Privacy in Russia

How does the notion of privacy work in the Russian social and cultural contexts?

In this post I am uncovering how privacy is seen and exercised on an individual level, in a social context, and in day-to-day interactions. This post does not touch legal privacy matters.

What does it mean to value and respect privacy? It means keeping boundaries between you and other people in terms of how much you allow others to know about you and your life. Respecting privacy suggests not expressing deliberate interest in others’ private business and respecting their choice to share what they feel like sharing publicly or to specific individuals. In simple words, it’s not being nosy and, in turn, keeping your private life to yourself.

When you consider the subject of privacy in Russia, three core elements of that mysterious Russian soul come to the fore: relationships, togetherness, and curiosity.

Relationships are a key cultural factor in Russia that prevails over everything. In establishing connections, Russians look for deeper understanding of one’s life and personality. In bonding, they look for values, evidence of lifestyle, and overall aspirations that are similar to their own. Therefore, in situations when a Russian has to deal with someone, they will be making an effort to know a person better, on a more private level, before getting into any serious business or any other meaningful engagement. This is why socializing in Russia in any of its forms is vital for everyday life and business, keeping privacy out.

Knowing a person better, having awareness of what they are on a personal level gives Russians a sense of safety and trust. This can only be achieved by mutually giving up bits of private information and, if bonding does happen, possibly revealing more of a private life. Privacy stands in the way of building trust relationships, an essential tenet of Russian life and culture.

This is contrasting with other cultures, specifically American culture. Americans give you a certain credit of trust from the beginning, but you only get to know them superficially. Most Americans value and guard their privacy and fully reveal themselves to those who are considered close friends. Russians never give any credit of trust to anyone whom they qualify as a stranger, but when any kind of bonding happens, they expect maximum openness.

One of my clients (an American), years ago, remarked, “I value privacy over anything else, and I would never talk in the office about what’s going on in my life outside of the job.” Still, co-workers will be curious about all of it, and not having any input from you, they will find an outlet in fabricating rumors based on what they can grasp about you, interpreting scraps of available information through their own prism of perceptions.

Relationships go hand in hand with the trait of togetherness. Togetherness is an inherent need to exist close to other people and be a part of a group. When togetherness occurs, Russians form collective entities reminiscent of a “clan.” You see, the term “clan” is in quotation marks because it is not the same as the Soprano crime family. In this context, “clan” is synonymous with tribe, group, or circle. Yet the word “clan” more accurately describes the relationship dynamics of people in a given group. “Clan” in Russian culture can be represented by a family, school class, business unit, or a group of folks with similar interests. Don’t talk about clans to Russians; they will never understand. I am only using this term here, so you’d learn how it works without anything criminal attached. When you get into a “clan,” you can pretty much forget privacy, at least in the meaning of it some Western cultures put into this term.

Getting employment in Russia, you are not selling your professional expertise to your employer; you are being accepted into a clan. Other employees, or in my terminology, clan members, are seeking bonds with you; otherwise, teamwork is impossible. One of my first office jobs in Russia was with a company that retailed cellular phones. It was back in those days when phones had physical buttons you had to press to make a call or text, and that was pretty much all you could do with them. It was a typical Russian business: a shitty office, unprofessional staff, high turnover, no clear business goals, no solid processes, broken communications, and a bunch of other prerequisites for a company to go out of business, which did happen quite soon.

What was also typical of that company was its people, ordinary Russians, born and raised in the Soviet Union, not spoiled by the West. When I came to the office on my first day of employment, I was welcomed by new colleagues, all female. They were eager to know a multitude of things about me: how old I was, where I was from, whether I was married and had a girlfriend, and so on. They took my personal life situation seriously and quickly came up with an option: “Ah! There is such-and-such girl in the other department. She is a bit older than you, but she is a good match for you; the two of you will make a good couple. You should get acquainted for sure.” I was so flabbergasted, so I didn’t know how to respond.

In Russian culture, personal and business are never separate. They mutually penetrate and blend in. The phrase “It’s nothing personal, just business” has no meaning in the Russian cultural context because, in Russia, business is always personal.

Working in Russian business, you unwillingly get to know the private lives of people around you because they freely talk about their private stuff. It’s a natural flow of sharing, as people feel the need to tell about their lives, and they expect to learn about the lives of others in return. You know about colleagues’ spouses and children, what they are up to, what they do on weekends, what they buy, how they spend vacations, and so forth and so on. I’ve heard a lot of stories some employees never told their spouses, yet they felt compelled to share those stories with colleagues. You often hear tales about the love affairs of your colleagues and their breakups. Office romance is a very usual thing in Russia; occasional or long-lasting affairs do happen. Hiding personal life details will distance you from the rest of the group, causing suspicions and setting you up for being a subject of gossip.

One of the examples is a story about a woman I worked with. She told us, co-workers, that she was saving the money since she was 18, putting aside some amount each month. By her fifties, she had collected enough money to buy a one-room apartment for rent. The rental money would support her financially in retirement. Her family, husband, and children did not know about the money and the apartment purchase, but we, her co-workers, knew. This was unusual, but as I understood, that marriage was not working well.

Moreover, she talked one of our colleagues into helping her with giving an apartment a facelift. They spent some weekends replacing wallpapers, painting, and cleaning the place, so it would be good for rent.

Another manifestation of togetherness and a clan is a family. Needless to say, in a family setting, extended family, there is no room for privacy. All family members must know most things about other family members. If you’re marrying someone, their family members will be actively seeking to learn more about you, because when they accept someone into a family, they are taking in a new member of their “clan,” and relationship-based trust is a foundation of it.

All of the above is multiplied by a genuine Russian curiosity. Russians are very curious, and this curiosity spans across all life domains and situations. In Russia people will be interested in your private stuff in any setting, be it a workplace or everyday life in general.

In the subway other passengers will be eavesdropping on your cellphone screen or a book you’re reading. If you live in a private house, neighbors will be watching what you’re doing on your premises, and that will become subjects for discussions and gossip. In apartment buildings neighbors will likely talk about you.

The most classic example of it found in real life and modern folklore is babushkas sitting on a bench at the apartment building entrance, talking about their families and gossiping about just about everyone they know or comes into their view. As the Babushka character put it in one scene of the “Comedy Woman” TV show, “I am going out to sit on a bench and count who there are more today: prostitutes or drug users.” Those are mere labels babushkas attach to residents when they have no other way of labeling a person, so in their rather limited worldview, a fashionably dressed young and attractive woman is a prostitute, while a young computer geek with red eyes and messy hair is a drug addict. They are surely discussing everyone who is coming in or out of the building, their families, and private lives. Thin walls of Russian apartments revealing the private lives of neighbors only give more food for rumors and gossip.

Bottom line: privacy is not a Russian thing. As always with culture, a notion of privacy is somewhat dependent on an individual character, but for the most part, privacy is not valued and not respected in Russia. Your personal life will get exposure to the circles of people you engage or come into contact with. It is possible to keep your private life in obscurity, though it takes a lot of effort.

And finally, a concept of physical private space does not exist in Russia either, of which I’ve written before.