Famous “Russian Soul”

Not all Russians have a mentality, described in Dostoevsky novels, but we all have a bit of a dark side in us. Reading too much and living without proper sunshine for 9 months a year makes one think about life and gives a lot of time to do so. From what I read about a correlation of happiness and a number of sun days around the world – there is a strong correlation between these two parameters. We, Russians, are most similar in our mentality to people from South America in many aspects. But we and them have a different level of base happiness. Russians tend to overanalyze things, expect pessimistic outcome even if things go rather well.  Long winter nights in our cold country give us a lot of time for self-reflection.

Here is how the city looks on a sunny and on a foggy day from the same point. Difference is even more pronounced when it is a snowy, winter, foggy, grey day:

In the same time, if things are really bad – we pull ourselves together, get help from friends, believe that the dark stripe will always be followed by a white one and invent really funny jokes about the situation. We are very strong in the times of hardship.

So, what is a typical Russian soul? It is indeed more on a pessimist side. But with a strong belief in luck and magical forces that can make a difference. It is quite rare for a Russian to be in a super elevated mood and see the life through rosy lenses. There are so many things, which can go wrong, even when everything looks fine. One of the most famous modern sayings, which captures the essence of our attitude towards life was a saying from a former prime minister Chernomyrdin. He said – ‘we always want to do our best, but things turn out as usual”. Hell is full of good meanings and intents. But Russians are fatalists in their core. Unlike Americans with their “can do attitude”, we always expect that forces will be against our best wishes and intents. In the same time, we truly believe that luck and other good forces can truly help us. This is an ongoing battle and we do think about cause and effect a lot. Maybe even too much.

We are prone to analyze and over-analyze all our conversations with people. Very often we seriously discuss not the exact words that a person said to us, but what we think he or she really thought or felt at the moment. Non-verbal communication is something that we pay a lot of attention to. In most cases it has nothing to do with open/closed postures or other scientific stuff. It is about – “I said this and I felt that she was uncomfortable with the news. She answered that, but I think she felt the opposite”. One of the popular Russian pop songs has the following text – “I glanced back to see if she had glanced back to see whether I had glanced back”. That behavior is very typical for us.

If we consume alcohol – we do not become silly. Well, maybe for a moment. But after it – we become very serious and engage in long conversations about meaning of life. And nothing is more bonding than having a deep and quality discussion with a Russian, whether it is under influence of alcohol or not.

I think that any Russian should find friends from South America. Knowing people, who are so similar to us in so many ways, but so much lighter in how they treat life makes us more happy. We charge ourselves with positive energy from such friends and see life in a much more positive way. Cheers to all my friends from Argentina, Chile, Peru, Uruguay and other countries from that region!