fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2580 ]

[ SECRET POST #2580 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2580 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 082 secrets from Secret Submission Post #369.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

So every TV show I watch that visits Russia in some way always seems to point out that the system is really corrupt. To what degree is that actually true? Is bribing really that common?

It depends on what you mean by "the system". On the level of traffic police work, for example, bribing is an everyday occurrence, the most normal thing in the world. It is hard (albeit possible) to drive a car and not give money to traffic cops.

On the higher levels, things start to get complicated. Among prison officials, for example, bribing is very common. The red-tape workers, on the other hand, accept money... like, almost never.

Among the actual dignitaries? Yes, yes it is. This is where a lot of budget money goes. Sochi-2014, for one, is a golden mine for those who want some extra funds.

tl;dr: yes. But, apart from the traffic police thing, it is usually not very noticeable from the point of view of a layman.

What are your stereotypes of other countries?

The English are very stiff-lipped, gentlemanly, and drink a lot of tea; the Estonians are slow; the Americans eat a lot and sponsor our opposition. All the folks from the Eastern republics (the ones who come to Russia to find a job) always speak horrible Russian with a funny accent. Also, they're stupid. (a nationalist stereotype, obviously).

Overall, I find that there are few positive stereotypes. Either you are a massive bigot, or you don't hold this kind of beliefs at all (although I do like jokes about slow Estonians... but then I'm an Estonian Russian myself).

One typical meal?

Typical as in "common", or typical as in "typically Russian"? The latter is definitely borsch (red soup made with beetroot; it is actually Ukrainian, but Ukraine was a part of Russia back then); the former, depends on one's social class and income and on the part of the country one happens to reside in. But buckwheat is pretty typical, I'd say? The thing I eat most often is buckwheat+fried chicken+salad. Also, we drink a hellton of tea.

Oddly specific question from the Finnish-anon.

I've always wondered how Winter War and Continuation War are/were talked about in Russian history writing/teaching, or indeed if they're talked at all. I don't even know if Russians call them that, but they're the battles between Finland and Soviet Union during WWII. Because in Finnish history teaching they're all about how we kicked Soviet ass and how this united the Finns as a nation and healed the scars of the Civil War, blah blah blah.

There are two distinct lines of thought in regards to the Finnish war.

1. The Liberals (alias the folks who feel strongly about political and personal freedom and equality, disapprove of the USSR as a political regime, and think that the West is more progressive than Russia) think and teach that the Finns heroically resisted the Soviet army. They didn't "kick their ass", exactly, but they made the best of what they had and were ultimately successful. Also, Mannerheim is a BAMF. This is basically what I've been taught (because I happened to go to a largely "Liberal" school).

2. The pro-Soviet folks think and teach that the Finns made an agreement with the Nazis and were generally just a shitty buffer nation. Their war was pointless.

The official view is something in-between, I'd say. Like, nobody denies that to create the Mannerheim line was a good strategic move and that ultimately, the war was a success for the Finns, but there's often a strong "they were just Russophobes and worked with our enemy" vibe.

Thanks for answering! This is all really interesting.

I've got one additional question: How the start of this particular conflict (i.e. Shelling of Mainila) is taught?

Re: Russia (seems like we're doing countries)

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-26 00:20 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Russia (seems like we're doing countries)

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-26 00:32 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Russia (seems like we're doing countries)

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-26 00:57 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Russia (seems like we're doing countries)

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-26 01:18 (UTC) - Expand

Is it actually as homophobic a country as we tend to see online? Is it dangerous to be out?

Also, I have a friend that grew up in Russia but came to America and married an American man. Her mother has come over to visit twice in the past five years, but her sister, in her 20s, can never seem to get a visa/pass to leave the country. They say it's because the country fears the younger members defecting and they don't want to lose citizens. They're afraid that if she leaves she won't come back. Is this in any way an accurate assessment based on your experience or is her sister just really unlucky in her attempts to get a passport or whatever she needs?

It is quite homophobic, and it is dangerous to be out in some areas (small rural ones, specifically, or in small towns) - there's every possibility you'll be bullied or even beaten up. But in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, few people actually give a damn about your sexual orientation. Gays are kinda accepted (they still face discrimination, just waay less of it than, say, the LGBTQ people in some Smallshittown).

The laws, though, have almost no bearing on people's daily lives. It isn't like "it's illegal to be gay" or "you can be punished for your orientation". In theory, yes, the possibility is there. In practice, it never happens.

They say it's because the country fears the younger members defecting and they don't want to lose citizens. They're afraid that if she leaves she won't come back. Is this in any way an accurate assessment based on your experience or is her sister just really unlucky in her attempts to get a passport or whatever she needs?

Unless she stirred some serious political shit up, she should have zero problems with going out of the country to visit somebody. There's no iron curtain. It may happen in some individual cases that the officials do not let you in or out of the country (refer to the Natalia Morar' case - she couldn't return to Russia because of her journalistic activities), but these are exceptions, and they have to do with political/social conflicts. If you write something anti-government, this may happen. Otherwise, no. Certainly not because you are a youth who can "run away" to another country.

Besides, there's no "pass" that enables you to leave Russia (unless we're talking about the so-called "foreign passport", which are issued to every Russian citizen without exception).

HOWEVER, there are visas that have to be given to people in order for them to visit countries that require visas. And the process of issuing visas can be motherfucking painfully slow. Or it may not happen at all. Mostly because of bureaucracy, queues, and general inefficiency. I think that might be your friend's sister's problem. Maybe they were talking about the whole "iron curtain" deal jokingly? Or were referring to a mindset rather than an actual official policy? That would make sense.

This is going to be a very, very silly question but...How does "opposition" in government work? Like...I kind of get it - but every time I've heard people talk about it, it always sounds like they're super villains. @_@

Also, for something less silly...What's the general feeling about having the olypmics in Sochi? Is it all "Yay, this is awesome!" or is there some stuff like "Oh man, it's going to be a pain to get *anywhere*!"?

"Opposition in government"? Not sure what you mean? Like, the guys who are technically opposition but are nevertheless a part of the Parliament (LDPR, for one)?

The general feeling about having the Sochi Olympics is "oh my god, why is this shit a thing, a ton of money goes into a black hole, nothing good comes out of it."

But I'm also really amused about the whole situation with the Olympic flame. I mean, it has already died out for about a kajillion times, it was stuck into somebody's butt in order for it to be carried across a lake, it set one of the carriers on fire, another carrier literally fucking ~died~ while carrying the flame... idEK WtF is goin' on anymore. It's hilarious.

AFAIK, nobody's "yay awesome" about Sochi. But maybe it's because I have this specific flavour of friends and acquaintances?

Hey, I did warn it was a silly question. [Bear in mind, where I live it's basically one party running everything, with other parties trying [and generally failing] to get anywhere.]

IDK, the "Yay, olymics!" thing was assumption since - Sochi aside - that always seems to be the reaction have to a greater or lesser degree. As for Sochi...all I've really heard about is the terrorist threat and the warnings being given to people travelling there.

Ouch for the people carrying the flame though! How'd that one guy die? [If you don't mind my asking].

Re: Russia (seems like we're doing countries)

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-26 01:18 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Russia (seems like we're doing countries)

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-26 01:41 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Russia (seems like we're doing countries)

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-26 01:53 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Russia (seems like we're doing countries)

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-26 02:27 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2014-01-26 02:40 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2014-01-26 02:51 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Russia (seems like we're doing countries)

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-26 03:12 (UTC) - Expand

So, Russia is like, enormous. What kind of feelings of nationalism, or "togetherness" do people feel? Is everywhere "just as Russian" as other areas? Are there stereotypes of people in certain areas?

That's a really difficult question, mostly because I'm a bit wtf about the concept of patriotism. I do appear to be an exception, but I can never understand the idea of "national pride"... or "togetherness"... I'm a single person, an individual, I share no part of myself with total strangers who happen to speak the same language. Sometimes it is literally the only thing we have in common.

But of course the language does have its peculiarities, and, though I'm no fan of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, these peculiarities are often undeniably cultural. This is, for example, a kind of culturual/linguistic environment that produced three dictionary volumes worth of obscene words, a dozen of wonderful obscene "Eugene Onegin" pastiches, the Barkoviana cycle, and a dude who got his PhD by studying toilet graffitis. The Russian brand of humour is rich in obscenities. It is partially due to the Soviet legacy, I guess - swearing is like a harmless form of revolt against the system. Speaking of which: the Soviet cultural legacy is a huuuge thing. The tropes unique to the Soviet cinematograph and literature, people's experiences, some attitudes (often reshaped and reinterpreted).

And they say that the essense of everything culturally Russian - our ame slave - is Dostoevsky. Meaning that the Russians have this flair of emotional tension about them and sometimes act like they're in a Greek tragedy.

But if we are speaking of patriotism as such? The kind of patriotism I've seen is really crude and weird. I tend to avoid it. I can understand cultural pride, certainly (we did have the pure awesomeness that was Pushkin <333 And a hellton of obscure 20th century writers <33), and the feeling of being a member of a "club" who sees all the hidden implications that have to do with culture and mindset, but patriotic feelings in their pure form kind of scare me.

When people ask me as to what these "hidden implications" are, btw, I always think of Tale of Tales - an animated film by Yuri Norshtein. This is a story about a war childhood. To understand this, IMO, you have to be Russian. (the Soviet cultural legacy, remember? And literature allusions.)

DA

Oh wow, I saw part of Tale of Tales last month as part of an animation exhibit touring the US. It was part of the exhibit with partially-open booths that played different works on a loop, so I came in somewhere in the middle and couldn't quite parse what was going on. But then the dance hall scene happened and... wow. (One set of grandparents lived in a small town that became Axis-occupied, so while I'm living a comfortable distance away from that, it gave me a similar chill to the stories we were told.) Even though I don't doubt I lost a broad level of interpretation without having a Russian cultural or literary background, what I saw was intensely memorable.

Re: Russia (seems like we're doing countries)

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-26 13:20 (UTC) - Expand

SA

And as to stereotypes - no, not really. In our mind, we are more or less the same nation. Although the Moscow citizens do have these archetypal images of "rural folks" in their imagination - the kind of folks who stress every "o" in their speech (whilst the Muscovites usually leave it unstressed so that it sounds like "ah"), paint their lips bright (in the case of women), dye their hair with bad dye, and can't behave themselves.

(reply from suspended user)

Owww it depends. Yes, vodka is often, if not always, drunk straight. It is also a tradition to drink vodka when celebrating this or that occasion. But it varies from family to family, from social circle to social circle. Some people don't drink alcohol at all (like me).

There was a whole culture of alcoholism back in the eighties - mostly amongst the intelligentsia folks, as a form of revolt against the system and the society. We actually have works of fiction dedicated solely to drinking. This, I think, is a purely Russian thing - IDEK if anyone else would write or even read a narrative where all the plot twists are like "and then they mixed red vine with beer, drunk it, and quarrelled over Alexandr Galich*".

*Galich being a famous underground poet and singer.

or even "and then they mixed red vine with beer, drunk it, and shat into a sewing machine". (an actual thing. I'm not making it up.)

But now this culture went away. Russians still drink, of course, but I don't think that as a nation, they are more hardcore drinkers than, say, the Estonians, or the Czechs.

I would actually be interested in reading a book where all the plot twists involve mixing drinks, quarrelling over underground poets, and/or shitting into sewing machines.

Any recommendations?

Re: Russia (seems like we're doing countries)

(Anonymous) - 2014-01-26 13:18 (UTC) - Expand

Is it really as scary to drive in Russia as I've heard/Is it really that common to have dashboard cams?

Yes, and yes (the latter is a source of hilarious videos). However, to drive is by no means a must. If the US, for example, is largely a country of cars (you have a hard time getting anywhere if you don't drive), Russia is mostly a country of public transport. Still a shitton of cars, especially in Moscow, but I hardly have more than two friends who actually own one.

Yeah, I've seen the videos [though some are actually pretty sweet], it's just sometimes how common that kind of thing gets overblown.

Thanks for answering!

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