it says: 'dear customers! pelmeni (ravioli) can be weighed by a salesperson in "Cakes" department or a salesperson of "Meat" department' something like that
it says: 'dear customers! pelmeni (ravioli) can be weighed by a salesperson in "Cakes" department or a salesperson of "Meat" department' something like that
Myth 1: Foreigners are stupid; they do not see ways to skip things or a roundabout.
Actually it's based on Russian's total disrespect to any law, and vice versa, western total respect to the laws. For example, for Russians it's very funny that one weights his fruit himself in a shop, and puts a label on the packet. What a Russian will do: he will put one apple in the packet, weigh it, put another 20 in and go to a cashier. No one checks if the labels are correct!
[c (http://www.womenrussia.com/extopfaq5.htm)] Elena Petrova's What Russian women think about foreign men
they don't check the labels? THEY DON'T? i'm moving tomorrow! also, i think that this is another russian myth about how foreigners are stupid honest and wouldn't steal fruit even if they couldn't get caught! i mean, Elena Petrova sounds like so many soviet intellectuals on russian tv oh she does doesn't she
"In Russia to have a smile on your face you must have a reason, otherwise they will think you are laughing at them. It's why Russians don't smile. They also do not greet shop assistants, cashiers, drivers etc. They do not ask each other "How are you?" the first thing when meet or on the phone. Smiling without a reason indicates the person's mental disorder, there is even an old saying: "Smile without a reason is a sign of silliness"."
Is this true?? Do Russians really never smile?? How angry you all must seem!!
"In Russia to have a smile on your face you must have a reason, otherwise they will think you are laughing at them. It's why Russians don't smile.
well, russians don't smile so much in the way of normal politeness as 'westerners' do, but they smile, and in the way of normal politeness too.
They also do not greet shop assistants, cashiers, drivers etc.
that used to be quite like that in soviet times, now people (at least where i live) have more formal polite chumminess. i don't greet cashiers, i greet shop assistants sometimes only, although i don't really have to say 'zdravstvuyte' (hello), right? i might start with 'izviniye' (excusez-moi!) or 'give me please...' so usually there is some sort of polite word in there anyhow
They do not ask each other "How are you?" the first thing when meet or on the phone.
"How are you?" is the same thing as 'hi', right? russian conversation on the phone usually begins with 'allo, zdravstvuyte' (allo - special word for beginning a conversation on the phone, from 'hello' of course). so, normally you greet people on the phone in russia
Smiling without a reason indicates the person's mental disorder, there is even an old saying: "Smile without a reason is a sign of silliness"."
no, the saying is about laughing without a reason, it's an old saying, and it's usually applied to kids who don't behave in class or elsewhere. but it's true that russians are gloomier than, say, americans. when my aunt visits her cousins in usa, she's always stunned by the contrast - russians seem to be much less friendly in their daily life. but i guess it's more about politeness, a formal thing you get used to? i don't know, i have never been abroad.
Well, Parisians are said to be rather tough'n'all, but that's in Piter that i discover what toughness actually meant - yeah this absence of smiles trully is disorienting for the average westerner. And tons of similar details, like the fact people will never hold the fucking door for you there - which makes you feel like the most pathetic creep when you were expecting it. Back in Paris it semt to me, by contrasts, that parisians were the warmest beasts ever.
Can't compare with americans though, true, spending their time lauding "oh daaaarling i'm sooooo glaaaaad to see youuuu" and hysterically hugging anything moving a mile around.
i always hold doors for people in metro and elsewhere - if i don't feel like hitting someone with a door of course. but no in fact there are smiles in the streets? people used to make a point of how chummy russians look when i did a lot of street photography
"Can't compare with americans though, true, spending their time lauding "oh daaaarling i'm sooooo glaaaaad to see youuuu" and hysterically hugging anything moving a mile around."
haha, that made me laugh! definitely a lot of girls that act like that around here.
when i went to paris, people didn't seem as friendly. we thought it was because they didn't like that we were american and didn't speak french, but maybe it's just a cultural difference. we americans are just sort of silly. :P
"i greet shop assistants sometimes only, although i don't really have to say 'zdravstvuyte' (hello), right? i might start with 'izviniye' (excusez-moi!) or 'give me please...' so usually there is some sort of polite word in there anyhow"
<- right, people usually don't greet shopkeepers either here. but it really depends on where you go. people act totally differently depending on where you are in america, i'd assume it's the same way in russia. the more rural the place is, the more friendly people seem to be. except for scary hicks that try and shoot you if you go on their property. :P
just curious, what are the differences between russia and poland? my family is originally from poland and i speak some polish and yiddish, but i've never been to russia, just poland.
" i don't know, i have never been abroad." <- really? but you speak english so well! and you speak french also, apparently? you seem very cultured/educated.
yes, right, in a rural place you say 'zdraste' much more often, and if the place is really scarcely populated you greet each and everyone you meet, and i think it's the same everywhere around the world.
i have never been in poland, and i don't know anyone polish, but from what i hear, poles are often compared to russians, in terms of social behaviour/friendliness, which basically means that they are thought rather unfriendly by the people that i know who have met them abroad. i also heard that antisemitism is widespread in poland, which i guess might be true since poland used to have a huge jewish community before WWII. did you read isaac bashevis singer? he lived in poland and then emigrated to usa when nazis came, he's a wonderful writer, and he describes the life of jewish community in warsaw so vividly. if your family is originaly from poland, i think you should be very interested in his books (unless you've read them already). except, he's a better read in russian than in english (although most of his books are being translated into russian from english translations!), but if you can read him in yiddish - i can only envy you! that's the language he originaly wrote in. about your ancestry i have to say this: http://vriad-lee.livejournal.com/407567.html
my french is actually no more than a joke. i tried to learn in many years ago, and then gave up. i've been dreaming of studying a new language for years, but as it is i don't even have time to read in russian or english.
and about what i do for a living, i have another post: http://vriad-lee.livejournal.com/386723.html
i translate technical stuff, mostly for microsoft
yes, and that's very interesting that you know yiddish. it's a dying language, right, i remember reading something about spielberg creating some sort of yiddish library where they send you book prints practically for nothing, as an endeavor to save the language. i think singer wrote something about how yiddish has some very funny quirks, like there are no words for things that have to do with nature but a whole lot of words for household stuff? do you know yiddish well, can you read in it?
I've been to Poland 3 or 4 times, and I've never had any real problems as far as anti-semitism goes. However, I somehow mutated in the womb and turned out with blonde hair and light eyes, so other than my large schnoz I don't look very Jewwy/Slavish (although both my grandparents were in the Holocaust and I'm nearly full Ashkenazi with a little Lebanese way back in the family tree). My other relatives who are devout and very Jewish looking and live in Poland tell me that it can be a problem, but mostly in the poorer/trashier areas of Poland (young skinhead types).
Yiddish is my second language, Polish being my first and English being my third. I speak and understand some Hebrew, but we only use it for religious purposes. My grandparents moved to Israel after being liberated from concentration camps after WWII, and later moved to the US. My parents were brought up Haredi (super extreme orthodox) in New York, and while they are not practicing Haredi anymore, they did teach me the culture and language. Haredi Jews keep Yiddish alive in their communities, but in most elsewhere it is definitely in decline.
I don't speak Yiddish as well as I used to, but for all practical purposes I'm fluent (when I was younger my parents enrolled me in a now defunct Eastern Jew language school, where I learned how to read and write in Polish and Yiddish. We did read original singer in that class! I'm not sure if it's true that we have more words for kitchen than nature, though. )
Back East in New York and Chicago especially, the Jewish population is huge, but here in the San Francisco Bay Area it is definitely different. The Chinese population is very large and takes the place of Jews as the stereotypical "model minority", and there are very few real European/devout Jews here except some older ones in the Russian quarters of San Francisco (their children usually assimilate). The Jews where I live are all very Americanized/immigrated before WWII, and there aren't many around. So, I don't have as many opportunities to practice as I would if I lived back East.
I speak Eastern Yiddish, which I think has 3 million or so speakers, but Western Yiddish (German area) had been dying out before WWII. Eastern speakers had always outnumbered the Western speakers anyhow, but after the Holocaust many Yiddish communities were destroyed. Even though many Yiddish speakers survived the war (including all of them in the US), assimilation pressures, and the fact that Modern Hebrew is the offical language of Israel has contributed to the decline. I've heard that another possible reason for the decline of Yiddish and the uprising of Modern Hebrew is that Yiddish is too much like German (they share vocabulary and some grammar structures), which of course was spoken by the Nazis.
anyway, sorry, that was a huge response! but there you go. :)
oh my god, you're a gem! in fact i envy everyone who knows other languages, but yiddish is also such a rare thing. and you must also have some holocaust stories going down from your grandparents? my father is jewish, and my paternal grandfather was in the artillery in wwii (as a rearm vehicle driver). he didn't speak russian until 12, then he moved to gomel from his town, and married my grandmother whose family was quite assimilated (her father was a forester, he once fell off the horse in the woods and lay there for three days, until he was found; he was sick ever after). my grandpa forgot all yiddish at some point, but he always spoke russian with a slight accent, according to my aunt. my maternal great-grandmother lived in siberia (irkutsk region). her husband was in the revolution of 1905, he was 15 then, he was sentenced to death, but his relatives brought a cartful of food from their village, so he got a 'commutation of death penalty to penal servitude for 10 years' (found in the dictionary!). then after the revolution he became the head of local executive committee of bodaybo, and that's when she met him. uffff. and it's only the top of the iceberg, we know very little about our family in fact. et cetera
our paternal grandfather married our grandmother years later, in Moscow. He was 26, she 24 by then. so he didn't have much to do with her assimilated family. SHE talked with a very slight accent and her Russian was perfect. his accent was rather heavy and his Russian always felt somehow limited: as if you know he talked a foreign language.
ah, so they both moved to moscow, although they both were from gomel, right (i mean she was from gomel, and he moved to gomel from shedrin). do you know why they moved to moscow?
Grandfather first moved to Leningrad. he worked as a blacksmith (or smth like this) at some big plant there. Grandmother moved to Moscow and enrolled to the Academy of Agriculture (evening courses). in some years they closed evening courses and she has to quit (she couldn't afford full-time education). just about this time grandfather moved to Moscow and married her. the connection between them was that his sister was her best friend since childhood and till the day the sister died (very early). of course they both moved to big cities to find a better life: Gomel was a nice little swamp, young people tried to leave it as soon as they graduated from high school. plus, grandfather's family in Gomel was repressed: they owned a tiny hardware store. it didn't bring them enough to eat but it was enough to call them "nepmans". he had to pretend he "disavowed" his parents to keep his job.
about what time did they move from gomel? which sister was her friend, do you know how she met her? there were five sisters, so aunt olya who died recently was the youngest one, and she was born in 1912, like baba lisa. ah, i remember the sister who was baba lisa's fried died early. aunty also said that they had another brother who also died early (solomon, died at 20?)
as soon as they finished school - at 16 or 17. that is, 28 or 29 for Grandmother, a couple of years earlier for Grandfather. i checked with Auntie. the die-young sisters' name was Fira. here she is:
she was arguably the pretties one of the 6 sisters (there was 6). she died in early 50s. Grandmother's friend was Olya.
i don't know about Solomon. i suppose there wasn't any brother, if there was one he probably died in infancy.
aunty also said that one of the sisters spoke russian worse than the others because she spent much of her time in the shop selling stuff and talkng yiddish
wait! aunty said that our paternal grandmother (baba lisa) didn't know any yiddish, ever. she said her family was assimilated, she spoke russian from childhood
she knew some Yiddish. once i asked her about Yiddish and she told me it was just like German and brought up some examples easily with a pretty nice pronounciation (as far as i could judge). but of course they never ever talked Yiddish at home (neither any of our Jewish relatives did as far as i know).
Grandmother's family definitely talked Russian at home: they were very much assimilated, well-educated people. nevertheless, she couldn't avoid Yiddish in school especially with her best friends talking it times better than Russian (when they were young at least).
oh my god, 'How are you?' isn't the same as 'hi' of course, but since you are supposed to say 'fine' anyway (and you are, in america, right?), then i guess it boils down to the same thing after all?
well, i remember finding it very weird when i first immigrated here from israel (i was 12). but now i must say i find it completely normal...it's that anglo-saxon tradition - "how do you do"... i a way it's rather formal, which russians used to be into before the commies came along.
I live in a big city (Miami) and think that friendliness/politeness is less in the big cities than in smaller towns as you said earlier. Also, in the U.S., the South and Midwest are generally more friendly than the coasts and the East Coast can be downright rude comparitively. Some examples of Miami vs. when I lived in a mid size Texas town:
1. Miami cashiers at fast food places rarely even make eye contact; they just tell you what you owe. Texas they give a big smile, ask what you want, and even bring your french fries to the table if they aren't ready yet.
2. In Miami, we honk our horns at idiots. Texans mostly don't.
3. Texans will hold the door for you and let women enter first (partly sexist mentality) while in Miami, it's not likely.
But the big city has advantages. In Miami noboby might give a damn about you, but they also aren't as likely to judge you either. More open toward Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, gays, etc. than they are in Texas by a long shot. So I'd say that Texas and the Midwest are friendlier as long as you fit in.
My neighborhood is made up primarily of Orthodox/Hasidic Jews that are first generation immigrants. Mostly from Russia I think but don't know for sure. Mostly they keep to themselves and a good portion of them don't say "good evening" or even acknowledge that a person exists even if you have to move over on the sidewalk for a family to get by while going to the synagogue. Most aren't rude but they certainly aren't friendly toward neighbors either. I've never been able to decide if it's just typical Miami not caring, being Orthodox and not wanting to mix with people who aren't, or the difference of being from Russia. I like the neighborhood because it's quite, safe, and everyone stays out of each others business.
i used to absolutely prefer neutral, formal style of street/shop communication some years ago, but now i actually enjoy (at least sometimes, in some moods) that salesepeople recognize me, ask questions, joke etc. because we live in a town/small city (?) so you get to know many people eventually.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-06 10:20 pm (UTC)I guess.
Or I would feel hurt if I knew what it said.
I guess.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-06 10:25 pm (UTC)For all we know it says there's a sale on cheese and kippers.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-06 10:31 pm (UTC)something like that
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-06 10:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-06 10:31 pm (UTC)something like that
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-06 10:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-06 10:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-07 02:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-06 11:23 pm (UTC)Actually it's based on Russian's total disrespect to any law, and vice versa, western total respect to the laws. For example, for Russians it's very funny that one weights his fruit himself in a shop, and puts a label on the packet. What a Russian will do: he will put one apple in the packet, weigh it, put another 20 in and go to a cashier. No one checks if the labels are correct!
[c (http://www.womenrussia.com/extopfaq5.htm)] Elena Petrova's What Russian women think about foreign men
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-06 11:30 pm (UTC)also, i think that this is another russian myth about how foreigners are
stupidhonest and wouldn't steal fruit even if they couldn't get caught! i mean, Elena Petrova sounds like so many soviet intellectuals on russian tv oh she does doesn't she(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-07 02:10 am (UTC)"In Russia to have a smile on your face you must have a reason, otherwise they will think you are laughing at them. It's why Russians don't smile. They also do not greet shop assistants, cashiers, drivers etc. They do not ask each other "How are you?" the first thing when meet or on the phone. Smiling without a reason indicates the person's mental disorder, there is even an old saying: "Smile without a reason is a sign of silliness"."
Is this true?? Do Russians really never smile?? How angry you all must seem!!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-07 02:31 am (UTC)"In Russia to have a smile on your face you must have a reason, otherwise they will think you are laughing at them. It's why Russians don't smile.
well, russians don't smile so much in the way of normal politeness as 'westerners' do, but they smile, and in the way of normal politeness too.
They also do not greet shop assistants, cashiers, drivers etc.
that used to be quite like that in soviet times, now people (at least where i live) have more formal polite chumminess. i don't greet cashiers, i greet shop assistants sometimes only, although i don't really have to say 'zdravstvuyte' (hello), right? i might start with 'izviniye' (excusez-moi!) or 'give me please...' so usually there is some sort of polite word in there anyhow
They do not ask each other "How are you?" the first thing when meet or on the phone.
"How are you?" is the same thing as 'hi', right? russian conversation on the phone usually begins with 'allo, zdravstvuyte' (allo - special word for beginning a conversation on the phone, from 'hello' of course). so, normally you greet people on the phone in russia
Smiling without a reason indicates the person's mental disorder, there is even an old saying: "Smile without a reason is a sign of silliness"."
no, the saying is about laughing without a reason, it's an old saying, and it's usually applied to kids who don't behave in class or elsewhere.
but it's true that russians are gloomier than, say, americans. when my aunt visits her cousins in usa, she's always stunned by the contrast - russians seem to be much less friendly in their daily life. but i guess it's more about politeness, a formal thing you get used to? i don't know, i have never been abroad.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-07 06:57 pm (UTC)that i discover what toughness actually meant - yeah this absence of
smiles trully is disorienting for the average westerner. And tons of
similar details, like the fact people will never hold the fucking door
for you there - which makes you feel like the most pathetic creep when
you were expecting it. Back in Paris it semt to me, by contrasts, that
parisians were the warmest beasts ever.
Can't compare with americans though, true, spending their time lauding
"oh daaaarling i'm sooooo glaaaaad to see youuuu" and hysterically
hugging anything moving a mile around.
For the record we say that silly allo here too.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-07 07:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-08 07:10 am (UTC)"oh daaaarling i'm sooooo glaaaaad to see youuuu" and hysterically
hugging anything moving a mile around."
haha, that made me laugh! definitely a lot of girls that act like that around here.
when i went to paris, people didn't seem as friendly. we thought it was because they didn't like that we were american and didn't speak french, but maybe it's just a cultural difference. we americans are just sort of silly. :P
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-08 07:15 am (UTC)"i greet shop assistants sometimes only, although i don't really have to say 'zdravstvuyte' (hello), right? i might start with 'izviniye' (excusez-moi!) or 'give me please...' so usually there is some sort of polite word in there anyhow"
<- right, people usually don't greet shopkeepers either here. but it really depends on where you go. people act totally differently depending on where you are in america, i'd assume it's the same way in russia. the more rural the place is, the more friendly people seem to be. except for scary hicks that try and shoot you if you go on their property. :P
just curious, what are the differences between russia and poland? my family is originally from poland and i speak some polish and yiddish, but i've never been to russia, just poland.
" i don't know, i have never been abroad." <- really? but you speak english so well! and you speak french also, apparently? you seem very cultured/educated.
just curious, what do you do for a living?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-08 11:18 am (UTC)i have never been in poland, and i don't know anyone polish, but from what i hear, poles are often compared to russians, in terms of social behaviour/friendliness, which basically means that they are thought rather unfriendly by the people that i know who have met them abroad. i also heard that antisemitism is widespread in poland, which i guess might be true since poland used to have a huge jewish community before WWII. did you read isaac bashevis singer? he lived in poland and then emigrated to usa when nazis came, he's a wonderful writer, and he describes the life of jewish community in warsaw so vividly. if your family is originaly from poland, i think you should be very interested in his books (unless you've read them already). except, he's a better read in russian than in english (although most of his books are being translated into russian from english translations!), but if you can read him in yiddish - i can only envy you! that's the language he originaly wrote in.
about your ancestry i have to say this: http://vriad-lee.livejournal.com/407567.html
my french is actually no more than a joke. i tried to learn in many years ago, and then gave up. i've been dreaming of studying a new language for years, but as it is i don't even have time to read in russian or english.
and about what i do for a living, i have another post: http://vriad-lee.livejournal.com/386723.html
i translate technical stuff, mostly for microsoft
yes, and that's very interesting that you know yiddish. it's a dying language, right, i remember reading something about spielberg creating some sort of yiddish library where they send you book prints practically for nothing, as an endeavor to save the language. i think singer wrote something about how yiddish has some very funny quirks, like there are no words for things that have to do with nature but a whole lot of words for household stuff? do you know yiddish well, can you read in it?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-12 06:54 am (UTC)I've been to Poland 3 or 4 times, and I've never had any real problems as far as anti-semitism goes. However, I somehow mutated in the womb and turned out with blonde hair and light eyes, so other than my large schnoz I don't look very Jewwy/Slavish (although both my grandparents were in the Holocaust and I'm nearly full Ashkenazi with a little Lebanese way back in the family tree). My other relatives who are devout and very Jewish looking and live in Poland tell me that it can be a problem, but mostly in the poorer/trashier areas of Poland (young skinhead types).
Yiddish is my second language, Polish being my first and English being my third. I speak and understand some Hebrew, but we only use it for religious purposes. My grandparents moved to Israel after being liberated from concentration camps after WWII, and later moved to the US. My parents were brought up Haredi (super extreme orthodox) in New York, and while they are not practicing Haredi anymore, they did teach me the culture and language. Haredi Jews keep Yiddish alive in their communities, but in most elsewhere it is definitely in decline.
I don't speak Yiddish as well as I used to, but for all practical purposes I'm fluent (when I was younger my parents enrolled me in a now defunct Eastern Jew language school, where I learned how to read and write in Polish and Yiddish. We did read original singer in that class! I'm not sure if it's true that we have more words for kitchen than nature, though. )
Back East in New York and Chicago especially, the Jewish population is huge, but here in the San Francisco Bay Area it is definitely different. The Chinese population is very large and takes the place of Jews as the stereotypical "model minority", and there are very few real European/devout Jews here except some older ones in the Russian quarters of San Francisco (their children usually assimilate). The Jews where I live are all very Americanized/immigrated before WWII, and there aren't many around. So, I don't have as many opportunities to practice as I would if I lived back East.
I speak Eastern Yiddish, which I think has 3 million or so speakers, but Western Yiddish (German area) had been dying out before WWII. Eastern speakers had always outnumbered the Western speakers anyhow, but after the Holocaust many Yiddish communities were destroyed. Even though many Yiddish speakers survived the war (including all of them in the US), assimilation pressures, and the fact that Modern Hebrew is the offical language of Israel has contributed to the decline. I've heard that another possible reason for the decline of Yiddish and the uprising of Modern Hebrew is that Yiddish is too much like German (they share vocabulary and some grammar structures), which of course was spoken by the Nazis.
anyway, sorry, that was a huge response! but there you go. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-12 08:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2006-03-12 09:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-12 10:30 am (UTC)she was arguably the pretties one of the 6 sisters (there was 6). she died in early 50s. Grandmother's friend was Olya.
i don't know about Solomon. i suppose there wasn't any brother, if there was one he probably died in infancy.
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Date: 2006-03-12 12:46 pm (UTC)Some examples of Miami vs. when I lived in a mid size Texas town:
1. Miami cashiers at fast food places rarely even make eye contact; they just tell you what you owe. Texas they give a big smile, ask what you want, and even bring your french fries to the table if they aren't ready yet.
2. In Miami, we honk our horns at idiots. Texans mostly don't.
3. Texans will hold the door for you and let women enter first (partly sexist mentality) while in Miami, it's not likely.
But the big city has advantages. In Miami noboby might give a damn about you, but they also aren't as likely to judge you either. More open toward Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, gays, etc. than they are in Texas by a long shot. So I'd say that Texas and the Midwest are friendlier as long as you fit in.
My neighborhood is made up primarily of Orthodox/Hasidic Jews that are first generation immigrants. Mostly from Russia I think but don't know for sure. Mostly they keep to themselves and a good portion of them don't say "good evening" or even acknowledge that a person exists even if you have to move over on the sidewalk for a family to get by while going to the synagogue. Most aren't rude but they certainly aren't friendly toward neighbors either. I've never been able to decide if it's just typical Miami not caring, being Orthodox and not wanting to mix with people who aren't, or the difference of being from Russia. I like the neighborhood because it's quite, safe, and everyone stays out of each others business.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-12 01:26 pm (UTC)