Gotcha, Gazposhka!

Now that Russia is beginning to seem like something that is really going to happen, I've started making an effort to read up more on the country. It's not as if I knew nothing about Russia before, but I feel it's important to get a sense of manners and mores before I commit any major social faux pas (something I wish I'd done before leaving for Taiwan).

Some of what I am finding out is very useful. For instance, Russia has a very specific etiquette of giving flowers. Flowers are generally given to teachers by pupils on the first day of school (where Russian teachers find to put all these flowers in cramped Russian apartments, I have no idea) and by guests to the hostess when dining in someone's home. So far so good. But it's also important not to give flowers in even numbers, because in Russian culture this is associated with funerals.

Other advice I'm able to find out is more mystifying than helpful. The big case in point is the use of titles (or rather, Russian's general lack thereof). Contrary to the impression you might get watching 007 movies, Russians never actually did go around addressing each other as tovarishsch/tovarishka (comrade)--it was only used in a minor number of bureaucratic contexts, and occasionally to get the attention of a stranger--and now that the Cold War is over, it's not used at all. Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution, the preferred terms were gaspodin/gasposhka, roughly equivalent to the English Mr. and Mrs. They have made something of a comeback since the end of communism, but not without controvery: their literal translation is "master" and "mistress". Given Russia's history with serfdom, it's not surprising that some people will, apparently, take great offense and, when call this, retort, "I'm nobody's gaspodin!"

In many contexts, including--I gather--the classroom, the preferred form of formal address is to use first name and ochestva (patronymic). For those who don't know, a Russian will have three names: his first name, his last name, and his patronymic, a name derived from the name of his or her father. One guidebook to Russian culture indicated that, in the universities, professors and students always address each other by first name and patryonymic, and I would not be at all surprised if this held true in private language schools as well. Nonetheless, this can be problematic when doing introduction games, because it is necessary to teach students how to introduce each other politely in English. I wonder how one explains to people with a low level of English that Americans don't have patronymics.

Incidentally, while viewing Doctor Zhivago last night, I was amazed to find that the movie possibly got this aspect of Russian etiquette wrong in at least one place. During an early scene set in a lavish pre-Revolutionary restaurant, Lara Antipova at one point addresses Komarovsky as "Monsieur Komarovsky", to which he replies, "Why not Viktor Ippolitovich?" A real-life scene of this kind would start with first name and patronymic, proceed to first name without the patronyimic, and from there move on to diminutive forms. I should be careful before pronouncing harsh judgment on the scriptwriters of Zhivago, however, as much of the film was set in Tsarist times, and this scene may adequate express the usage of 1913.

Nonetheless, there is at least one attested used of the diminutive even in the formal context of international diplomacy: when Bill Clinton met with Vladimir Putin shortly before leaving office, he called him Volodya.

But I digress.

Because of the problems with tovarischch/tovarishka and gaspodin/gaspozhka, knowing how to address strangers on the metro has become particularly problematic. There are no Russian equivalents of sir, miss, madam, or ma'am. Unable to used tovarishch/tovarishka or gaspodin/gaspozhka, post-communist Russians are often forced to be very rude when, say, telling the woman in front of you that she has dropped a glove. Resort must be had to expressions like, "Hey you there, with the red scarf." When New Yorkers do this, it's just ill-breeding; when Muscovites do it, it's under duress.