Quote Originally Posted by fortheether
What is Russian culture to Russians?
To me, first of all, it's great art. Great literature, greatest poetry (mostly untranslated and untranslatable), great theatre (the best in the world), great (Soviet) cinema (almost unknown in the rest of the world). I could begin to mention the names, but the list would be endless in this case.
I also think that Russian language itself is very rich. Well, Russian 'мат', then again.
Second, I think we Russians know much about western culture (and history), far more than people in the west know about Russia and Russian culture; this makes our world view more broad.

I also think that Russian people are far more sincere (often in their bad emotions, too) and in general are far more emotional. We are simpler and have less of the conventionalities. Well, another side, as for the culture of service, it's very low. You can easily meet with rudeness from a shop assistant in a supermarket. But I, personally, think that 'culture' and 'culture of service' somehow are not the same. Bad service rather is a product of the Soviet period.