The Russian Smile

Almost every group of students I've met in the past two weeks has asked me what I've found most shocking or unsettling about my first experience in Russia. My mind usually goes to a now-stock image of some Russian fellow half-stumbling down the street at 11 in the morning with an empty liter bottle of Baltica in hand. (Sometimes it's 4 in the afternoon. Sometimes it's Bochkarev. But you get the idea-- even if after nearly two months living in Russia, I still take a moment or two to adjust to encounters with it myself.) But this is not what I tell my students-- mostly because there isn't really much to say about it beyond, "Wow, folks sure do like their пиво (beer) here, huh?" No, I usually go with the second, infinitely more comical and telling image at the forefront of my mind: the look-- *that* look-- of disdain, distrust, and desired distance on the face of X-store attendant/waitress/random-person-on-the-street when I smile my big "American Smile." I think I'm displaying the good will behind my clumsy Russian language skills; they think I'm insane or mentally and/or morally deficient. Why?

I spent an afternoon exchanging stories of silly stereotypes with a Russian friend during my first week in Vlad. While all I had to offer were bears, booze, and babushki, I was quite surprised to hear a rather lengthy description of perceived American insincerity and superficiality from her end. Russians ask questions they want to hear answers to, look angry or upset when they're angry or upset, and smile because they mean it. We Americans ask people how they're doing and walk away before they can respond, we cover up our real emotions with conversational niceties, and we smile at everything and everyone for no understandable reason. Why?

Golly, I never gave a simple smile so much thought before.

Silly stereotypes or not, perhaps there's something fundamentally true about these distinctions. I dealt with my initial loneliness by greeting and smiling at every living creature I came across-- hallmates, students, teachers, stray dogs, cats, roaches. (Though, if I came across a roach, it also got quickly acquainted with the bottom of my heavy shoe.) I don't think I was ever particularly insincere about any of it, but I certainly didn't expect anyone to respond with more than a similar greeting in kind. But they did. In the past week, I started off making small talk and smiling; they, in turn, invited me into their homes, showered me with friendly text messages and emails, cooked me meals, took me on tours of the city, escorted me to the movies, treated me to cafes, shared deeply personal stories of their lives-- and yes, they smiled at me too.

I spent my first few weeks in Russia perpetually stunned by how cold and unresponsive the people I met seemed to be to my own, uh, "warm and friendly" behavior. But the Moscow cell phone salesman and the GUM boutique clerk both knew I wasn't there to start any kind of meaningful, lasting relationship with them: smile? Why, indeed? And now, coming to understand the flip side, the "Russian Smile" in Vladivostok, I'm still shocked and unsettled... but in a rather pleasant and almost overwhelmingly touching way.