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The last time I went to America, I stopped in at a café for a java. While waiting for my bill of fare to become through, the woman backside the counter smiled and said, "What are your plans for the weekend?"

And I said, "Uh, I dunno."

"The conditions is prissy, huh?"

"Certain is," I replied.

This is an example of small talk. Information technology's the mouth's version of drumming its fingers.

An endeavor to practice small talk in Russian federation

Back in Russia, I met my friend Elena for coffee.

"Why did you write that if you talk to Russiansthey might want to murder and eat you?" she asked.

"They do! When yous try to talk to them with small talk."

"Not truthful," she said.

"Yes it is, especially with strangers."

She shook her head and rolled her optics at me.

"Right, then like when you're in line at the shop, if I were to randomly outset talking to y'all about something impaired, similar if I started telling you about my day and how much I liked your blouse or the weather condition."

"No i would exercise that," she said.

I laughed. "Oh, oh yes, in America they do."

She looked at me, suspicious, as though I'd just said, "You know in America, people eat their own toes with ketchup."

The thing is, the but time a stranger has ever volunteered something random to me on the streets of Russia, it was a nice one-time blind woman who said, "Oh, aren't you lot a handsome boy" before turning to the air beside my confront and proverb "...and you too."

What Russians call up well-nigh small-scale talk

I asked a few Russians what they thought well-nigh small talk and received responses like:

"I personally detest small talkers - why they are talking to me? Are they really interested in my mood? Can't they discover out the weather on the internet? Are they going to ask some favor from me? Just go abroad or say what y'all want directly!"

And:

"Russians don't really see the indicate of talking about obvious and bland things, it'south but tedious to us and is non a office of our culture."

Some other Russian I spoke to thinks geography influences pocket-size talk: "Location means a lot," he said. "I think that information technology'southward all about the weather: you only don't talk much where yous but see snowfall and darkness for 8 months. You can talk incessantly where the lord's day is shining all the time and the wine is free of charge."

The verdict seemed grim.

But I didn't want to but take people'southward word for it, so I decided to leave and endeavour out some small talk on Russians. In that location's a shop down the road with a little café stand in it where I get my morning time coffee. The shopkeepers know me, when I walk in one will say, "Hello my friend," and the other, "How are y'all?" but clearly doesn't expect a response. And then, while waiting for my coffee I turned to the homo behind the counter and said in Russian, "So, the weather today, huh?"

He frowned at me, then looked over my shoulder at the pissing rain and icy sidewalks of St. petersburg in Leap and said:

"F*ck the weather "

"Are you talking to me?"

I did this in front of my friend Ivan at a café. The lady behind the counter had just handed me my latte and I said, "It's going to be a nice weekend, any plans?"

She straight-up ignored me and I turned to observe Ivan frowning. "Are you talking to me?" he asked.

"No, I was trying to have small-talk, yous know, just talk with the barista."

"Only you lot accept a girlfriend?"

"What? Yeah, no, simply small-scale talk, yous know, talk nigh something completely useless for the sake of engaging in conversation."

He idea about it for a bit and and so on the walk dorsum to my place he said, "Sometimes I wish there was smaller talk, my friends are always talking about such philosophical things." And and so he added, "But it does happen sometimes, in the store the other day I almost forgot to purchase a lighter for my cigarettes and the woman backside the counter told me about how all morning time she needed a lighter merely couldn't detect a working one and she believed she was cursed. Is this common in America?"

I said, "Yep, particularly in the due south. And very often when I'm in shops conversations volition get stuck up about the weather, or the news, or some-such nonsense."

"Maybe, it'due south so lonely people tin can hibernate amend. If yous're all talking all of the time, then how would you know who is lonely?"

Big talks

If there are Russians who enjoy small talk, I haven't met them.

On the contrary, Russians like big and sometimes very personal talk - y'all might meet a Russian, especially on the train or in a bar, and within a few hours be as thick as thieves.

I came across this in my quest for small talk in the dingy Pushkin Bar. I was choosing a beer. There was only one other human being in the identify besides the bartender and he stood at the counter and watched me. At present, in America, I might turn to the homo and say, "How'due south it going?" and he would nod, smile and say something similar, "Swell, not bad, some weather nosotros're having." And I'd say, "Yeah."

But when I turned to this man, who I later (much afterwards) learnt was named Tim, and said, "How'south it going?" something very different happened.

Five hours later I was sat at the altogether party of Tim's all-time friend in a place he referred to as "a Soviet bar." I knew that Tim's father had been a general in the military and that many people around town respected his family unit for his male parent's service. I knew that Tim could recite Shakespeare, considering he did, and that his mother had left his begetter when he was very young and moved into her ain apartment and that his male parent had died. I knew that he still lived with his female parent and that surely, she'd beloved me and surely, I was welcome for dinner and to stay the night. Oh, and by the way, my name is Tim.

The matter is that small talk isn't a way of talking to someone, it'due south talking at them - there is no depth or purpose to information technology; it is similar an awkward loftier schoolhouse trip the light fantastic toe to the last 30 seconds of a bad song with no rhythm. It is dull, and Russians tend to be anything simply tiresome. Later, as I walked forth the street with an inebriated Tim, he began telling me about his time in New York Metropolis before we were stopped past an older woman.

"Mother!" Tim cried.

"This is my mother."

The woman glared at me and then grabbed Tim by his jacket.

"You fool, what are you doing walking effectually in this common cold. And y'all're drunkard!!" she cried at him, and so wrapped his scarf tighter around his neck. Tim swayed a bit, before breaking loose to become vomit into the snowbank.

I looked at his mother, she at me.

I felt awkward. I said, "So, uh, the weather, huh?"

She frowned, "F*ck the weather."

Benjamin Davis , an American author living in Russia, explores various topics, from the pointless to the profound, through conversations with Russians. Last time he explores what do Russians think of Trump. Adjacent time he volition explore gun ownership in Russia. If you have something to say or desire Benjamin to explore a detail topic, write u.s.a. in a comment section beneath or write us on Facebook .

If using any of Russian federation Beyond's content, partly or in full, always provide an agile hyperlink to the original textile.

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Source: https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/330182-small-talks-weather-russia