What does it mean to be Russian (3 photos). Russian mentality: what does it mean to be a Russian person? Find what it means to be Russian

Unhealthy Lifestyle

As sad as it may be, the inhabitants of the country... Favorite phrase of Russians: “It will go away on its own!” It is not customary for us to trust doctors, but it is customary to use traditional medicine recipes. Some even treat cancer with herbs and magic devices.

This happens because for such a long period of the country’s existence, we have not focused on health. We are not educated in this area and misunderstand the meaning of the saying: “What does not kill us makes us stronger.” Love for an idle lifestyle leads Russian people to.

Fortunately, today the younger generation is beginning to take an interest in their health, are interested in sports, and go to the gym to gain a beautiful figure. But this is only the beginning of a long journey after the realization that Russia was sliding down.

Life "by connections"

Another established distinctive feature of the Russian people is bribery. 200 years ago in Russia it was customary to give officials a fee for services, but even when this right was abolished, the habit remained.

The officials had settled into such comfortable conditions that they never wanted to lose financial contributions from the people. Therefore, issues are still being resolved not according to the law, but “through pull.”

It is impossible to eradicate this trait at this historical stage in Russia, since there are other global problems, but the struggle has already begun and is bringing success.

Endurance

Historical events such as uprisings, wars, blockades and constant changes of rulers led to troubles for the Russian people. This made it possible to cultivate endurance, patience and the ability to withstand adversity in people.

Russian people are only recently getting used to comfort. Previously, we spent a lot of time in the fields to feed our family; there were often lean years, so we had to work without sleep or rest.

Weather conditions also influenced the formation of the Russian mentality. Foreigners are terribly afraid of the cold. For them, 0 degrees is already a reason to wear a sheepskin coat. The Russian people are accustomed to such temperatures and tolerate them well. One has only to remember the tradition of diving into an ice hole at Christmas. Some Russians actually practice winter swimming all winter.

Today Russia is emerging from the crisis, and the people are facing new challenges. Therefore, the mentality is gradually changing, acquiring new features. But some of them will forever remain in Russian souls and will help them remain invincible and undaunted in the face of dangerous enemies.

More than 20 years ago, when Russian “peace-loving” policies reached my native Tajikistan and pitted people against each other, armed them, and oversaw a five-year civil war, I began to seriously think about what “Russian” was. The war in Tajikistan was brutal - about 150 thousand people died in five years, more than a million became refugees, tens of thousands of children were orphaned. Now Tajikistan is a close friend of Russia, sending guest workers and in return receiving 700-800 coffins annually - killed, dead, rejected. As a tribute to friendship, which both in Moscow and Dushanbe are called “eternal” and “indestructible.”

In those years, I decided to write a book and even came up with a title - “Compatriot”, with a dedication to Rogozin, Zatulin and Dugin. The same people who have been pitting Russians against non-Russians for the last 20 years are convincing them of the greatness of Russia and the need to restore, if not the USSR, then a semblance of the Russian Empire. Or at least some territorial formation that would give them a foothold in their eternal moaning about the “Russian spirit”, “Russian dream”, “Russian missionary”. They talked about it so much and often and say that you begin to look around in search of at least someone who is not Russian.

I have always been Russian, with a Russian mother and Russian father, but I have been speaking Tajik since I was a child, I studied the history of Central Asia for many years, wrote scientific articles, books, and did not quite understand why other Russians were always trying to remind me of my nationality. For what? I already knew it. Having grown up, I realized that they did not know the Tajik language and did not want to know it, and in order to justify their worthlessness, they emphasized their peculiarity or, as they also said, originality. It looked stupid.

I felt comfortable in Tajikistan, but they did not. When I called them colonialists, they were offended and in response called me a Russophobe. The strangest thing is that they continued to call me that in Russia, where I tried to understand my “historical homeland.” I wanted to see that same promoted good nature, but I saw something completely different. The most common ones are “churka”, “khachik”, “narrow-eyed” and of course the most favorite is “black man”. I deliberately walked around Moscow in an Afghan cap - a pakula, and the police officers I met looked at me warily, suspecting me of being a terrorist. I was comfortable and warm, and the policeman was afraid of just a cap.

The nationalism of modern Russia is not a modern disease, it is very old - imperial. Beginning in the 15th century, Russia seized land and assimilated the occupied population. The conquered were called natives, as the official designation of the inhabitants of the “acquired” territories, then she tried to expel her own, native, from them, condescendingly opening Russian-native schools, banning native languages, but continuing to artificially separate them from the Russians themselves. Even in politics there was a deep divide - this is for the Russians, this is for the non-Russians, the natives. There was a Muslim faction in the State Duma of the Russian Empire, and from 1764 the Governing Senate granted the right to non-Russian peoples to retain their noble origins.

In the Russian Empire there was a peculiar form of attitude towards the conquered peoples, which is now commonly called fascism. It is enough to read the reports and memoirs of the generals who “gathered the Russian lands” of Central Asia and the Caucasus, in which definitions are often found - “semi-savage population of the outskirts”, “Caucasian natives”, “savages”. It was in the order of things, as a matter of course. Cossacks and Russians moved to the outskirts of the empire - “lines” were built, reliable defenders of the new territories. Therefore, if you look for the origins of Russian fascism, then it is there - during the occupation.

Russian publicist Ivan Solonevich then explained the essence of the policy as follows: “The Russian empire, since the time of the “initial chronicle,” was built along national lines. However, unlike the national states of the rest of the world, the Russian national idea always outgrew the tribal framework and became a supranational idea, just as Russian statehood has always been a supranational statehood - however, provided that it was the Russian idea of ​​statehood, nation and culture that was and is now, the defining idea of ​​the entire national state building of Russia.” Events show that nothing has changed in the understanding of “Russian statehood”.

Centuries later, Putin fell ill with the idea of ​​a state. Before him there was a long period of Soviet power, which brought its “charms” to national politics. Soviet internationalism and friendship of peoples were officially proclaimed. But in fact, there was a clear gradation that divided people into titular and non-titular nations. A special political invention was the word “national” - national minority. There were quotas for national men entering universities and institutes; when entering the Komsomol and the party, the CPSU carefully ensured that talent was determined not by knowledge or skill, but by nationality.

Among my acquaintances and neighbors there were descendants of settlers in the 19th century, and there were also those who came to Tajikistan already under the communists. I didn’t see any difference - maybe the imperial old-timers knew 20-30 Tajik words more. But the Russian great power is the same, with the same degree of majesty and contempt for the natives, who actually lived on their land, and the natives were Russians. As their exceptionalism, the Russians said that they taught the Tajiks to pee standing up, and at the time of perestroika they began to feel like strangers, but as an argument they insisted on their exceptionalism, saying, “without us they will die.”

Everyday nationalism flourished in parallel with communist propaganda about the “brotherly family of nations,” absolutely not obeying, but most likely finding support from the KGB. The CPSU itself suffered from nationalism, sending exclusively Russians as second secretaries to the union republics.

All these years I continued to collect material for the planned book, trying to find an explanation for Russian nationalism. For example, why the noun “rus”, “ross”, “rusich”, “rusak” turned into the adjective “Russian”. The word itself became an ethnonym only from the 18th century, from the very time when the “acquisition of Russian lands” became a large-scale occupation of neighboring countries. In 1827, General Paskevich, having conquered part of the territory from Persia, called it Russian Armenia without hesitation. How then the Central Asian territories became Russian Turkestan. By the way, as it is now - Russian Donbass. In libraries you can find books with the titles “Russian China”, “Georgia - Mountainous Russia” and other works that fit into the understanding of the boundlessness of modern Russian geopolitical madness.

In search of the reasons for the worldwide love for their global significance, I tried to collect data on the number of Russians, known from historical sources. More or less, historians have collected statistics starting from the 15th century. In the Moscow Principality of the 15th century, the population was 2 million people, in the 16th century - 5.8 - 6.5 million, in the 17th century - 10.5-11 million, at the beginning of the 18th century - 13-15 million. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the population of the Russian Empire grew incredibly quickly: the increase in 1719 was 57%, in 1795 - 82%, in 1843 - 80%, in 1896 - about 55%. The number of Russians grows with the “acquisition of Russian lands,” which also means the acquisition of a population called Russian. It was then that a new ethnic group appeared - Russians, which is not necessarily Russians, Russians or Russians. Some of them conquered their ancestors in the 16th century, others in the 17th or later. A community of people speaking the same language has formed. The surnames Aksakov, Yusupov speak about their real origin. Karamzin, Fonvizin, Dal, Lermontov, Kutuzov, Saltykov, Przhevalsky, Bortnyansky, Razumovsky, Kantemir, Bagration. But they are all Russian, aren’t they?

Is this not the answer to the strange behavior of many “Russians” who treat other nationalities with contempt, with the hatred that is inherent in many neophytes? On the Internet you can find an academic description of the anthropology of Russian people, in which, among the terms “substrate” and “autosomal markers”, the secret of population growth of 80-82 percent is actually hidden. This could only happen in two cases - either the Russians invented and then lost a drug that was many times more effective than Viagra, or the conquered peoples began to be forced to call themselves Russians. More precisely, the same adjective “Russian”, which military leaders and politicians used to like to use before and now, and which has finally turned into a strange noun that breaks the rules of Russian grammar.

My search for an explanation is needed more by me than by most of those who call themselves Russians. I want to understand with whom to identify myself and what to do next - be offended by accusations of Russophobia or not pay attention. Every nation has a historical memory and qualities that are part of their mentality, and among them are the traits inherent in modern peoples, regardless of race or religion, responsibility for the past and anticipation of the future. Previously in Tajikistan, and now in Georgia, I like to listen to friends’ stories about their ancestors up to the fifth and even seventh generation. This is historical memory, which helps descendants evaluate themselves, their actions and misdeeds, and foresee their future. How many Russians can tell about their great-grandfathers?

Despite some discoveries that help to understand the behavior of the “Russians,” the main question that has long worried me remains: why do the “Russians” have such a strange attitude towards freedom? It’s not about the freedom to punch someone in the face or swear, but about the freedom that helps a person regulate his life and desire freedom for his neighbor. Where did the rejection of other people's freedom, the passion for any suppression of the love of freedom come from? Where does the hostility towards people who speak other languages ​​and the reluctance to accept speakers of another culture come from? Where does this poorly hidden envy of other people's success come from? Why such aggression?

I, a Russian, still have many questions that I have been trying to answer most of my life. Especially now, when Russian politicians again hide behind the adjective “Russian” and commit crimes.

I, a Russian, feel ashamed and offended. It doesn’t occur to me to quarrel with my Ukrainian friends just because they want to be free, but more than 80 percent of Russians don’t want to. I once compared the texts of the anthems of Russia and Georgia: in Georgian the word tavisupleba - freedom is mentioned several times, but in Russian - only once and again as an adjective.

I didn’t want to write a pathetic text and question the emptiness. In the end, everyone must be responsible for their actions, regardless of nationality and political views. I was lucky, I lived in different countries, with different cultures and languages, I felt comfortable because it was interesting. Over the years I've realized that I don't want to be a faceless adjective, I rather like being a noun.

Oleg Panfilov, professor at Ilia State University (Georgia)

Today we will discuss what it means to be Russian. I'll express my opinion. Other peoples - the French, the English - are cunning, insidious and always being clever. We Russians are very simple. We are no frills. When I think about Russians, I immediately imagine Ilya Repin’s painting “Cossacks”. He sits in his palace, in silks and gold, puffing himself up there, swaggering around, and we take him to such and such a mother. Just look at the open faces of the Cossacks, listen to their roaring laughter - these are our faces. Open Russian faces. The smell of sweat. The smell of male camaraderie: “Come on, smart guy, write!” It runs down your mustache, but also gets into your mouth. And Gogol also said that he loves the Russian people, this daring, brave, sharp word, once it’s sealed, it will never come off. And what about the grown-up Natasha Rostova with her poopy diapers? Who will admire such an evolution? Was an inch, became a hippopotamus. From Monetochka to Grechka. But for us this is the norm. Leo Tolstoy even came up with a special term - simplification. A foreigner will give us some malicious electronic crap, and we will say: “Wow, swing your arm, itch your shoulder!” And put her in the swing! For Russians, everything comes not from the head, but from the heart, from the womb. Russian means real.

All foreigners are aristocrats by nature, businessmen, or professors of some kind. And we are by nature peasants, community members, heroes, coachmen. A foreigner says to himself: “I am a gentleman, a chevalier, a business man,” and we Russians say this: “I am a man!” I’m a simple Russian woman!” For us, the highest thing is the people, ordinary people. In articles, texts, posts we write: “What about ordinary people? Who will think about ordinary people? God forbid they call you difficult in the yard. Then you will have such a nickname. And there is nothing worse than this. The British and French are all rich. This is their national trait. And Russian means poor, Russian means hard worker, peasant, Chingachgook. It was so under the tsar, and under communism, and now too.

Foreigners eat fin de cleres, camemberts, champignons, and consommé with profiteroles. And here we have it in a simple way, in our native style, in Russian. Cabbage soup and porridge are our food. Westerners have ribbons, lace, and bras. And we have trousers and a shirt. Foreigners have minuets and polkas, but we Russians have normal dances: round dance, lezginka. Foreigners have churches, skyscrapers, Versailles, the damned Bauhaus, but we have a Russian hut: stove, bed, nook, red corner. Behind the stove, the grandfather and woman are rustling, the young people are making love in the tents. It is the hut that sets the key coordinates of the spiritual space of Russian Eurasia.

These people have some kind of antics, grimaces, a shadow on the fence, but we have buckwheat with stew, the smell of pine trees, the smell of grass. Eh, Russian meadow, Russian bend! Here are some foreigners who say this: “Eh!”, “Wow!” Maybe American traders? French people in tights? No, they are all very quiet there, shu-shu along the wall. The gaze is shifty, the intonation is mannered. You won't understand what's inside. You’ve already poured out your whole soul to him, and he’s all about the weather.

Well, one last thing. Foreigners are terribly fond of everything foreign. They copulate with each other: the British with the Germans, the Germans with the French, the French with the Italians. “Wow, what a good Japanese car,” says the American, “and it costs less than a Cadillac.” I’d rather buy it!” “Or the Danes think: “Wow, how cool Italians are.” Let’s unite with them into the European Union.” And they do all sorts of mixes, collabs and other group formats. Interaction is their religion. And Russians love Russians. Mixed food is rejected. It's not ours.

Today we talk a lot about national construction, about the formation of Russian identity. They say there is no positive example. They say there is nothing in common. And some say it’s not necessary. They say the Ethiopians will steal our national idea and imitate the Russians. And I will say this: we have something in common. And this is something we have in common that we can be proud of. Simplicity, sincerity, poverty, belonging to the lower strata of society, passionate, feverish love for one’s own (it’s not for nothing that it is said “For one’s own!”) - this is exactly what each of us strives for.

I was recently in Berlin. In the evening I went to a bar. I'm sitting, drinking coffee. And at the counter there are three young and very drunk Germans. One kept screaming something loudly and got pretty boring for me.
I finished my coffee and stood up. When I passed by the counter, the young loudmouth stopped me a little and patted me on the shoulder, as if inviting me to join in their fun.
I chuckled and shook my head. The guy asked: “Deutsch?” ("German?"). I replied: “Nine. Rusish"

And I am Russian to the very depths. Exemplary Russian. Scratch me - you will find a Tatar, this is on my father's side, on my mother's side there are Ukrainians - where would we be without them? - and somewhere the mysterious Lithuanian great-grandmother was hiding. In short, correct Russian DNA. Thick and rich like borscht.

And my entire set of chromosomes, and in addition to it a set of Vyatka meadow herbs, salted saffron milk caps, birch brooms, mother’s lullabies, three volumes of Chekhov
in a green cover, Chukchi red caviar, Aunt Zina's mother from the village of Brykino, crumpled letters from her father, December stars from her snowy childhood, Gaidai's comedies, sheets on ropes in a Lublin courtyard, Piggy's squeals, Tchaikovsky's sad violins, voices from the kitchen radio, the smell of carbolic acid in train "Moscow-Lipetsk", transparent liqueurs of Ivan Petrovich - this whole set created from me a person of such breadth and such depth that it was scary to look into a monastery well...

And there is no originality in me, I am the most typical Russian. Mysterious, brooding and dangerous. Contemplator. Dostoevsky in “The Brothers Karamazov” wrote about such a typical contemplator that “maybe, suddenly, having accumulated impressions over many years, he will leave everything and go to Jerusalem to wander and save himself, or maybe he will suddenly burn down his native village, or maybe something else will happen.” and other things together."

To be Russian is to be torn to pieces. Unchristened. Open. One foot in Karelia, the other in Kamchatka. With one hand, take everything that is in bad shape, with the other, immediately give it to the first swindler you meet. Marvel at the icon with one eye, and at the news of Channel One with the other.

And a Russian cannot calmly dig in his garden or sit in the kitchen in his native khrushchev - no, he doesn’t just sit and dig, he looks around half the planet at the same time, he’s so used to it. He thinks in colossal spaces, every Russian is a geopolitician. Give the Russian free rein, he will make a garlic bed from Perm to Paris.

Some red-faced farmer in Alabama doesn't know exactly where New York is, but a Russian even knows how long it will take our rocket to reach New York. Why send a rocket there? Well, this is the second question, unimportant, we don’t waste our time on trifles.

Now Syria worries us. Maybe my bathroom faucet is leaking, but first I’ll find out what’s there in Syria, and then, if there’s time left, I’ll take care of the faucet. Syria is more important to me than my native tap.

Academician Pavlov, our great physiologist, gave a lecture “On the Russian Mind” in 1918. The verdict was this: the Russian mind is superficial, our people are not used to dwelling on something for a long time, it is not interesting to him. However, Pavlov himself or his contemporary Mendeleev seemed to refute this accusation with his own experience, but in general it was captured correctly.

A Russian needs to have time to think about so much around him that life is not enough. That’s why we drink a lot: every glass seems to make the world clearer. World processes are accelerating. He waved his glass - Chamberlain was no longer there. He waved another - Reagan flew past. Let’s overthrow the third one and deal with Merkel. Without snacking.

About twenty years ago I had two Italian girlfriends. We came from the University of Milan to write our diplomas in Moscow - something about our great culture. They began to comprehend it quickly - through vodka. They come, say, to visit me and immediately take a bottle out of their bag: “We know how it is with you.” Well, as a Russian boy, I didn’t lose face. He poured it full, tossed it back: “I’ll show you what we can do!” The Italian women squealed: “Belissimo!” - and looked at me with the admiring eyes of Raphael’s Madonnas.
God, how much I drank with them! And he held on and never fell. Because he understood: Russia is behind us, there is nowhere to retreat. Then I helped one of them write her diploma. We Russians are jacks of all trades, especially with a hangover.

Most of all, Russians value the state of drowsy, well-fed peace. So that jellied meat is on the table, salary is on time, Urgant is on the screen. If something goes wrong, the Russian gets angry. But not for long. A Russian always knows: tomorrow could be worse.

Only our people could have composed a proverb about money and prison. My mother spent her whole life storing cans of stew in the kitchen cupboard - “for a rainy day.” That day never came, but I find myself stopping near the shelves with stewed meat at the nearest Pyaterochka. I look at the banks thoughtfully. As if I want to ask them something, like crazy. But for now I’m silent. I'm not buying yet.

At the first opportunity, a Russian flees abroad. Away from the “lead abominations.” The same Pushkin was eager all his life - they didn’t let him in. And Gogol rejoiced like a child, crossing the Russian border. He adored Italy. So he wrote from there to Zhukovsky: “She’s mine! No one in the world will take it away from me! I was born here. Russia, St. Petersburg, snow, scoundrels, department, department, theater - I dreamed of all this. I woke up again in my homeland...” And then, when the Russian gets drunk on wine, looks at the Baroque and listens to the organ, buys junk and cheese, longing awakens in him...

We are fed up with foreigners with their deceitful smiles, it’s time to be sad. Vague, unclear longing... But not for snow and scoundrels. What are you yearning for? Neither Gogol, nor Nabokov, nor Tarkovsky will give the answer... Russian melancholy is inexplicable and alarming, like the ringing of a bell rushing over the hills, like the song of a girl on a random train, like the sound of a drill from a neighbor... At home it’s sickening, abroad it’s dreary .

To be Russian is to live between heaven and a whirlpool, between a hammer and a sickle.

Every Russian scolds his country to the best of his ability. Thieves and scoundrels are in power, they have stolen everything they can, there is no one to trust, the roads are terrible, there is no law, there is no future, all damned days, dead souls, just throw yourself off a cliff into the Volga! I curse myself, I don’t regret my words...
But as soon as a foreigner or, worse, a compatriot who has not lived here for a long time, starts talking bad things about my country, then I become wild like a drunken Yesenin. Here I am ready to hit you right in the face. In a big way.

This is my country, and all its sins are mine. If she is bad, then I am not a gift either. But we will suffer together. Without suffering - what the hell am I Russian? Where to leave here and why? The whole world is foreign to me. I'll die here. And let them put a couple of cans of stew in my coffin. For a rainy day. Because, perhaps, “there” it will be even worse.

©
Alexey Belyakov

The Internet organized a “special Olympics” called “Fifteen questions for Russians.” I tried to participate.

In Internet jargon, “Special Olympics” is a public discussion of a problem that currently has no clear explanation. An explanation that would suit most debaters. Therefore, the result of such Olympiads is “a little predictable” - fierce, meaningless swearing, during which the participants, having forgotten about the purpose of the party, send each other in different directions using obscene language. And sometimes they even shoot at each other “in real life” and continue to debate with their hands and feet. Since the Special Olympics was opened on a well-known ultra-liberal resource, its tasks lay on the surface. With mocking smiles, having started an ugly quarrel, once again showing the insignificance, ephemerality and artificiality of such a concept as “Russian”, once again proving that we do not exist. But the timing for the Olympics was chosen poorly - the “Russian spring”, dripping with blood, smoothly flowed into the bloody “Russian summer”. The Russian world entered the next stage of ethnogenesis, the veils fell off, the lame began to see, and questions were found for most of the Jesuit answers. I personally spent no more than ten minutes on this liberal puzzle.

1. Why do you consider yourself Russian? By purity of blood, by language, something else?

Our liberals, as soon as the question arises about who the Russians are, immediately begin to count leukocytes and impurities in the blood with such skill and dexterity that in Germany in 1938 they would have been taken to the commission on racial hygiene, even without prior interviews. Moreover, for leadership positions. It is curious that when determining Jewish, Tatar or Swedish nationality, liberals take their interlocutor’s word for it, without stooping to find out who he is, a Mischlingen or a Quateronese? So take my word for it, unless you are Nazis, of course. I am Russian.

2. Do you enjoy being Russian?

No, I don't. Awareness is a constant and cannot cause emotions.

3. What's good about Russians? What are the positive and unique features of national character?

Take a globe or geographical map. Look at the location and size of Russia and get answers to all your questions.

4.What does the Russian landscape look like? Will you kiss the Kamchatka sand in patriotic delight? And the wet Taimyr tundra? Where are the boundaries of the native? Kunashir, Shikotan - native land?

I, with a torn meniscus and with great delight, walked through the Taimyr tundra for about a hundred kilometers - I just walked and couldn’t stop. This place was called Middendorf Bay, who was undoubtedly a Russian man, since the Russian lands were named after him and in honor of him. Moreover, for this honor - to expand the borders of the Russian world, the great traveler gave his life. Moreover, in terrible torment, stretched out over many months. Perhaps Middendorf did not want to be Russian - in those years, people serving Russia were rarely asked such stupid questions. But the Russian world is contagious with its centripetalism. You can be a Georgian prince all your life and remain a great Russian commander for centuries. This paradox infuriates representatives of self-contained ethnic groups and nations who are unfriendly to Russia. Therefore, the “borders of the native” depend only on a specific historical period.

5.What is our historical tragedy?

We have already experienced our historical tragedy - this is the rejection of national identity in favor of false and crafty truths brought from outside. The story is old, with a logical ending - the Russians will remake everything for themselves, in the way that suits them. One can recall Byzantine Christianity. The same thing awaits Western liberalism, as a non-national and godless aggressive concept that protects individualism and vices. He will stay in our hut, but you won’t recognize him.

6.When was our Golden Age?

Russia never had a golden age. The Golden Age is an ethnos in a phase of obscuration, after which decay, death, and dissolution sets in. Russia is still far from retirement.

7. Who is our main character? Oslyabya? Pozharsky? Suvorov? Zhukov?

Our main character is the Unknown Soldier, who lies near the Kremlin wall. Avatar or symbol of everyone who gave their lives for our country.

8. Who is our main prophet?

Tyutchev: “You can’t understand Russia with your mind.” Moreover, the Slavophile Tyutchev meant the rational Western mind, which does not work in our civilization.

9.What is our national lullaby?

- “Tired toys sleep,” and try to prove that this is not so.

10. What is our national dance? The Irish dance the jig, the Caucasians dance the lezginka, the Jews dance the freylekhs, but what about us?

And we don’t need to assert ourselves with the help of a certain set of rhythmic body movements. We dance what we want. We don’t worry about this at all. You see, we already have a slightly different, not archaic, system of values. Not a tribal community with complexes of rituals. We have a Church for rituals and ceremonies, but dancing is prohibited there, and those who did not understand this were explained clearly.

11. What is our national game?

Hide and seek, “Cossack robbers”, “war game”. Here we are in the lead in the adult competition. Chess, checkers, dominoes. Recently, backgammon has become another national game.

12.What is our national dress? How would you dress for a Russian-style party?

A quilted jacket, a St. George ribbon in the buttonhole, kirzachi and a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

13. What is our national dish?

What is one national dish for a country that lies on one-sixth of the continent's landmass? And Russians live everywhere. Specify the time zone, region, climate zone.

14. What kind of death is considered worthy?

For my friends, for the land, for my faith. Everyone has something to choose from.

15. Which nations are our brothers?

Those humanoid races of our solar system who are ready to accept our love and take on brotherly obligations in return. Russians easily accept new brothers, but very harshly write them back. This is what we are seeing now in the ruins of the once fraternal republic.