In Russia, The Suspicious Meaning Of A Simple Smile

MOSCOW - Is it because it’s so difficult to pronounce the Russian word for “hello,” (zdravstvouite) that it does not come to mind easily? When said to a neighbor, the word usually receives no answer, not even a nod. Thus, the writer of this article, who has been living in the same Moscow building for more than five years, had to wait two whole years before she got a real hello, or a little shake of the head from her neighbors.

A smile is something even more unusual.In Russia, the smile is often interpreted as a sign of weakness, or worse, as a sign of a possible request about to come. So something that is generally good: the Muscovite already suspect will be even more when he sees you with a big smile on your face.

"I hate the way Americans smile, they are like machines," says 45-year-old Macha, a psychologist for an NGO. "These teeth appear when they smile, it is both brutish and hypocritical."

Katia, a seasoned traveler and performer, said that "Russian people smile most of the time at the airport and when they return from holidays abroad."An amount in a single line the Russian attitude: "In the United States show the faces of people of civility false in Russia, show the faces of honest hatred."

In Russia, it is best to remain impassive face and speak in short sentences, if you want to be taken seriously. One night in January, I found a woman unable to enter the access code on the door of my building in the district of the Arbat in Moscow. I opened the door and told him to come in. The woman rushes in front of me, rummaging in his bag. She wants to show me his ID card. I say "Do not worry, I trust you" - and it was too.In a second, the figure turns into a cold kind of prosecution and points an accusing finger at me: "Incredible! You would really let anyone in? This is madness!"

In his book "The Russian language on the verge of nervous breakdown," Maxime etymologist Krongaouz sheds some light on these behaviors. "Two people who do not know get to meet in a building or take the elevator together. (...) If they are German, French or American, they will say hello to each other, something that two Russian individuals who do not know each other will never do.”

To a Westerner, smiling or saying hello is a way of presenting oneself with the best of intentions. In Russia, it is a sign of a suspect attitude. The rule here is indifference. When meeting a total stranger, the best policy is to close yourself off to everything surrounding you and to keep an expressionless stare. According to Krongaouz, the message is that “you are nothing to me, therefore I am not a danger to you.

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