29 Things You Should Never Do In Russia

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Never Smile At Strangers

Source: http://baikalsp.ru

While Russians are often portrayed as serious and scary individuals, often playing the role of villains in Hollywood movies, they’re not. In reality, they are warm and friendly—once you’ve been officially introduced to each other and you’ve bridged the gap from strangers to friends. Before that though, don’t smile at a Russian you have never met before. Greeting random strangers with a smile is considered weird, rude, sketchy, silly, and invasive. Smiling at strangers implies that you’re either being creepy or you find something funny about how they look, and in both cases, you appear odd or offensive. There is a Russian saying that, when translated, means, “To smile without a reason is a sign of a fool.” Following this proverb, Russians reserve their smiles for family, colleagues, friends, or even people they’ve recently met but grown close to over a round of shots.