Thread: Are Russians too conservative?

Fabricio you are from Sao Paulo, Brazil - right?
From the things I have heard, I believe that is a more dangerous city than Moscow! I know a woman whose brother got kidnapped in Sao Paulo in the 1980s. Her family paid ransom to the kidnappers, but the brother was never returned, probably killed. I have also heard about people using chauffeured cars in the city because there is such a big risk of being mugged (rich people, probably, but still... )

Of course, it is worrying if random dark skinned people are attacked for no reason in Moscow. Not sure how true that is... but if there IS truth to it, then I wouldn't want to go there if I was black or mixed race. Heard many horrible stories of muggings and shady setups in Russia in the 90s but I THINK such things have stopped now, or are less common.

I once met an African man who had studied in Moscow. He had a good impression of Moscow and did not mention anything about racism.

Originally Posted by Hanna

Fabricio you are from Sao Paulo, Brazil - right?
From the things I have heard, I believe that is a more dangerous city than Moscow! I know a woman whose brother got kidnapped in Sao Paulo in the 1980s. Her family paid ransom to the kidnappers, but the brother was never returned, probably killed. I have also heard about people using chauffeured cars in the city because there is such a big risk of being mugged (rich people, probably, but still... )

Of course, it is worrying if random dark skinned people are attacked for no reason in Moscow. Not sure how true that is... but if there IS truth to it, then I wouldn't want to go there if I was black or mixed race. Heard many horrible stories of muggings and shady setups in Russia in the 90s but I THINK such things have stopped now, or are less common.

I once met an African man who had studied in Moscow. He had a good impression of Moscow and did not mention anything about racism.

Hanna, read the topic, some posts back you can read one guy that said he was beaten for not being russian, because of his skin.

As I said back some posts also, probably São Paulo is more dangerous in numbers than Moscow, but the "reasons" for it are not the same. Here, one would NEVER be beaten/robbed/etc because of his/her skin color. You probably would be robbed if you go with a fancy Iphone, jewelery, in the middle of a favela. The same in the bad areas of Moscow. The same in the bad areas of New York. Anywhere.