My Russia Face

The following is a comment from Baty Landis, one of the authors of the Lonely Planet guide to Russia and Belarus, 3rd edition.

Women are very likely to be followed and propositioned; I encountered this especially in Moscow. Eye contact is enough of an invitation for many men. Men in cars, on foot, in the subway, are all potential threats. Although I do not think the threat itself is very severe, it was certainly disconcerting for the first few days, until I had developed my hardened face.

I do not think I would call it a threat, and I have not experienced any problems whatsoever in my two weeks thus far. (I will say that five years ago, while living in St. Petersburg, I was once offered 100 rubles for my services, but that was the only time I received any unpleasant attention from a stranger.) However, I do know what Landis means when she mentions her face. This is definitely something that I had perfected during my last trip to Russia, although I am currently rebuilding it. For most of my life, I have lived in the American South, land of polite niceties to strangers. I am really only qualified to talk about the American South, and while I have been told that behavior changes as one moves Northward, I do not really know this from experience. But this is how things are in the South (and in San Diego, too). You do not walk down the street and say hello to everyone, regardless of whether you know them or not; however, if you do happen to make eye contact with a perfect stranger, acknowledging the eye contact connection through a smile or a nod is perfectly acceptable, and in some places even expected. Here, you do not do that. During my first few days, I found myself making eye contact with strangers on the street or the trolleybus. They may very well have been staring at me because despite my mild attempts to Russify my dress, I still do not conform with the standard here (see my post from yesterday). Anyhow, I would lock eyes with people, and then feel the American (Southern?) urge to smile or shrug or something. Of course, this did not get any sort of response from the Russians, who no doubt simply thought I was a bit odd. I have definitely been working on my , which is a bit hardened and introverted, if that makes sense. The goal is to give off the impression that even if I am staring at you, I am not actually looking at you; that just happened to be the direction in which my eyes wandered. It is a very fixed and sort of expression. Not that Russians are in any way unfriendly; they simply do not waste time with polite nothings to absolute strangers.