Nesti Purgu and Porot' Chush

The curse of cultural assumptions: why foreigners are getting Russia wrong.

In this post, I'd like to elaborate on point five of the previous post. Integrating into Russia is what most immigrants fail at, and not only does it do them a huge disservice, but it also confuses others.

So, you set your mind up on relocating to Russia, and after all the preparations, you step foot on Russian ground. As cross-cultural theory teaches us, proven by the experience of thousands of those moving between countries, after the initial anxiety stage, you fall into what some sources call a "honeymoon stage." It feels good to be in a new place, and you feel compelled to share impressions with the world, or maybe with just relatives and friends.

This is what other fellow immigrants feel as well, and they want to talk about life in Russia, Russian culture, and Russian ways they've experienced so far. And in their thought process, in attempts to explain things, many, if not most of them, make a prominent mistake: they ASSUME. Assumptions made about a foreign culture, based on one's worldview, life experiences, and mentality, are a close friend of cultural ignorance. Some of those who've recently relocated often share nothing but their misconceptions. They see what they see on the outside and come up with their own erroneous interpretations of what it means.

Remember the WYSIWYG term from computer terminology of the 90s? WYSIWYG stands for What You See Is What You Get. With culture, it's the opposite, and it goes like this: WYS is not WYG. What you observe on a bigger scale is not necessarily what it is when you get on the inside of it. It can be better or worse, or just different with no emotional assessment attached, depending on one's personality, values, experiences, and expectations.

Russian culture is like matreshka, a nested doll, an artifact that has become one of the symbols of the country. Unscrew the top doll and you'll find another one inside. Keep opening them, until you find the smallest one, which is solid and wouldn't split. Some matreshkas have identical painting on all the nested pieces. Many matreshkas however have different paintings on each doll that's inside the bigger one. What you see on the inside often is not what it is when you dig deeper. Each matreshka with all the nested parts inside represents an isolated aspect of Russian life.

You contemplate outward manifestations of Russian lifestyle and culture and, based on your perceptions, assume what things mean, how they work and the rationale behind them. Foreign perceptions being developed in a completely different cultural environment are useless in decoding the Russian culture.

I often get amused watching another video shoot by a foreigner, showing touristic areas of Moscow with an inevitable comment: "This is what [typical, real] Russia looks like!" It appears like any immigrant, who runs a YouTube channel, feels an obligation, an irresistible urge, an itch, to post videos like this, even if they themselves chose a different place to live in Russia.

Another type of videos that always struck me funny are those attempting to explain life in Russia, preambled with a phrase: "I see this, and it’s because..." Then comes a personal opinion, on what they see, feel, experience.

Russian has a slang phrase describing such situations: Nesti Purgu or Gnat’ Purgu. Purga in Russian means a snowstorm. In its idiomatic definition, Nesti (Gnat’) Purgu is making a pointless talk, saying an utterly gibberish stuff. When you realize that someone is saying something stupid, the question is: "Chto za purgu ti nesesh?" To stop someone saying nonsense you'd say: "Ne Nesi Purgu!" or “Ne Goni Pugru!”

It's a vulgar language, though, as well as another slang Russian phrase: Porot' Chush. There is no way of translating this into English, but it means the same thing: saying absolute nonsense. When you want someone to stop talking rubbish, you say: "Ne pori chush!" This is very informal though, on the edge of being rude actually, so both phrases can be used only talking to people you're with on a first-name basis, friends, close acquaintances.

What I am trying to bring across to you, is to suggest taking those immigrant’s rants on YouTube with a pinch of salt. Some of them are not factually accurate, some are mere thoughts based on the mentality and logic not applicable to Russia, logic which generates opinions and advice that can be downright misleading.

Why does this happen? Primarily this comes out of not knowing what culture is and how it works. Another reason is that people get so caught up in practicalities of relocation that they ignore completely the parts of their move that are not so obvious, at least at a glance. Those are the hidden parts of life you'll be bumping into here and there—unavoidably.

What to do to prevent you from looking at a country through colored glasses and to have a rational and realistic view of the Russian culture and lifestyle?

Take a cross-cultural course before relocating. You can find materials online or hire someone to deliver a required number of sessions, tailored to your needs and circumstances.

Learn the language. Yes, Russian is difficult, but not being able to put together a simple phrase in Russian, while you're in Russia, is a disability of sorts. Perhaps you are not aiming at being a near-native speaker of Russian, that's fine. However, being able to understand spoken and written Russian will be a huge benefit in discovering the culture and lifestyle deeper and navigating your life in the host country. Knowing Russian enables you to read Russian websites, Telegram channels, and a plethora of other sources, and watch videos in Russian. You will see that information in Russian media is more insightful, more profound, full, and looks at things from perspectives which foreign media often fail to even consider.

Observe, but don't rush to make conclusions and judgments. Take notes, maybe keep a diary with things that surprise you, or you don't understand. Ask locals or do your own research to explain and clarify the meaning, history, and reasons behind things.

Travel. Whenever you can, leave that fancy downtown you adore, take an ordinary suburban train or a subway and visit places outside tourist attractions. Skip on the postcard views, see local life for what it is.

Watch movies, especially Soviet movies. There is a separate post about it. In addition to the list of Soviet movies in the earlier post, I recommend another three, produced after the Soviet era, but they reveal ordinary Russian lives with bluntness few foreigners get to see:

• Hen Ryaba, Russian: Курочка Ряба (Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, 1994);

• Window to Paris, Russian: Окно в Париж (Directed by Yuriy Mamin, 1993);

• Chinese Grandmother, Russian: Китайская Бабушка (Directed by Vladimir Tumaev, 2009).

Make friends with locals. I know, it's a difficult task, especially if you are an adult and have a family. Yet, try to establish trust relationships with a few natives, because only if a Russian trusts you, they open up, revealing their "Russian soul", share their life experiences, thoughts, and ideas hidden from those considered strangers. Needless to say, their practical advice can make your everyday life easier.

Hang out with Russians: gosti, dacha, banya, priroda. Being exposed to a "natural habitat" of locals brings a unique experience of the country. Such experience will bring more awareness about how people live, what they think, what their aspirations are, what moves them, what they believe, and many other aspects of the Russian realm you wouldn't be able to grasp otherwise.

Read books. Forget about the world-renowned classics, although the one piece of classic Russian literature I can definitely recommend is "Dead Souls" by Nikolai Gogol. Try short stories by Vasily Shukshin, Ilya Ilf and Evegeniy Petrov, Mikhail Bulgakov.

I am concluding this post with a scene from the Soviet movie "A Railway Station for Two” (Directed by Eldar Ryazanov, 1982).

Two main characters of the movie, Platonov and Vera, are in the house of a woman who resells (illegal activity in Soviet times) fruits and vegetables on the local market. A woman's nickname is Uncle Misha, after the name of her husband. He had passed away, but she took his business and name upon herself.

Vera and Uncle Misha are trying to talk Platonov into dressing like a farmer from a middle Asian republic and selling melons. Platonov resists, because doing a job like this in the USSR was derogatory, especially for someone of a privileged class he belongs to.

Platonov is a pianist who lives in a bubble of his Moscow life. He lives in a nice (by Soviet standard) apartment, drives his own car, a luxury of Soviet times. His daughter attends university and his wife appears on TV with weather forecasts. His reality is miles away from the lives of people in the place he got stranded by chance. He knows little of how ordinary people live, which makes him oblivious to the realities of the world around him.

Their dialogue goes like this.

Uncle Misha: It's easy. Just think of how they sell at stores and do the other way round. They're rude there, and you smile. They cheat with the weight, you give them extra.

Platonov: What?

Uncle Misha: Give them 50 or 100 grams more, and the customer will be pleased. You know, they sell wet vegetables.

Platonov: Why?

Uncle Misha (raising eyebrows): Were you just born?

Vera (with a smirk): Well, he does not know life at all.

Don’t live in a bubble. Don't be like that, Platonov, who, as we say in Russia, Ne vidit zhizni dal'she konchika svoego nosa, which literally translates as: "Does not see life beyond the tip of his nose.”

Did I miss something? Do you have your own experiences, ideas, and thoughts on the subject? Please, comment.