Russian culture question

[tricours.livejournal.com]

One thing that I've remarked several times when reading the blogs of Scandinavians or other westeners who've spent some time in Russia, is that they comment on how Russians don't smile. I've read lots of "I went home for the holidays and once again I was met with a smile when I went to the store to shop" etc. etc. Also one girl commented that some railroad personnel at a station where trains come in from Finland greeted her with a smile because "that's what they know westerners expect as good service". Do clerks and shop personnel in Russia not smile? As a clerk in Sweden or Norway it's practically written in your contract that "YOU SHOULD ALWAYS SMILE AT CUSTOMERS" ;)

At the same time, I met this Russian travel agent who's lived in the Caribbeans for the last 10 years and who thought service in Norway was completely awful. But perhaps he was comparing it to that of the Caribbeans, and not to the Russian one?

Comments

[dryoldscholar.livejournal.com]

That's a "good" soviet tradition. Smiling means getting vultarable. One should prevent every possible offence with a more aggressive and repulsive mask on one's face.

[noiseless-steps.livejournal.com]

well said =)

[ex-rudm853.livejournal.com]

nonsence.

[cranberry-babe.livejournal.com]

ahahahaha :)))))))

[avla.livejournal.com]

I agree 100%.

Can you imagine a jail? These people are not open-minded. They have high level of agression and distrust.
This is Russia.

[ex-rudm853.livejournal.com]

People in jail smile as often as other people, but I think so open-minded person like you wouldn't like things they do smile about.

[avla.livejournal.com]

Fuck off, fungus.

[ex-rudm853.livejournal.com]

Have you told it with a wide smile?

[avla.livejournal.com]

Certainly.

[ex-rudm853.livejournal.com]

good boy :)

[ex-rudm853.livejournal.com]

Quite rught. I've noticed that agressive and xenophobic russians only occur near by agressive and xenophobic people. Some kind of mystic, you know...

[dryoldscholar.livejournal.com]

They ARE open-minded enough to change their usual behaviour to a more friendly as soon as they get into another environment. At least, most of them.

[avla.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[bs-chvstvnn.livejournal.com]

>One should prevent every possible offence with a more aggressive and repulsive mask on one's face

and with a more martial shaking of iron balalayka in one's strong hairy hand. It's an old tradition.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Iron balalaika my foot. Iron bottle of iron vodka is the real weapon of the winning proletariat!

[bs-chvstvnn.livejournal.com]

Vulgar glass bottles with Molotov or heavy water are good too.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Heavy water is just a day-before-yesterday issue. Today, everybody drinks polonium.

[bs-chvstvnn.livejournal.com]

Only in Russia, because you know I heard about a man, Russian, who lived abroad for a long time - so once he tried to drink some tea with polonium and his impaired by living in Europe organism succumbed.

[vakhitov.livejournal.com]

Sometimes you'd better wear a mask though.

[vakhitov.livejournal.com]

It may indeed feel wrong if you really care about the feelings of a random salesperson. I generally don't. Instead, I care about my personal feelings. And I get most pleasure from doing business with people that smile to me.

All I said above is valid for the people I don't know. But I get to know more people every day. And here I get a chance to get to the next level. Smile is a magical thing. If you smile to people in advance, you can get closer with some of them in the future, even if right now you don't mean anything to each other.

[gdy.livejournal.com]

So do you assume that smiling clerks don't mind to get closer to you on occasion? ;-)

[silpol.livejournal.com]

would you mind to stop shifting all the blame on USSR? I'm not trying to wash USSR and make it whiter than it was, but...

There are plenty of items of artwork (paintings, etc) of pre-Soviet time where Russians are same as described in original posting, so it does NOT necessarily feature of USSR period.

Also, there is ol'good theory that... presumably always-smile model is necessity to pronounce particular English vowels in casual way, and hence it is only implicit feature of language, which is sold to general public as "most effective sales requisite". Common white lie?

And... Call me rude, but I do not necessarily agree with idea that Swedes or Norwegians were smart to derive that always-smile-in-service feature. You know, common Russian model of thinking - if one is smiling without reason, he is either stupid or insane. Yes, I do find this one more logical than always-smile model. Period.