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Group Writing: Understanding Why the Russians Don’t Smile (and We Do)
“So, my dear, I am guessing that you are American?”
I w
as surprised by the question, even though I had seen this serious older woman every morning for over a week behind the pastry counter in the market next to my hotel in St. Petersburg. I responded in my customary overly-effusive manner, and bubbled, “Why yes. How did you know?” “That,” she replied, pointing at my lower face. “Only Americans smile at everything.”
Her terse but honest comment verified what I had often observed during my travels in Russia: we smile, they don’t. And because they don’t, they are suspicious of those that do. A helpful cabbie explained the general Russian consensus concerning a smiling stranger: 1. They are insane, or 2. They are an American.
American smiles are frequently taken as a mark of insincerity in this dour nation. What we might consider an expression of courtesy or goodwill can be interpreted as misplaced levity: “You can’t possibly be happy all the time, so why are you smiling?” Russian humorist Mikhail Zhvanetsky described Americans smiling “as if they were plugged into the wall” and novelist Maxim Gorky observed the only thing you see on an American face is teeth. Ouch.
I actually have a great affinity for Russia, her culture and her people. I am attempting a screenplay set during the Siege of Leningrad (1941-1944) and plan to make a third extended visit to St. Petersburg again next year, so I have more than a passing curiosity concerning the Russian frown. This is what I have come to understand concerning this national pastime.
First of all, not smiling is as much a part of this culture as borscht and vodka. Read a Russian novel, see a Russian play, listen to a Russian symphony and you’ll quickly understand that this is simply part of the centuries-old national character. In Dr. Zhivago, Alec Guiness’s Yevgraf Andreyevich Zhivago muses that Russian people have a “cursed capacity for suffering.” Chalk it up to brutal winters and seemingly endless wars. But don’t take the Russian reluctance to smile as a lack of emotion; far from it. Russians get very emotional when they elect to share their life stories; even if you are a relative stranger. (You may not get a smile, but you will get a story.) Being a relative stranger also doesn’t inhibit their use of personal space; i.e. there isn’t any. Up close and personal is their style. I have learned this is largely due to years of communal living. It is natural to be in everyone’s face.
Another factor contributing to downturned mouths is the relative homogeneity of the Russian population. Recent research indicates that a nation’s overall emotional expressiveness is correlated with diversity. In other words, the larger the number of immigrants, the more the native population is apt to smile to socially bond and build trust, especially if there are language barriers. Even many years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there is much about the Russian society that remains “closed.”
Finally, I have discovered a strong sense of fatalism in the older generations of Russians who remember the Soviet Union. They are not lazy or indifferent, but rather seem to have transferred their responsibility for change to an outside agency – destiny, luck, or the government. This results in a certain emotional malaise … and a lack of smiles.
I encounte
red this non-smiling fatalism in a kind gentleman I met on a street corner in St. Petersburg. I don’t know his name or exact age or much about him, really. But I saw him every morning down the block from my hotel where he sat with his accordion as he played plaintive songs. I always stopped and listened and gave him a round of applause and 100 rubles. (Don’t faint; that’s about $1.80.) We briefly “chatted,” mostly through short phrases and hand gestures. But I found out he didn’t like how big and busy the city had become; and he felt his luck had run out; and like many of his generation, he harbored a certain nostalgia for the Soviet Union. I sensed he missed the sense of personal empowerment that comes with belonging to a powerful nation. “We were strong then and we will be strong again!” And being strong means you are selective with your smiles. Strength is definitely the quality Russians admire most in their president, and ours. I never saw a picture of either man with a smile on his face during my entire time in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Strength also means resiliency. Cultural communications author Anna King writes, “The [Russian] national ability to overcome hardships has been proven by history. As the words of a modern Russian pop song have it, ‘We Russians will get up from our knees despite everything!’” I also have come discovered this to be true. The Russian people will stand and they will squarely face the future.
Just don’t expect them to smile.
Published in Group Writing
Because we have Bobby McFerrin. Which makes us very happy.
Americans have been summarized much more succinctly.
Wildly iffy. Careful.
Russia has always had that melancholy character. Even their music is mostly in minor keys.
Posted without comment:
I remember a discussion on Ricochet about Melania’s not smiling much.
Don’t forget that smiling is baring your teeth. If our relatives the apes and chimps do it, it’s a hostile gesture, an aggressive posture.
Your post reminded me of the vast differences that history has played out during the last 100+ years in Russia versus the USA. They have faced nearly unbearable hardships, wars, suffering, and little time to dream.
We have been blessed with hope, prosperity and reasons to smile every day. That might be a simplistic observation about our differences, but I am eternally grateful I live in a country where people have so much reason to hope & to smile.
Thank you, @imfine! A fascinating window, through culture, conversations and history, into the Russian mind. I so enjoyed it!
My first trip to Russia was in January of 2000 or 2001. When I got off the plane in Moscow, and saw the grim faced immigration officials with red stars on their hats, I thought I might have made a mistake. But the girl I had to meet was on the other side, so I went ahead and let them admit me.
She was very serious, no smiling, and held me by the hand all the way through the airport. We got on a tandem bus, and no one on the bus was smiling either. I thought maybe it was because it was snowing in the bus. Yes, the rubber had rotted, and it was snowing in the bus. Which I thought was funny, but evidently no one else did.
First place she took me was to a bookstore, which for me, was a good sign. She needed to pick up some books for her sister. Then we went to Red Square, where I did finally get her to smile.
Turns out I had been traveling all over Moscow with Mickey Mouse ears:
People didn’t think it was funny though, just scowled and didn’t smile harder. Fixed it for the trip to Kostroma:
I think smiling in a foreign country is a way to communicate “I am not interested in killing you, I am a good person.”
I wish I smiled more when I wasn’t thinking about it. But judging by candid photos I didn’t know I was in I have an epic RBF.
I am taken with your admitting to writing a screenplay set during the Siege of Leningrad. I remember reading a book about that siege and was fascinated at how dire the situation was yet people figured out how to cope. Such a contrast to our civilian population during the war. The Russians were starved, mortared, frozen and killed. While our civilians were inconvenienced.
I still remember how some of the characters in the book had figured out how to a make an edible paste out of the leather of a brief case, since they thought it must have some protein in it.
My Russian girlfriend was looking at the books I took with me to Russia. One was my dad”s old copy of “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” She saw the publish date, 1936, and said, “Just think what we were doing at this time while you guys were reading this.” Uh, yeah, quite.
I have read that American culture places a higher value on being outgoing and friendly than nearly any other culture on the planet, which sometimes makes life challenging for us introverts.
Considering that modern America has fairly high rates of depression and suicide, I agree, I don’t think it has much to do with circumstances. I think some Americans feel cultural pressure to “put on a happy face” and pretend to be happy regardless of how they actually feel.
We also ask questions like “how are you today?” to total strangers all the time, but no one expects an honest answer. Acceptable answers are “fine” or “never better!”
Some cultures view the ability to laugh or smile easily as a sign of low intelligence.
Well that explains a lot.
Our tradition is to, as @josephstanko said, put on a happy face no matter what the truth is. The thinking is not to burden others with your troubles, not to air your dirty linen, or, as some would see it, sweep it under the carpet. As the song says, “Smile, though your heart is breaking.”
That seems to be the Russian view of Finlanders in the Russian comedy film from the late 90s, Pecularities of the National Fishing. It features some Russian guys supplied with fishing equipment and vodka, accidentally ending up in Finland where their simple-minded host smiles easily and treats them graciously. (There were sequels to this film which were more successful than most sequels.)
Actually yeah. We smile because America is awesome, something one appreciates all the more when coming back home. It’s that whole American exceptionalism thing remember.
I have been told Americans can be spotted, even in England by how we carry ourselves.
Such a claim must be accompanied by suitable evidence… (-:
Your observations about the Siege of Leningrad are accurate. It was 900 days of unimaginable horror. And the citizens of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) went to extraordinary extremes to survive, as you mentioned. During the harshest times, the bread ration was 125g a day – and because flour became so scarce, the city’s bakers added sawdust, glue and grass to add bulk. Yet in the midst of the most dire privation, Leningrad’s symphony and ballet companies continued to perform – and often to full houses. Such a testament to the power of the human spirit.
I didn’t know about the symphony, but I knew about the botanists who starved to death while protecting Nikolai Vavilov’s seed collection.
“Our tradition is to, as @josephstanko said, put on a happy face no matter what the truth is.”
We might get that from our British ancestors, eh?
Sawdust adds nothing, and grass very little. I bet glue would have worked though. Not well.
We misunderstand the Russians and they misunderstand us, but we’re more alike than either realizes. We both wear masks and call them signs of strength. We hide our sorrows behind our smiles and think that people who don’t are emos or drama queens, weak in other words. Russians hide joy behind a frown because strength is serious. But we forget that we all wear masks.
I disagree. I think Americans really have a greater sense of control and empowerment than other nations. I have heard it said more than once we are easy to find abroad because we act like we “own the place”
I don’t see where this is a disagreement with what Nick wrote.
I don’t think this is all that true. We do have masks, yes, but I think Americans are happier than Russians. On the Whole.
How would we determine, objectively, whether that is true? You probably have a background in psychological sciences or related fields, so might have a better idea than I as to where to start.
Well for one thing, they don’t smile. People smile when they are happy. And fake smiles are easy to spot on most people. Most of us who smile, smile and mean it.