Communicative behavior
From the book “Russians. Communicative behavior” (with a lot of my remarks and vain attempts to explain things).
Three main things in communications between Russian people:
1) Personal contacts are very important. Not just “communications”, but (it's almost impossible to translate) everyday interactions between people (it doesn't matter if they know each other or not, every man can start talking to you if he feels like it). Maybe it can be explained by another typical Russian national peculiarity - conciliarism.
2) Conciliarism - here it means an absence of “privacy”: for example, you can meet granny living next to you and she can just say out loud what she thinks about your clothes style, your manners, your way of raising your children etc. Also, Russian conciliarism means importance of public opinion. Just like in Japan, sometimes it's hard for people to stay out of crowd: “If I do this, what people will say?” This question is important because you know for sure that they WILL say something. Of course, it depends on which people are you interacting with, depends on their IQ, manners and mood.
But that also means that when there is something not right with you and you don't see it (your shoelaces are untied, your trousers are dirty, your backpack is open), people around can see this and immediately tell you about this. Because of this openness (closeness), traitors and squeakers in Russian society are not acceptable; that means, if even a pupil during his first year in school make something that can be considered as treachery, he will have problems until he'll leave school. This “non-acceptance of treachery” can run to extremes: if a soldier receives food from home, he must share, otherwise he'll be treated as a squeaker. If you don't give all the information about the case being discussed (even if not asked), it's also can be called treachery. And, as opposite, if you stay on your friends' side no matter what, it's considered as one of your best sides.
3) Sincerity and warmth. You should be able to communicate with everybody you need to (even if the two unfamiliar people have different social status, they can just start talking like they're renewing an acquaintance , in unceremonious manner) and you must be sincere while talking, flattery and artificial smiles and compliments are not accepted.
The bad sides of the Russians are that they're often neglecting the written laws (most of them understand and take on responsibility only when controlled outside). There is no such word as “commitment” in Russian.
And personal liberty sometimes becomes will. Actually it's not the right word. The word will in Russian has four meanings at the same time: will, wish, power and freedom. It's like anarchy: you can do what you want to do.
Facial expressions
A smile in communications is not required. It not an expression of politeness. As stated above, the priority is given to sincerity. And smile means sympathy (and you, obviously, don't sympathize with everybody). And if one smiles without sincerity, without reason, it is unaccepted and can cause irritation.
“Servicers don't smile in Russia. They're polite, courteous, but they don't smile.”
There is saying in Russian: “If you laugh without a reason... you're fool”. (It is said in the book that people from the West can't quite understand the logic of this saying).
And facial expressions show the actual condition of the person, there is no need to control oneself (remark: it's not quite right for men-only groups, where you need to act like a strong person, of course). Still, it's also not required to to maintain one's dignity. And if asked “how are you”, one can answer: “bad”. The Russians can talk freely about their problems, ask interlocutor about them.
Because of that the Russians are sometimes called “brooding”. But (or because of that) research of Michigan university showed that Russian people are less prone to depressions as the Americans.
Distance
Short-distance communications are typical. (for European standards, it's 'extremely short') “the Russians, asking about the way, can get too close to unknown person, closer than 25 cm. In this case, Englishmen think that Russian women flirt with them.
The privacy category is poorly expressed. Russian communicative thinking allows close contacts, both physical (close distance, touches) and mental (they can speak about very private topics). One can say that Russian communications are of limited sovereignty: you can reprove unknown people, reconcile them, break into a conversation, ask questions to people engaged in conversation, throw your own problems on somebody.
Topics of conversations
The priority is given to “soul conversations”. It's very hard to explain what it is: Russian people like to pour out their troubles on someone, they can talk about any things that happened to them, they can tell you their concealed hopes etc. If two people that don't know each other travel on the same train, probably after few hours they'll know very much about each other, including life troubles, bad doings, even crimes.
The amount of taboo topics is very low (especially comparing to the Western culture).
“The Russians usually want to know more then they need for everyday life - that's very special for them”. That's why they can ask interlocutor intimate, very private questions: about his salary, age, marriage, does he has children, and if not - why?.. about his flat, his parents, religion, “how're you going to vote during the next election?”
These questions are taboo for Western culture, but for Russian culture they mean just normal interest towards the interlocutor, demonstration of friendliness.
For Russian conversations Western-like trouble-free conversations are uncommon. They can discuss very serious problems even when celebrating something (for example, it's wedding, everybody sits and drinks, praises newlyweds... and two men discuss Israeli's foreign politics).
Ivan Karamazov said: “Russian boys who just met each other, go to the corner of the bar and immediately start discussing world problems: Does God exist, can you be immortal? Or if they don't believe in God, they can discuss socialism or anarchy, and how to remake a humankind.”
Conflicts
Traditionally, conflicts are very important part of conversations. The Russians can argue on large variety of different topics.
Argument is not used as an instrument to discover the truth, but as “mind exercise”, as the form of sincere and emotional conversation. And arguing people can easily switch topics, because they aren't as important as the process of argument.
They don't want to compromise, they won't allow their “enemy” to save face. “Russian people are always arguing till they win”. And the word “non-contentious” has negative meaning: you can't argue = you're weak.
But those conflicts are usually not considered like personal insults. After long, emotional argument the Russians can speak to each other freely, friendly. (foreigners don't understand it)
So it's not so easy to teach Russian waiters how to smile: this smile just contradicts Russian culture, and nor customers, nor waiters are contented with it.
Взял отсюдова: http://web-mistress.livejournal.com/561576.html