Why Russians Aren’t Smiling at You in Sochi
The first rule about smiling at Russians is you do not smile at Russians.
When Ed Leigh arrived in Sochi to cover the Winter Olympics, something struck him as odd: None of the Russians there returned his smiles.
When Leigh asked a native why that was, the man told him, “In Russia only two types of people smile: idiots and rich people — and rich people don’t walk on the street.”
For Russians, a smile in public is not the polite expression that Americans reflexively offer strangers on the street. A smiling person must have a good reason for doing it, and it should be obvious what
