Myths about Russia
June 6th, 2007 by Olga VictorovnaWell, due to the cold war there are lots of very strong myths about Russia. They survive in books, newspapers, cartoons and movies (a typical Russian girl in a Hollywood movie: called Natasha, beautiful, wears a fur hat, and is very dangerous).
Russia is covered with snow
It’s partially true if you mean winter time. Syberia is covered with snow for almost 7 months a year. But Russia has a large territory (indeed 17075200 km2!). It doesn’t snow much in the south of the country, where the summer temperature is often near +30C. But there are huge snowfalls in winter in almost all part of the country. I was shocked to learn that the lowest temp in winter is -68C and the hottest one is +38C. Sure it all depends on the region and the season.
Russians drink vodka in large glasses
I am afraid that’s true. Historically distillation became widespread only in the 16th century. But eventually it became very popular. Today the statistics show that Russian people drink 3-4 times as much as Europeans. Not everybody drinks vodka: 37% prefer beer, 36% drink vodka, 29% wine. Anyway it comes to 40 litres of vodka per person each year. That’s extremely bad and today many things are being done to prevent people from drinking.
Bears on the streets
Hey, man! You have to go to the zoo today to see a bear. And to tell the truth, bears never walked along Russian streets. The myth comes from the times when certain people earned their living making bears dance on the streets – kind of animal show. But those bears were trained and certainly not wild. In fact the statement that Russia is a country full of bears is not a complete lie. The population of brown bears in Russia today is the biggest in the world (though not as big as it used to be due to hunting. You can kill:( a bear for $2000-$3000 today)
Do you know more myths about Russia? Tell us about them
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