I’ll give you several:
- Profanity (by men) in the presence of women. You can argue all you want about whether this is chauvinist, antiquated, anti-feminist or whatever, but the fact is, in Russia, chivalry is not dead.
- Disrespect from a younger person to an older person—say one telling the other off—even if they do not know each other.
- Children being taken away from parents by a government agency (e.g., Child Protective Services) for minor parental offences, such as raising your voice or spanking (irony: spanking is often considered an acceptable form of child discipline). You try that on the wrong parents in Russia and I suspect you might end up needing protective services yourself.
- Children loud-talking their parents and “actin’ up” in public. Russian moms are like Black moms when it comes to that stuff.
- Children sleeping over their boyfriends or girlfriends house. This is becoming more common, but among Westernized Russians—and it is seen as a problem.
- Coming to someone’s house for a visit empty-handed. I mean, I’ve seen people show up at a birthday party in NYC without even bringing some wine or a bag of chips. (I HATE this tendency in America.)
- Bringing something to someone’s house that only you will eat or drink.
- Wearing shoes—that you wore all over the filthy earth—in your own home or in someone else’s house. (I HATE this too!)
- Pointing a finger at someone in a conversation.
- Arguing about politics in public
- Slapping women on their butts
- Teasing strangers.
- Speaking loudly in public, especially about personal issues.
- Asking personal questions of near strangers or acquaintances.
- Yelling at people: For example, telling someone to get out of the way.
- Being ignorant about the basics of art history, literature, classical music or literary and music (and sometimes science) figures.
- Hate speech, in public or private conversations. This is against the law in Russia and you’ll end up in prison—unlike in the US or Europe. But while Russians aren’t exactly anything-goes, open-minded, most people would not engage in stereotyping discussions that spiral downwards to hate speech. By contrast, we defend such people in the US.
- Politically-Correct Censorship: By the same token, short of hate speech, you would not lose your career or get sued in Russia for making a statement others might misconstrue or simply don’t like (that you can back up) or that doesn’t fit the political climate.
- Being wasteful
- Being slothful and unhelpful
- Littering in public
- Wasting food.
