Russia

Core values & worldview

To understand a Russian, it helps to start with geography and history together. Russia is enormous, cold for much of the year and open on its plains, and it has been invaded many times: by the Mongols in the thirteenth century, by Poles and Swedes in the Time of Troubles, by Napoleon in 1812 and by Hitler in 1941. Each time, the story goes, the country survived by enduring more than its enemies could.^•

Endurance. Russians often take pride in being able to bear what others cannot, whether winter, shortage or war. There is a dark, self-mocking humour that goes with it, from Soviet-era anekdoty (jokes) to the shrug of nichego, “it’s nothing, we’ll manage”.^•

Order and a strong state. After the chaos of 1917 and of the 1990s, many Russians, especially older ones, value stability above political freedom and associate weak government with disaster. This is not the same as trusting the state: the same people often assume officials are corrupt and courts unfair, and that the best way to deal with power is to keep your distance from it.^•

The circle of your own. Russian society has long distinguished sharply between svoi (“our own”, family and close friends) and everyone else. Strangers on the metro may look stern; at a friend’s kitchen table the same people will feed you, toast you, and talk about life and literature until two in the morning. Friendship is taken seriously and expected to involve real obligations.^•

Soul and culture. The idea of a Russian dusha (soul), emotional, generous and given to big questions, was largely invented by nineteenth-century writers. But many Russians still prize depth of feeling and seriousness about art. Pushkin is “our everything”, and the great nineteenth-century novelists are read in school and argued over by adults.^•

A great country. Many Russians feel their country is, and should be treated as, a great power, a feeling rooted in empire, victory in 1945 and Soviet superpower status, and wounded by the 1990s. Not all who feel this support the government’s wars, but the feeling is widespread.^•

Daily life & customs

The biggest holiday of the year is not Christmas but New Year. Families gather around a table loaded with Olivier salad, herring “under a fur coat” and mandariny (tangerines); the president speaks on television just before midnight; the Kremlin chimes ring; and The Irony of Fate plays in the background. Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost) brings presents to a decorated “New Year tree”. Orthodox Christmas follows on 7 January, because the Russian Orthodox Church keeps the Julian calendar.^•

Other fixed points in the year are 8 March, International Women’s Day, when men give women flowers at home and at work; Maslenitsa, a pancake week before Lent; Orthodox Easter, with painted eggs and kulich cake; and Victory Day on 9 May.^•

Many city families have a dacha, a cottage with a vegetable patch outside town, where summer weekends are spent growing potatoes, cucumbers and berries and pickling them for winter. The banya, a steam bath with birch-twig whisks and a cold plunge afterwards, is part social ritual, part health regime.^•

A few customs a visitor will notice: shoes come off at the door and guests are given slippers; you bring something to a home (cake, flowers, wine); flowers come in odd numbers, because even numbers are for funerals; and a toast is a small speech, not a “cheers”. People address each other formally with first name plus patronymic (Anna Sergeyevna), and move from the formal vy to the familiar ty only by invitation.^•

Religion is more identity than practice for many. Around seven in ten Russians call themselves Orthodox in surveys, up sharply since Soviet times, but only a small minority attend church regularly. Islam is Russia’s second religion, rooted in places like Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and the North Caucasus, and Buddhism is traditional among Buryats, Kalmyks and Tuvans.^•

Wounds & sensitivities

The war of 1941–45. About 27 million Soviet people died. Family photographs of fallen grandfathers are kept like icons. Comments that seem to minimise the Soviet contribution, or jokes about it, will hurt many Russians, including those who oppose today’s government.^•

The Terror and the Gulag. Millions of families had someone shot, imprisoned or deported under Stalin, and many also had someone who served in the system. People may not know the full story of their own grandparents, and the subject can be painful in both directions.^•

The 1990s. For many Russians the decade after 1991 meant savings wiped out, unpaid wages, crime and a sense of national humiliation, often blamed on Western advice and NATO expansion. Praising the 1990s as a time when Russia “became free” can sound tone-deaf to someone whose parents lost everything.^•

Terrorism and the Caucasus. The Chechen wars, the 2002 Moscow theatre siege, the 2004 Beslan school siege, in which more than 330 hostages died, most of them children, and the 2024 Crocus City Hall attack near Moscow left deep fear and grief.^•

Being equated with the regime, or with the war. Since 2022 many Russians abroad have faced suspicion, closed bank accounts and anger. Some feel shame; some feel unfairly blamed for a government they never chose and cannot safely oppose; some support the war. All three can be true of people in the same family. At the same time, Ukrainians’ anger is rooted in real loss, and Russians who want to be heard on their own pain usually find it helps to acknowledge that first.^•

Modern attitudes

On the war. Independent polling by the Levada Center has found consistent majorities saying they support the actions of the armed forces, 73% in December 2025, alongside a growing majority, 66% that month, who said it was time for peace negotiations. Researchers warn that under wartime censorship people may hide their real views, and that many simply avoid the subject.^•

On Stalin and the Soviet past. Views of Stalin have warmed: in a 2021 Levada survey 56% agreed he was “a great leader”. Nostalgia is mostly for the late Soviet decades of stability and social security rather than for terror, and it is strongest among older Russians.^•

On the West. Many Russians, especially those who rely on state television, see the war as a confrontation with NATO rather than with Ukraine, and view the West as hostile and hypocritical. Younger, urban Russians who use the internet, VPNs and YouTube are much more likely to be sceptical of the official line.^•

On society. Russia has become more socially conservative under Putin, with the Orthodox Church as an ally of the state. In 2023 the Supreme Court labelled the “international LGBT movement” extremist. Domestic violence was partly decriminalised in 2017. Yet in private life many Russians are pragmatic, consumerist and far less ideological than their television.^•

Not all Russians are the same

Russkiye and rossiyane. Russian has two words for “Russian”: russkiy, the ethnicity and language, and rossiyanin, a citizen of Russia. In the 2021 census about four in five people who stated an ethnicity called themselves Russian, but Russia is also home to millions of Tatars, Bashkirs, Chechens, Chuvash, Yakuts, Buryats and many others, some in their own republics with their own languages. Calling a Tatar or a Chechen “Russian” in the ethnic sense can grate.^•

Moscow and the regions. Moscow and St Petersburg are wealthy, European-looking cities; much of provincial Russia is poorer, older and more dependent on state jobs and pensions. Soldiers in the war have come disproportionately from poorer regions and minority republics, a fact some people there resent.^•

Generations. Those who grew up in the USSR remember free healthcare, secure jobs and the shock of 1991. Those born after 2000 have known only Putin, but also grew up with the internet, foreign travel and a consumer economy, until 2022 cut much of it off.^•

Political views. Some Russians sincerely support the government and the war; some oppose it, at great risk; probably the largest group tries to stay out of politics and get on with life. You cannot tell which someone is from their passport.^•

Russians abroad. There are several emigrations: the “White” émigrés after 1917, Soviet Jews and dissidents in the 1970s, the economic migrants of the 1990s, and the hundreds of thousands who left after 2022, many of them young professionals opposed to the war. There are also millions of Russian speakers in Ukraine, the Baltic states, Kazakhstan and Israel who are not Russian citizens and may not see themselves as Russian at all.^•

Meeting someone

Conversation starters

• Literature, music and film. Ask which Russian writer they love, or hated at school. Tolstoy versus Dostoevsky is an old and friendly argument.^•
  • Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia — Orlando Figes, Allen Lane (2002)
• Their home town. Russia is so big that “where are you from?” opens up Siberia, the Volga or the Far East, and most people are proud of their region.
• Food and the dacha. Ask about New Year dishes, pickling, mushroom-picking or their grandmother’s recipes.
• Sport and games. Ice hockey, football, figure skating and chess are all good ground.

Topics to approach carefully

• The war in Ukraine. Don’t assume what someone thinks, and don’t demand they denounce or defend it. In Russia, an honest answer can be a crime; abroad, they may have family in the army or in prison, or relatives in Ukraine. Let them lead.^•
  • Anti-war repressions in Russia: data and reports — OVD-Info, OVD-Info
  • Conflict with Ukraine in December 2025: attention, support for Russian armed forces, ideas for negotiations, and opinions on the US peace plan — Levada Center, Levada Center (2026)
• The Second World War. Acknowledge the Soviet sacrifice. Questions about the 1939 pact or Soviet crimes are legitimate, but they land better from someone who has first shown respect for the dead.^•
  • Russia's War — Richard Overy, Penguin (1998)
  • Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin — Timothy Snyder, Basic Books (2010)
• Stalin and family history. A grandparent may have been a victim, a perpetrator or both.^•
  • Gulag: A History — Anne Applebaum, Doubleday (2003)
• Ukraine and Russia as “one people”. Many Russians grew up believing this; many Ukrainians find it deeply offensive. If you know people from both countries, be careful not to repeat it.^•
  • On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians — Vladimir Putin, Kremlin.ru (2021)
  • The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine — Serhii Plokhy, Basic Books (2015)

Common misconceptions

• “Russians are cold and unfriendly.” Russians don’t smile at strangers as a social reflex, but private hospitality is famously generous.^•
  • Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia — Orlando Figes, Allen Lane (2002)
• “All Russians support Putin” or “All Russians are victims of Putin.” Both flatten a varied society; support, opposition and passivity all run through it.^•
  • Conflict with Ukraine in December 2025: attention, support for Russian armed forces, ideas for negotiations, and opinions on the US peace plan — Levada Center, Levada Center (2026)
  • Anti-war repressions in Russia: data and reports — OVD-Info, OVD-Info
• “Russian” and “Soviet” are the same. The USSR had fifteen republics; Ukrainians, Georgians, Kazakhs and others were Soviet but never Russian.^•
  • The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union — Serhii Plokhy, Basic Books (2014)
• “Russia is all snow and vodka.” Russia includes subtropical Sochi as well as Siberia, and alcohol consumption has fallen sharply since the 2000s.^•
  • Russia — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
• “Russian culture is the Kremlin’s culture.” Many of Russia’s greatest writers and artists, from Pushkin to Akhmatova to Solzhenitsyn, were persecuted by the state of their day.^•
  • Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia — Orlando Figes, Allen Lane (2002)
  • Gulag: A History — Anne Applebaum, Doubleday (2003)