News from Global Experience

The Russian Federation is one of the world's northernmost countries. It encompasses 6,592,658 square miles, from its borders with Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus and Ukraine on the west to the Bering Strait in the far northeast and from its borders with Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China in the south to the Arctic Ocean in the north.

Russian is the common official language throughout the Russian Federation understood by 99% of its current inhabitants and widespread in many adjacent areas of Eastern Europe and Asia.

A majority of ethnic Russians identify themselves as Orthodox Christians. Islam has also been important throughout Russian history. It has been the major religion in the northern Caucasus since the eight century and in the Volga regions since the tenth. Today, Islam is the second largest religion after Russian Orthodoxy, with at least 19 million practitioners and among ethnic minorities such as Tatars, Bashkirs, Kazakhs, Chechens and Avars. They are Sunni Muslim. Moscow is a centre of Islam in Russia, with many active mosques and organisations to serve the one to two million Muslim in Moscow. There are significant populations in many other large cities as well.

The most common food is bread. Bread symbolizes key aspects of the national self-image. It is the mark of hospitality, as in khlebsol ("bread salt"), the ancient custom of welcoming a visitor with a round loaf topped with a salt cellar. This type of tradition can be observed at political and diplomatic events when a host receives an important guest. In broader terms, bread is the symbol of life; in times of hardship it is the primary food and being "without bread" signals starvation.

Potatoes, cabbage, carrots and beets are the standard vegetables; potatoes are a staple. Onions and garlic are used liberally, especially in soups, stews and salads. Russians generally love meat. Poverty means going without hard sausage kolbasa. In Russia, sausage, pork, beef, mutton, chicken and salted fish are widely available and relatively cheap.

For most people, breakfast is a quick snack of coffee or tea with bread and sausage or cheese. Lunch is a hot meal with soup, potatoes, macaroni, rice or buckwheat kasha, ground meat cutlets and peas.

People eat a wide range of dairy products such as tvorog, a kind of cottage cheese and riazhenka, slightly soured milk. These items can be purchased from large shops or private farmers' markets or made at home. Russians are connoisseurs of tea. Coffee has grown in popularity and is often served thick and strong. Although wine, beer, cognac and champagne are popular, vodka is the most common drink. Home brewed vodka is a mainstay and serves as a crucial form of currency in rural areas.

Communal feasting is central to marking birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, achievements, significant purchases and major public holidays. The table is laden with salads, appetizers, sausage, cheese and pickled foods, followed by hot meat, potatoes and pirozhki (meat or cabbage pies). Vodka and wine are drunk throughout the meal, which may last six to ten hours.

Russia is a tough country and Russians usually do not hesitate to say what they think in a way that doesn't leave room for any misunderstanding. They are very straightforward. When they meet or phone each other, they seldom spend time on questions like "How are you", instead they go straight to the point. They are not rude, it is just a way of doing things.

Having a university or college degree is common. Russia has the highest educational level in the world (more than 40% of the total populations have college or university degree).

Russian culture is non-individualistic. The power of an individual in Russia is much less than in the west and most deals are pushed through family, friends and acquaintances.

The most significant elements of etiquette are the verbal markers of social status. People use the second person plural pronoun when addressing elders except for parents and grandparents, persons of higher status, strangers and acquaintances. The informal second person singular is used only among close friends, within the natal family and among close co-workers of equal status. The more distant two people are socially, the more likely it is that they will address each other with full formality. Addressing someone formally also entails using the person's full name and patronymic. Misuse of the informal mode is extremely insulting.

Table behaviour is circumscribed by a code of manners. Hosts and hostesses must show unfailing generosity even with unexpected guests and guests must receive that hospitality with a show of willingness to be served, fed and pampered. Drinking together and toasting are important aspects of these rituals.