and of his damned regime is quite like the" Russian Orthodox Church, another said. "Snitching and hypocrisy thrive there."
"I have no words, this is already a total [expletive]," another commentator said. "They would go so far as to include that executioner of millions in their prayers. Complete insanity."
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