From England-Moscow: This is a guest post from Brendan, one of the blog readers. He decided to share his thoughts on getting by in Moscow. He's been here little over two months, doesn't really speak much Russian but he has a few tips that might be of use to other Moscow newbs in a similar position. The only thing I added were the amazing images you'll be seeing. So enjoy!
Over to B.
Whilst writing this, I am sat in my spacious (shared), furnished (in the 70's) and warm (oddly not sarcastic) apartment, situated in a lovely school, kind of in Moscow (more on that later perhaps). My two months here so far have been less of a culture shock than I prepared myself for but don't be fooled! This place is as different a place as the South pole is from the North....and there are NO penguins god damn-it.
Almost no penguins...
To begin I thought I'd share my thoughts on
the mind frame you need to adopt in order to get anything done for you by
Russians, whether it be in banks, work or by friends; and it's less of a mind
frame as much as it's an order. To get anything done, like a crappy 1970's
door, force the bloody thing until it breaks then kick it's broken shards across
the room as in general, NOBODY wants to do anything.
Now this may come as a
surprise as (again not sarcastically), in general the Russian people are as
openly friendly and lovely as any a people you'd like to meet, these virtues
however are always counter weighted with their culturally instilled propensity
to not engage in anything not worth their time.
So my first piece of advice is
to make the task (transferring money, sorting out rent, breathing etc) worth
their time simply by whinging SO MUCH that it becomes too much of a problem
NOT to do.
Possibly what Brendan looks like when ordering a McDonald's in Moscow
You may be thinking, "awww maaayyn, this guy is just ranting,
what a tit", but truly, this is the foremost useful piece of advice I can
give you in my experience so far and is subject to editing ie. me learning the
language later.
There are 4 other ways however you can get
shiz done however and like the great Baz Luhrman said: 'I shall dispense this
advice....now'
1. 'The Blatant Tourist'
This method involves the beauty of complete
ignorance - which is exponentially more useful if you're actually beautiful.
Essentially, unleash an extremely poor, unrelenting torrent of crap Russian,
basically outlining what you want over and over and over again (delete one
'over' if you're really hot) to the person in question. This will inform said
barman/bouncer/child with your wallet that you're a nuisance and you aren't
going away therefore releasing them from their guise of apathy. Job done. Enjoy
your pint.
2. 'The Slimer'
I call this the slimer in part as it
involves sticking to people whilst remaining green and also because I am one of
this kind in a 'Dastardly from Wacky Races' kind of way. In this vein, I was
lucky enough to be paired with a roommate who speaks both English and Russian
and who, for the first few hundred trips into the centre at least, has guided
me through the hard/medium and easy parts of daily life. Sometimes I allow him
to take care of the easy stuff to allow my inner stubborn Russian to breathe of
course, purely for cultural purposes.
3. 'The Bra(t) Pack'
Ok nice and easy this one, especially if
you're working with people in a similar situation, (f not you can pick up
one of these handy ex-pats at bars in the centre I got mine from Waitrose.
Essentially, you will have to become acutely aware of who around you can speak
English, form allegiances with them and use pack mentality to charge your
unwitting assailant with collective broken Russian, disarming cheesy grins and
the fact that you know the Queen. All hail the Queen, she has a use after all.
The Bra bit comes from the fact that if there are women in your group, this
will lubricate things...not to be filthy or anything.
4. 'The Master of Margaritas'
Learn Russian, easy. Confound the bus
driver/babushka/stripper with your profound knowledge of their beautifully
complex language (if speaking to police though, this won't work, refer to
section 1). You masterful grasp of the language will make the Russians swoon
right out of their funk like a stoner with a knock on the door! So get ready to
get Russian!
England-Moscow - Feel free to get your flame on in the comments. Alternatively, if you are interested in flexing your writing muscle and fancy doing a guest blog post, drop me a message.






5 comments:
You'll definitely find that the more Russian you learn there, the expenentionally things will become for you. Administration at institutions are a pain in the ass to deal with, and as a foreigner they will assume you don't speak Russian, take advantage by not being helpful and assume that'll be it. But once you break out the Russian and they realize you're not such a one-sided coin after all, you can sure as hell expect they'll both be surprised, and often times more willing to help! Keep it up in Moscow!
Thank you! To be honest this opinion is not valid for a lot of situations and was written when my agent, work and bank were being useless so it mainly applies to their kind. Most Muscovites are brilliant
Nice article, its light and funny. I agree on Russians to not willing to do anything unless they know that not doing will bring more problems than doing so its a useful tip. :) and I'm kind of Russian myself so I know what I'm talking about, hah.
PLEASE DON`t GET KILLED. Trust me, that is an option if they REALLY don`t want to serve you. It`s easier for them. ;)
Russian was hard to understand, but learning the basics really helped. I was able to translate roughly Cyrillic into English which helped immensely.
I wrote a blog about it here: What To See in Moscow
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