Russian in Everyday Life, Russian as a world Language and Keeping your skills up..

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Originally Posted by Doomer

You probably familiar with border officers which check you international passport on a way out of country (this doesn't exist in North America but widely practiced in Europe and Russia is not an exclusion). It is up to them to let you out of country if you are citizen of the country. In Russia those officers can check quite a lot of information about a person, even their tax returns and have power not to let person out by any reason
You can guess what scares people not to go back to Russia

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What a complete bullshit you wrote here dude. At least about any reason. The only reason they can refuse you to leave the country is if you are ignoring for too long some court's decision. But you can easily avoid even that if you leave Russia through Belorussian border (there is no border check there). And Belorussian border guards don't care at all if some Russian citizen going to, say, Poland from Belorussia have some debts that he should pay by Russian court's decision or not.

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Originally Posted by Hanna

When I fly out of Sweden the border police always ask where I am going after they checked the passport.
I always respond honestly but it irritates me that they ask - it's my personal business. I have never been asked anywhere else.

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That reminds me about a situation wich happened this summer to me when I was returning from Ukraine by car. I was asked by a Russian customs officer who happened to be a very beautiful young girl where I am going too. I was in the mood for a jokingly flirt (I just left my wife and kids at Ukraine at my mother-in-law's then, hehe) and I answered in macho voice: "I'm going home". I almost added something like "baby" or so but held myself at the very last moment. Her reaction was unexpected: she hided my papers wich she was checking, made a stone-face and said: "go for a walk for a while and next time think twice how to talk to a customs officer who is doing her job." I must add that I had stood in a line for about a half of an hour to get to her desk. So I had to stand in that line again. After I came to her desk for a second time she gave me a look like he saw me for the first time and asked again were I am going. I told her my adress and she returned my papers to me like nothing happened. Actually after losing more than a hour just at Russian customs (when you are crossing Russian/Ukraine border by car you have to pass 6 checks: customs check, border guard's check and passport check at one side and the same checks at the other side) I was considering here not so beatiful as it seemed to me before, to say the truth I was calling her "bitch" in my thoughts by then.

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That reminds me about a situation wich happened this summer to me when I was returning from Ukraine by car. I was asked by a Russian customs officer who happened to be a very beautiful young girl where I am going too. I was in the mood for a jokingly flirt (I just left my wife and kids at Ukraine at my mother-in-law's then, hehe) and I answered in macho voice: "I'm going home". I almost added something like "baby" or so but held myself at the very last moment. Her reaction was unexpected: she hided my papers wich she was checking, made a stone-face and said: "go for a walk for a while and next time think twice how to talk to a customs officer who is doing her job." I must add that I had stood in a line for about a half of an hour to get to her desk. So I had to stand in that line again. After I came to her desk for a second time she gave me a look like he saw me for the first time and asked again were I am going. I told her my adress and she returned my papers to me like nothing happened. Actually after losing more than a hour just at Russian customs (when you are crossing Russian/Ukraine border by car you have to pass 6 checks: customs check, border guard's check and passport check at one side and the same checks at the other side) I was considering here not so beatiful as it seemed to me before, to say the truth I was calling her "bitch" in my thoughts by then.

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Ha-ha, good luck doesn't seem to be your cup of tea. But I'd never go like that anyway, I'd simply say if I were you then, "I'm going from Ukraine to Russia", and nothing but a legal law could make me clarify more.

Yes.. with border police it seems to be REALLY important not to say anything that could annoy them!

I personally know two different (British) people who got refused entry to the US because they complained and were a bit rude about the (totally absurd) entry requirements there (finger printing people and generally treating tourists and business travellers like criminals). One of them I am not surprised, but the other one is a very normal person, not prone to rudeness at all and a frequent business traveller.

My dad joked with border police in West Germany during the cold war and they actually refused him entry from East Germany to West Berlin. I am not sure what he said exactly, but knowing him it was probably a very bad joke in rather bad German. He had to to interrupt a business trip and go back to Sweden and change his passport.

I heard of one person (relative of a friend) who was entering the UK from South Africa and was asked if she had any contagious diseases. She said "Just cholera and typhus", or something like that, as a joke.. The border guards refused to accept that she was joking (a boring day at work, maybe?) and she was refused entry and sent back to ZA. She had planned to visit relatives in the UK. Lesson, never ever joke with border guards anywhere!

On the Lonely Planet forum there are lots of stories about English speaking people who get singled out and terrorized by border police in the CIS countries (not Russia in particular). The theory is that the guards overhear conversations in English and decide to try for a bribe, or that they simply don't like the English speaking countries and take that out on the tourists.

On my trip through Eastern Europe, I had no trouble worth mentioning. In fact, I have personally never had any border trouble that comes to mind right now. I think border trouble can be avoided by avoiding jokes and being very passive and do exactly what they say even if it seems stupid and irritating.

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Originally Posted by Seraph

Break a leg!

Is there a phrase like this in Russian? Meaning good luck but sounds completely backwards?

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Thanks! I would have got it, but they wanted 3 references from the UK, which is hard to get, the UK has some funny laws about work references and I really didn't feel like calling around to beg people to break the law and subject themselves to a long interview about me... Plus, the job was located in a part of Sweden where they have the ugliest accent you can imagine.... The project would have been very cool though.

At the moment I am just waiting to start another consultancy role on 1 December at another major company. To my great annoyance the assignment is in Stockholm though, where i did NOT want to be, but... oh well, next assignment in 6 months I'll have my way for sure.

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Originally Posted by Basil77

What a complete bullshit you wrote here dude. At least about any reason. The only reason they can refuse you to leave the country is if you are ignoring for too long some court's decision. But you can easily avoid even that if you leave Russia through Belorussian border (there is no border check there). And Belorussian border guards don't care at all if some Russian citizen going to, say, Poland from Belorussia have some debts that he should pay by Russian court's decision or not.

That reminds me about a situation wich happened this summer to me when I was returning from Ukraine by car. I was asked by a Russian customs officer who happened to be a very beautiful young girl where I am going too. I was in the mood for a jokingly flirt (I just left my wife and kids at Ukraine at my mother-in-law's then, hehe) and I answered in macho voice: "I'm going home". I almost added something like "baby" or so but held myself at the very last moment. Her reaction was unexpected: she hided my papers wich she was checking, made a stone-face and said: "go for a walk for a while and next time think twice how to talk to a customs officer who is doing her job." I must add that I had stood in a line for about a half of an hour to get to her desk. So I had to stand in that line again. After I came to her desk for a second time she gave me a look like he saw me for the first time and asked again were I am going. I told her my adress and she returned my papers to me like nothing happened. Actually after losing more than a hour just at Russian customs (when you are crossing Russian/Ukraine border by car you have to pass 6 checks: customs check, border guard's check and passport check at one side and the same checks at the other side) I was considering here not so beatiful as it seemed to me before, to say the truth I was calling her "bitch" in my thoughts by then.

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http://forum.exler.ru/html/emoticons/cen.gif
I just wondering what would you do if second time she wouldn't give you your papers back and just pretend that she IS seeing you first time
I would really like to see how would you travel from "Russia to Belorussia" w/o papers. Or trying to convince court that you "не верблюд"
I also would like to see how you would you convince court when they say you this famous phrase "cуду нет основаная не доверять работнику полиции". I'm sure you aware of it

Today I discovered that the person I sit next to at work, who is a software architecht, is a bona fide Russian language geek, like me!

He too had taken it up as " a hobby" and got drawn in, lol!!! There is something very addictive about Russian language and culture, and he had the same view as me, of Russia as a fascinating country, and Russian as a cool and useful language. He had visited St Petersburg and Moscow on holiday and said that he wanted to visit cities in Siberia, but unfortunately his wife was not interested in travelling there, so it had not yet happened. I suggested that he bring his wife to the Black Sea instead, for a Russian speaking holiday in the sun! He was impressed that I had travelled through the Russian speaking countries alone, and laughed at my visa fiasco (I did not get a visa for Russia and had to change my plans en-route)

He is actually studying Russian language at university at half speed - both economic (since it's free) and motvational since it finishes with an exam. I had planned to take a course at an evening school in spring, but he was suggesting the university as a more sensible option.

I used my Russian skills in real life today, in a really unexpected situation!

Despite being sick I dragged myself over to church to attend the evening midsummer service, as I had not been in church for ages. Midsummer is a big deal in Sweden since it doesn't get dark at night for about a month.

Well, the church I went to was the Laestadian church in Stockholm, which is a kind of old fashioned Scandinavian Luthern church. It's from Northern Sweden originally, and it's quite common in Finland and Norway too.

But today, a group of Russians from Northern Russia was in church, having arrived for some kind of Christian revival meeting later in June, in a different city.

It turned out that they had been practicing Laestadian Christianity in Russia ever since the 19th century -- miraculously their faith had survived 75 years of being completely cut off from the main part of this movement. Everyone in the Scandinavian church had forgotten about them, and vice versa.

But then, some people in Finland had discovered by complete chance that these Russians were still practicing Laestadian Christianity. They decided to invite them to come to Finland and participate ub the bigger group's meetings along with everyone else.

It was really touching to hear how the Russian believers had stuck to their faith and kept it secret during most of the Soviet times -- A bit like the early Christians in Rome. Not sure what would have happened if they had been open about it.

More recently however, the challenge had been that the children were too materialistic and not interested in religion - leaving the area for St Petersburg or Moscow and dropping the faith too.

Only one person in their group could speak English to a useful level, so I ended up speaking Russian with several of them. I was really impressed that they went to so much trouble and expense to come to Sweden - they were not well off and had some serious communication problems.

Others in the church were impressed by my Russian skills, but I had to admit that I was just about able to communicate and was literally spitting out grammatical mistakes in every sentence, as I am out of practice. But I was able to translated some nice well wishing phrases, ask about families and things like that

Well, happy Midsummer everybody - this is the shortest night of the year!