Size Matters

Photo Credits: n0_mad

When I say, that I am from Russia, the usual reaction is “Oh, it is so cold there!”. Russia according to a common belief is a place where all girls are tall, blond and beautiful, climate is severe, and everything, which is not Moscow and St Petersburg is in Siberia. Ah, and people wear furs, diamonds, eat caviar and drink vodka. To greater or lesser extend, but foreigners still think this dreadful picture is true.

The picture is ridiculous solely because of the scope of Russia: the country occupies 1/9 of the total land surface, it is spread over 10,000 km and 10 times zones from west to east and over 4,000 km from North to South. Russia is a country of contrasts, for example in the warmest month the average temperature varies from +1C on the North to +25C in the area of Caspian lowland and up to +40C in the South-Western Siberia (yes-yes, in Siberia). The average temperature of the coldest month from +1C on the Black sea costs drops up to -50C in the North-Eastern Siberian, where the coldest place on Earth is located. The most outstanding in the terms of climate is Far East region of Russia: the North of it is covered with permafrost, and the South is located on the same longitude that Italy, so features typical for a mild climate plants along with the centuries-old firs.

The same principal works for the tall and blond girls: Russian European part is tiny in comparison with its Asian territory, and people from the South of European part look more similar to Italian or Greek, rather than Scandinavian or Dutch. In total, there are around 180 peoples registered in Russia officially, but this number is smaller that the real figures, as for simplicity some peoples were joint in bigger groups. Many of them belong to indigenous communities, protected on the international level. Despite majority of population belong to the Orthodox Church, other religions has significant number of followers, mainly Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and other branches of Christianity.

Not to turn this post in a geography lesson, I think I’d better wrap it up here. The last essential comment though is about Siberia: for many people (and first of all for my silly Italian bf) Siberia is equal to permafrost, which is not true. There  are still some arguments about the borders of Siberia, but from geographical point of view it is limited with mountains and rivers. If you look at the map above, depicting the economic regions of Russia, with yellow highlighted the North-Western region, where I was born and where I spent majority of my life. The violet is the Moscow region, below it Southern, with green highlighted Volga Region, light blue spot is Ural region, and here we go – this pink stuff of doubtful shape is Siberia. The remaining orange part is Far East region, where I grew up (yes, that happens).

So to sum it up, never generalize facts about Russian weather, Russian habits or Russian people. But the girls are indeed beautiful across the whole country.

Intro to Russia for Dummies

All foreigners that I met during my life can be more or less equally divided into two groups: first tell me with foam on their lips how great the life in Russia is and how wealthy and happy Russian people are and the second pour me vodka, ask where my bear is and are convinced, that I live in the middle of the forest without access to any modern facility. None of them know anything about Russia. My friends are dressed better, than many Italians, are more politically active and pro-democratic than Americans and we live in much better conditions, than British. These are the three countries I lived in for a while, which explains I picked them up for my examples. But back to the main idea: a lot of foreigners still have a lot of silly prejudices about Post-Soviet world, many blindly trust what official and not-so-neutral media sources show them or base their opinions on behavior of few Russian people whom they meet abroad.

Russia is a unique culture stuck between Europe and Asia and featuring treats of both, it can make boast of fantastic literature and artistic heritage, one of the strongest in the world dance and theater schools, outstanding composers and musicians, magnificent nature, vibrant and busy cities, warm-hearted and beautiful people, and centuries of history. It is also true, that our mentality is so different that in many cases it may be hard to understand a Russian person, but trust me for us it may be even harder to understand you.

I have been thinking about this blog for a while, mainly as a source of information for businessmen, travelers and people, who want to learn more but have no Russian friend next to them. But it was politics and the recent Ukrainian crisis that pushed my idea forward: now I feel on my own skin that nothing can be worse, than generalization, as I witness a great mistake of putting equality mark between Russia and Putin. To make the long story short, I hope that all people ready and willing to learn and to listen will discover a lot of new facts and things they never even thought about.

P.S.: I have my first degree in International Relations and the second in the Art Management, so I feel pretty confident about writing both about politics and culture, and as a traveler I hope I understand the need of people who would like to visit Russia.

P.P.S.: Clearly I am happy to answer any questions, but please be respectful: many times people ask me questions as if I am an exotic animal or a nazi criminal.

Welcome to this blog and to Russia 🙂