Russia from the Outside

Once you leave the touristy sections of St. Petersburg, the buildings become very unfriendly. They are all at least seven stories tall, and they seem to leer down at you imperiously as you walk by. They are filthy, too. All of them have either smoke stains or crumbling bricks or cyrillic graffiti - usually it's all three. I remember the first day I got here, when I saw the buildings I thought "What kind of ghetto have I condemned myself to?"

But after you climb the smoke-reaking stairs or brave the rickety elevators and finally find yourself inside an apartment, you receive a very different kind of shock. Because on the inside, Russian apartments are beautiful!

Russians very rarely have sheets with no patterns on them. Their floors are usually not carpeted, that I've seen, which is surprising because you are not allowed to wear shoes inside. (After seeing the Russian streets, there is no question why they would prefer you to take your shoes off before walking through their house.) They have pictures of their families everywhere, and their furniture is sometimes nicer than any I ever had in my American home.

It is a Russian paradox: menacing on the outside, welcoming on the inside.

In many ways, that same paradox applies to the Russian people themselves. In the streets, they never smile at you. They shove their way through crowds and speak roughly at all times. It would be very easy to get the impressions that Russians are mean and stern, but that is not true. Russians are usually hospitable, giving up their own beds before they'll allow a guest to sleep on the floor. They also love to take care of you, even though they often show it by brusquely taking your bags out of your hands to carry them for you. And as I've spoken to them, I've found out that the reason they don't smile isn't because they're perpetually angry, but because they consider smiles to be special. When a Russian smiles at you, it is a high form of praise.

I pity anyone who has ever come to Russia, seen the filthy buildings, and never bothered to go inside. You miss so much when you only look at Russia from the outside.