A Russian Abroad: Stereotypes.

Through various observations and social interactions during my two months in St. Petersburg, I have started to notice certain characteristics of a typical Russian woman. I understand that a city with a population of at least 5 million, but arguably* closer to 7, it is a sweeping generalisation to say that I can describe the characteristics of of stereotypical 'Russian' woman (maybe it would be at least slightly more correct to say stereotypical 'St. Petersburgian' woman). I would also be prepared to admit that certain notions may have sparked from experiences I had with my own relatives from a young age. However, my past experience of living abroad has often confirmed general stereotypes I already had in mind. It must also be noted that the women to which I'm referring are those from the older generation who lived at least half of the lives in Soviet Russia, a time when people were all were living very similar, and who then went through similar experiences with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 - strongly shaping a whole generation.

Russian woman just seem to fuss. A lot! It's quite a contrast with English people where silence is golden and the general rule is to keep opinions to yourself unless it is absolutely necessary to voice them and to generally not get involved in situations that don't directly involve you. Quietly asking the conductor on the bus (which is full of 90% women who, I might add, never seize to push and charge past with all their strength to be the first on board to get the best seat) the best place to get off for a certain location seems to be an open invitation for at least 5 or 6 other Russian women (all above the age of 60) sat in various parts of the bus to jump in with their opinion, which more often than not contradicts that of the conductor... These conversations then tend to last at least ten minutes - normally until the poor soul who asked manages to escape by getting off at the earliest place suggested. If you're lucky, the conversation even continues afterwards with various mutterings echoing around the bus. It does indeed provide some entertainment when stuck in rush hour traffic.
Overfeeding is also a common one. Visits to see my Godmother usually leave me full for at least three days and a quick stop for a cup of tea turns into a four-course meal, which, of course, just happened to be on standby in the fridge - even after persistently insisting that I had already eaten. I am then also met with a look of pity and concern, asking if I need to have a shower in her apartment seeing as I live in a 'communal' apartment. (I have 5 flatmates but the standard is much higher than the Soviet communal apartments she is imagining.)
A technological advancement that seems to have gone unnoticed by Russian women is that of the missed call function on a mobile phone. My understanding is based on the assumption that if you are not in a place where you can pick up your phone, you will have put your phone on silent and will call back later upon seeing that you have a missed call. I appear to be mistaken. One's mobile phone should be answered at ALL times. Concerts, cinemas - in the middle of films, church services, in the middle of a meal at a restaurant, during a piano lesson... you name it. All phone calls in such circumstances are met with the same reply: "I'm sorry I can't talk now, I'm in [insert location here], I will call you later." My question is: Why not make use of the missed-call function on the phone and simply call back when you can?!

In general, Russian society has a sense of still being a very traditional society in terms of having very strong gender roles and huge focus on the importance of marriage and having a family, before 'time runs out' as it were. Most of my flatmates are over the age of 25 (4/6) and, while they are all single, 90% of their friends whom I've met are married and quite a few have already started families. Using this logic, I would need to meet the man I'm going to marry this year in order to follow suite - a scary thought. When I meet family friends or extended members of the family and they tell me about other people my age they know, the first thing I'm told about them is that they are happily married and whether they have started a family or not. It seems that success for people in their twenties is reflected in having found a husband/wife and with a baby on the way. People seemed concerned if you aren't on your way to achieving that and questions are asked. I find this hard to comprehend coming from a society where people are more concerned if you marry too young, worried that you haven't done enough for yourself (e.g. travelling, studying, working) and have, by getting married so young, given up hope of doing so.

[An interesting linguistic side note: I was surprised and quite shocked to learn that the word 'мужество' (moo-zj-est-va) that means 'courage' contains the stem 'муж' (moozsh) meaning 'husband' and 'мужчина' (moo-zsh-ee-na) meaning 'man'!]

Weirdly, I do find myself in somewhat of a paradox. I also have met a circle of people in their mid-twenties who definitely don't follow this trend. Instead they follow the pattern of drastic and very fast change and development that has taken place and is still very much taking place in Russia. My friend tells me that ten years ago you couldn't even find a cash machine on the street in Russia, while a quick internet search tells me that the first cash machines appeared in the UK in the late sixties. To match the speed with which Russia (at least western Russia) is playing catch up with western society is a generation of energetic and very driven twenty-somethings who are creating their own very successful businesses and adding to a strong culture of enterprising and taking initiative, making for a very fast-paced way of life. While in England, specifically in Bristol, there was also undoubtedly an exciting cultural and artistic energy among young people, a lot of talk wouldn't always necessarily lead to a lot of action. Great ideas wouldn't always be seen through to the end or would take a long time to be carried out and not always to their full potential. I have found that talking about potential projects and ideas with people here will lead to an email the following morning saying that X has contacted Y about Z and can we meet to discuss the best way to get the ball rolling straight away. No hanging around. We had a great idea so let's do it. Now! I am told that in Moscow the pace of life is even faster. You can have ten meetings in a day in various parts of the city (which nearly doubles the area of London) and still have time for dinner and film in the evening!

In other news, dark mornings and grey days are very much upon us. I have finally figured out that it is impossible to get up at 9am when it is still pitch black outside and I understand why my flatmates stay up quite late but also get up late. My day now starts around 10:30am when 'the sun comes up' and my bedtime is usually now around 2:30/3am. This also helps explain why shops are open until 9/10pm pretty much every day and also don't open till 10/11am. I'm told it's the only way to make it through the winter here.

I only this week noticed that Christmas is just around the corner! Throughout the whole of November I was blissfully unaware of the holiday coming up and was lucky not to see a single Christmas decoration or be met by a barricade of trashy Christmas trinkets upon entering a shop. Not that I don't love feeling Christmassy. On the contrary, there's nothing better than hot cocoa, your favourite Christmas film and the fresh, ice cold air that comes with the season but the Christmas songs on replay from the beginning of November in every shop in England does tend to take away some of the magic... At least I've avoided the uproar about the Starbucks christmas cup this year which seemed to have been met with A LOT of disappointment and negativity - I read an article in which someone had twitted that the design was so bad it had 'ruined their Christmas'?! It's the little things that matter, isn't it?

A last note to thank all those who tried to answer my various questions in the previous blog post :-)

Lots of love,

A xxx

*The official figure is around 5.2 million and comes from data of everyone who is officially registered as living in St. Petersburg - all Russian citizens are registered to a certain address and all tourists need visas to the government technically knows exactly how many people are in the country at one time. However, a large number of people are registered in one city and live in another and many people from ex-Soviet republics such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan etc. come as guest workers and aren't always registered, which makes the specific population in a city hard to quantify. I have asked various people and based on the fact that we collectively know about two people who are officially registered here, they are convinced the number is significantly higher.