I've had very similar experience with Russian culture. It seems to have split into two really - 1) people obsessed with wealth and acquiring it, 2) people that are very suspicious of wealth and blame societal/economic problems on the first group.
I am aware of this effect (my wife is Russian) but I would still argue that they are not capitalist in the same way that we are (though they do come across as hyper-capitalist on a superficial level - As in; they are big consumers and they like to show off their social status).
One thing that really surprised me about Russian and Chinese people though is how well they take care of their friends and family (for example, they are often very willing to share their money to help each other) and how genuine they are compared to westerners. I know it's a big generalization but it's something I noticed.
As a Russian, living in America, I would suggest not to take any clues about social behavior from Russians. It's all shades of dysfunctional from the bottom to the very top.
I agree with the video. Culture plays a huge role in countries’ trajectories even if people like to deny it because of fears of racism or being accused as one.
It doesn’t take much to observe that Russian culture is largely accepting of bullying, dog-eat-dog mentality, and cheating to get ahead…Putin and the leadership is a reflection of that.
I live in a country known for cybercrime of a different kind (Nigeria) and will never deny that culture plays a part. Our local culture is largely accepting of corruption and cheating to get ahead, which is one of the reasons many engage in crime.
Don’t get me wrong…I’ve worked with and continue to work with some wonderful Russians. But, it doesn’t change the fact that the culture needs reforms for the good of the country.
Of course, I’m not in support of profiling. I’ll never like to be profiled as a cyber criminal because I’m from Nigeria, but I’ll never deny that our culture has a big issue with rationalizing corruption and theft and needs reform to make us better-behaved.
If russians do indeed explicitly prefer social stability to free speech and media, then it must be an artifact of a troubled past and one where the divide between rich and poor has always been wider than europe and the americas. I think it's ingrained into their whole culture really, this kind of slave mentality which is similar almost to a serf who wouldn't dare attempt to gain his freedom for fear of starving once he'd gained it.
Broad claims about 'culture' set off alarm bells for me and is sort of a classic error of scholarship (not to hold a random HN post to the standard of 'scholarship' - my point is it's a signal of flaws).
Culture is very difficult to define, which makes it compatible with any claims - every listener perceive different meanings that make sense to us, so we can agree while meaning different things. Also, we have nothing specific to test. For example, if someone said crime is prevelent in Russia's economy, we might have data on the size of the black market, and data and information on how other factors generally affect black market size (such as, as a guess, authoritarian government, oligarchy, and of course poor delivery of goods and services by government and market).
Also, such claims are almost always made by outsiders, who know least about the 'culture' and at the same time are prone, being humans, to make broad, powerful claims about extremes in 'the other', who are slightly alien and thus might do anything.
Edit: I'm very familiar with the stereotype of Russian hackers, but stereotypes are very misleading. There are Russian government disinformation campaigns, where we do have specific claims and lots of evidence, but that seems like a different issue.
As a Russian person raised in Russia and interacting with other Russians around me in the Bay Area, I think you vastly underestimate the prevalence of superstitious beliefs among Russians. That includes professionals and their families, spouses, and elderly parents.
Bunch of nonsense, which ignores the fact of crippled trust and hostility in a psychologically crippled post-communist society. What does “cultural difference” mean? If you dig a bit of history in the last 110 years in Russia and have a basic understanding of psychology - you can easily answer why people don’t smile in Russia.
What's up with the stereotype of Russians and online scams?
Pardon, I have not been to Russian but have seen videos of all their vehicular carnage. Those videos make Russia seem like a bunch of narcissists who don't follow the rules of the road.
Is it that different of a culture then say the US?
One thing though about the cultural closeness. It really depends on the generation.
For young people Russia is an unknown land they do not hear about (well, until the war). They are closer to the US culture, but not that specifically - I think it is difficult to speak of a culture in their c'est, it is very international and oriented to internet.
Older folks were actually quite close to Russian culture, at least the idealized one. Not that much to the US one.
Wow, what an interesting and insightful article! I've worked with many Russians and enjoyed working with them immensely, but I did notice they seemed very stern or serious as well. The difference in culture of smiling is very interesting, this is definitely something to understand going forward when I work with other Russians.
Ppl, this is a low-fi piece journalistic trolling - the "subject matter" was growing a beard when I was a Moscow high school senior 20 years ago :).
Leaving aside the Russian tendency to take ill-informed pot shots at Americans (a national past time), cultural anthropology is an actual discipline with actual data to peruse - _lots_ of it - if you're interested. Curiosities of cultural interaction go far wider than the "happy fool/gloomy fool" non-dilemma here. ;)
> Also, this is probably the last thing that comes to mind about Russians in general. For the most part, they are notoriously individualistic.
You understand "individualistic" in some specific (probably american) way. Russians may look individualistic if you don't know them well, but actually in Russia close friends and family means much more then in US.
Very passionate write up, but what in gods name does Russia have to do with anything here?! No people in Moscow or other parts of Russia will not stop to correct a strangers scarf. In fact, most Russians don't even like eye contact with strangers. They don't smile in the same way Americans do because it's often seen as fake. It it is a very different culture for sure.
Author is display exceptional level of bias throwing in culture he doesn't understand or know about...
I've had very similar experience with Russian culture. It seems to have split into two really - 1) people obsessed with wealth and acquiring it, 2) people that are very suspicious of wealth and blame societal/economic problems on the first group.
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