Russians don’t smile. True or myth?

Smile – is a keystone flag of open person and sign of happiness. This usual and simple idea became a dogma in many western societies. So why smile became a usual state of face for many nations, but not for Russians.

Today on horsesandsnake.com we will look at common myth about Russians. Even if you have no any close communication with Russians in your personal life, you can see some Russians cities and Russians via Internet. And I suppose that you will have even more questions after that.

Two sides of a coin

One videos shown you severe regions, with lack of bright colors in architecture and even in clothes of peoples. Some Siberian and Northern regions of Russia can scare you even more, with huge areas of deep forests (taiga) or cold plants (tundra), with gray-white snow. And only severe peoples without even light smile on their faces will look at you from this videos.

Another videos shown you bright colors of big celebrations or sport competitions (Olympic games, Championships) with high quality organization, beautiful women with open, warm smiles. This part of Russian culture is a topic of a different article, it is connected with another myth about pride and glory.

No smile no mean sadness or discontent

Yes, Russia is a big country and different nations are lived there. So why traditions of smiles also can be different region by region. But in general we can say, that Russians don’t smile a lot. And they are close to strangers, they don’t open soul for you in spontaneous chit chat.

And yes, Russians are close peoples, they usually need more time, before they can trust you. But it has a good side too, you can see less insincerity from Russian smiles, because smile in Russian don’t became a common social mask.

So why if Russian is not smile it doesn’t mean sadness or discontent. Smile it is just not usual state of Russians. But of course all of it depends person to person and some international issues became common in Russia too. So why nowadays more Russians can smile to you, especially in big cities, especially in reply on your smile.

But you should mentioned, that severe Siberian will help you in time of need in some deep cold region with much higher probability than modern big city resident.

Reason

I can’t tell you some one reason, why Russians don’t smile a lot. I can offer you a lot of reasons starting from severe climate and ending by hard history path with a lot of wars and challenges.

In fact a lot of events and factors influence the formation of culture, so why it is better to try to understand and accept some of them. Peoples are different, so why it is interesting to communicate with them.

Author: Evgenii Golygin
Date: 21 January 2019, Monday