Ask HN: How to behave as an immigrant with russian background? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to behave as an immigrant with russian background?

4 pointsexitoxic8 comments

Hey folks

how do you behave in a world that is so resentful/hateful towards russian people even to those that neither were raised nor do essentially live in russia?

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I am currently in Phuket, I spent most of my time in a coworking with lots and lots of Russians (no idea why roughly 80% of the coworking were comprised of Russians)

1. Many of them tend to speak loudly and it was quite annoying. I don't know if it's because of the language or culturally.

2. Nobody seemed to care about what was happening in Russia. I am a French guy in Thailand, I have nothing to do with what the French government is doing, if some Russians are in Thailand, I don't see why I would assume they have anything to do with what's happening in Russia. These guys were just engineers or designers working and living in Thailand.

But yeah, if you are among the ones that speak loudly for whatever reasons, just try to act normal in public spaces, I would assume only crazy people spending their whole life being "purist" would ressent you for your nationality.

Treat it with ignore. If you can state honestly you're ossetian, ingushettian, georgian or abkhasian nobody will hate you for using a more specific to avoid the bile.

Russians smile less in photos. I don't know why theres a culture of "this is serious" when the camera snaps. Break the mould and be uncharacteristically overtly happy and invite happy people into your life.

Value your culture. Especially food culture. Pilmeni and kvass are worth celebrating.

Just smile. If somebody says something negative just smile. No need to argue. Just say you're doing your best.

Maybe try develop a new accent also

my accent is perfect tho it's just the visual appearance I think (can't change it obv.)

Where are you living?

Here in Argentina until this year we called "Russian" everyone form the former Soviet Union. Now I try to memorize the correct nationality of each immigrant, but I can't identify the country they are from. Can you distinguish Argentineans from Brazilians?

"The Soviet Union was an ethnically diverse country, with more than 100 distinct ethnic groups."[0] This was from 1960's the world is more blended now. What is something you think would make people think 'Russian' versus any other?

[0] https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/sketches-soviet-police-ethn...

If you don't use a Russian passport your background has little importance in most countries.

Point out that you don't have any control over what Putin does. As an American I had to play that card when Bush was president. So so can you.

And remember what people universally dislike is outsiders being dismissive and disrespectful of local ways of doing things.

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