Around the World...and then some

The friendliness they hide from you

Walking through the streets of Moscow, you get the feeling that Russians are just not very friendly. They push you on the metro and seem to lack any sense of personal space bubble. No one smiles and basic, polite American words such as "Excuse me" and "Please" rarely leave their lips. Cashiers yell at you if you don't have correct change, and roll their eyes if you ask them to repeat something, please. We were warned about all of this during orientation, and I've certainly heard it before then as well. We were told that Russians on the street are direct, distant and yes, in general, unfriendly. We were also told, however, that this does not mean that all Russians are just mean people...obviously. Once you get them in the comfort of their own home, or even just once you establish some sort of relationship with them, they open up and, believe it or not, even smile.

Yesterday, I went to the department office of a teacher that I've been trying to find. I've been looking for this teacher for about a week now, and just cannot seem to locate her. But yesterday I finally found out where her office is, which was, trust me, a big step. I knocked on the door and opened it, saying either "Извините", Excuse me, or "Здравсвуйте", Hello, or some other benign, introduction-type phrase. The woman sitting behind the desk answered me with a blunt "Что?", What?, and that was it. No "Hello", no "May I help you?", just "What?" I have learned by now, however, to not be offended or even taken aback by this kind of response, so I continued to ask her if Professor Urison was in. "No. Look at the schedule," she responded, pointing to the wall. I looked, and found a list of teachers and their class schedules posted to the wall. I already knew this teacher's schedule, however, and had come to the office at this time because I knew that she had class in about half an hour, and I thought maybe she would therefore be in her office. So I asked the lady behind the desk if she knew whether Professor Urison would be here, in the office at any time today. "I don't know. What do you want?" she replied. It was then that I explained myself, showed her the letter from Middlebury explaining that we are allowed to take basically any classes we want, and so on and so forth. The woman suddenly seemed to open up. She got out her copy of the schedule that I had just looked at on the wall and already knew anyway; she made a few calls "just to make sure" for me that I would be able to take the class, and she kindly explained that sometimes classrooms change around and that may have been the reason I didn't find anyone in the room when I tried to attend this class last week. She was extremely nice and extremely helpful, doing everything she could to try and help me.

Unfortunately, she didn't help very much when it came to actually finding this professor. She basically told me to go to the class again tomorrow and hope that the room hasn't been changed again. However, she was doing everything in her power to help me, and she even did it all with an almost smile on her face. I guess it just goes to show that despite Russians' brisk, unfriendliness on the street, there is some truth in saying that they do warm up to you...eventually.

posted by Becky @ 5:07 AM