+Habits 

During winter: from November to March — slide the snowy hills with the board, or ski; running ski (flat ground): almost anywhere in the park, also can use frozen rivers and lakes; Skate – on the skate arenas(not for free but not expensive). 

Also, its pity but most women don’t do outside sports in winter… So might say, the winter sport season is a men’s world. 

Sauna — weekly for relaxation. This habit is mutual to Scandinavian neighbour countries. During winter there is Q for the booking list to get on. Just book it ahead, like in one year or… ok in two weeks ahead. 

In the summer: Beach holidays in the South of Russia. Hiking in the mountain regions (Altai Mountains, Caucasus Mountains, mountains in Sakha Republic). Travel to Kamchatka to see natural park reserves. Head to the forest zones for mushrooms and camping (forests in Karelia, Ural, Siberia)

In the city: beach volleyball, ping pong, skateboard (every year opening new areas for skating and rollicking).  

Play sports: Women are not as sport active compare to men. There are many football, basketball, volleyball men amateur street-like teams. 

Watch tv : News ( world and local), Sport matches (football, hockey, ice skating, biathlon, among the most popular); tv music shows (*on the weekends), comedy shows (*on the weekends), tv series (Russian — detectives, dramas or crime; Turkish — romantic dramas that replaced Brazil’s and Argentina’s tv series that were soooo popular in 90s and 00s and broadcasted on the main state channels).     

Yeah Russians are known for this “drink drink and drink…” but in between we [Russians] have much MUCH MORE than that…we can eat eat and eat too!

+LAnguage 

English_Latin letters whereas Russian_Cyrillic alphabet: 

A – a; B – б; C – ц  ; D – д; E – и; F – ф; G – г; H – х; I – и / й ; J – ж; K – к; L – л; M – м; N – н; O – о; P – п; Q – кю; R – р; S – с;  T – т; U – у;  V – в;  W – …; X – …;  Y – ю; Z – з.

Russian Alphabet and with (–)  English letters:

А – a , Б – b, В – v or w , Г – g, Д – d, Е – ye, Ё – yo (not used much), Ж – j , З – z , И – e, Й (not used much)- …, К – k , Л – l, М – m, Н – n, О – o, П – p, Р – r, С – s, Т -t , У – u , Ф – f, Х – h, Ц – c, Ч  – ch, Ш – sh, Щ – sch (not used much), Ъ -… (not used much now, old letter was placed in the end for hardening the word), Ы – y ( y – but with much deep-low sound), Ь -… (soft letter used to smooth the sound) , Э – e, Ю – yu, Я – ya.  

Hi – ПРИВЕТ (Privet) ; HELLO (Zdravstvuy), HOW ARE YOU (Kak dela? Kak u tebya dela) , SUP (Kak dela?)? THANK YOU(Spasibo),  I DONT WANT (Ya nehochu), I WANT( Ya hochu),  I NEED TO GO THERE ( Mne nujno tuda), I NEED TO BUY THIS (Mne nujno kupit’ eto), CAN YOU HELP ME (Mojesh li tu mne pomoch), and more 

+Humor/Jokes 

Well anything that would include world and local politics (past and current), christian/catholic religion (church, popes), historical battles (with known national heroes and enemies),.. Also, how could I forget, silly jokes about the blondies ( blond women). Ok, overall, this might not make sense to you now, ehh, would give more details on it later. 

+ To Eat

Soups are very popular: Borsch (taste of: beetroot with beef and sour cabbage), Rassolnik (taste of: pickled cucumbers and buckle with beef’s or pork’s kidneys ), Okroshka ( taste of: mix veggies and kvas (drink made of fermented black bread)  with sausages or ham or beef).

All are not as filling as the Thai or Vietnamese soups.  

Pelmeni ( wintery food) — dumplings filled with meat (pork +beef) 

Potatoes — that passion Russians sharing with Belorussians. Many recipes with potatoes ( no purple potatoes or orange …just a standard white/yellow potatoes): crushed potatoes ( milk + boiled potatoes), jacket potatoes ( bake potatoes in  the oven or on the grill or at the fireplace, in foil with-the-skin potato add a slice of butter inside of it when its baked gently cutting in half, fully or not).

Classic army meal: Beef stew (in the can) with potatoes, or buckwheat, pearl barley…

+ People 

Not so smiley at first. Not saying “hi” to strangers on the streets, otherwise you are in trouble — got caught or faced a real psycho.

Bit pushy. Not careful to wade around when in the crowd or passing by or in the metro. Not a sign of aggression, just a normal way to carry on; usually not apologising if jostle, and pretend that nothing happened.

Metro ‘performances’. This usually goes with the first two in that “+People” list. Singing in metro stations and in the train, just for some random lil cash. Not insisting and relying solely on a simple reward from undergrounders for 2 min singing& music playing. Note that the plain begging is not allowed in metro and basically pointless — people hold less cash and are less sympathetic. Also, some do try to sell small branded goods (phone cases, batteries, little toys) in metro carriages.