RUSSIA

Cultural norms

Russian Society & Culture

The Russian Family

The Russian family is dependent upon all its members.

Most families live in small apartments, often with 2 or 3 generations sharing little space.

Most families are small, often with only one child because most women must also work outside of the house in addition to bearing sole responsibility for household and childrearing chores.

Russian Pride

Russians are proud of their country.

Patriotic songs and poems extol the virtues of their homeland.

They accept that their lives are difficult and pride themselves on being able to flourish in conditions that others could not.

They take great pride in their cultural heritage and expect the rest of the world to admire it.

Communal Mentality

For generations until the 1930's, Russian life centred on the agricultural village commune, where the land was held in common and decision-making was the province of an assembly of the heads of households.

This affinity for the group and the collective spirit remains today. It is seen in everyday life, for example most Russians will join a table of strangers rather than eat alone in a restaurant.

Everybody's business is also everyone else's, so strangers will stop and tell someone that they are breaking the rules.

Etiquette in Russia Meeting Etiquette

The typical greeting is a firm, almost bone-crushing handshake while maintaining direct eye contact and giving the appropriate greeting for the time of day.

When men shake hands with women, the handshake is less firm.

When female friends meet, they kiss on the cheek three times, starting with the left and then alternating.

When close male friends meet, they may pat each other on the back and hug.

Naming Conventions

Russian names are comprised of:

First name, which is the person's given name.

Middle name, which is a patronymic or a version of the father's first name formed by adding '- vich' or '-ovich' for a male and '-avna' or '- ovna' for a female. The son of Ivan

would have a patronymic of Ivanovich while the daughter's patronymic would be Ivanovna.

Last name, which is the family or surname.

In formal situations, people use all three names. Friends and close acquaintances may refer to each other by their first name and patronymic. Close friends and family members call each other by their first name only.

Gift Giving Etiquette

Gift giving using takes place between family and close friends on birthdays, New Year, and Orthodox Christmas.

If you are invited to a Russian home for a meal, bring a small gift.

Male guests are expected to bring flowers.

Do not give yellow flowers.

Do not give a baby gift until after the baby is born. It is bad luck to do so sooner.

Dining Etiquette

If you are invited to a Russian's house:

Arrive on time or no more than 15 minutes later than invited.

Remove your outdoor shoes. You may be given slippers to wear.

Dress in clothes you might wear to the office. Dressing well shows respect for your hosts.

Expect to be treated with honour and respect.

Offer to help the hostess with the preparation or clearing up after a meal is served. This may be turned down out of politeness. Asking 'are you sure?' allows the hostess to accept your offer.

Confidence-building measures (CBMs) or confidence- and security-building measures are actions taken to reduce fear of attack by both (or more) parties in a situation of tension with or without physical conflict. The term is most often used in the context of international politics, but is similar in logic to that of trust and interpersonal communication used to reduce conflictual situations among human individuals. CBMs emerged from attempts by the Cold War superpowers and their military alliances (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Pact) to avoid nuclear war by accident or miscalculation. However, CBMs also exist at other levels of conflict situations, and in different regions of the world although they might not have been called CBMs.

Mathematically, this term assumes that a positive feedback model, where fear (and/or suspicion) of military attack or human rights violations is the positive feedback factor, is a valid model of the conflict. The actions which constitute confidence-building measures provide a negative feedback to the conflict, which weakens, or possibly cancels or reverses the tension which would otherwise grow exponentially and eventually turn into a war.