cleanliness

Now before we begin, let me just get this out of the way: this post is not about personal hygiene.  There will be no jokes about Europeans and showers, so if that's what you're here for, well, get used to disappointment.  I just want to talk about one very small but quirky and interesting aspect of cleanliness in Russia: the ground.  I know that probably sounds a bit confusing, but bear with me (or bare with me, if you must; I want my readers to be comfortable).  Russians, much more so than Americans, in my experience, treat the ground (or floor, if you're inside) as something almost inherently dirty.

It's not something easily noticeable; in fact, it wasn't until a few weeks into my stay here (my second time in Russia, no less) that I started to pick up on it.  If you're sitting in a cafe and your hat falls on the floor unbeknownst to you, I guarantee someone, be it a waiter or fellow diner, will alert you to this fact within about 9 seconds.  I'm not exaggerating, try it sometime.  This extends to the home as well.  It is anathema to Russians to wear shoes past the entryway of an apartment.  Furthermore, most will have what are called tapichki, which are essentially thin house slippers, that they will wear at all times.  If you visit someone's apartment and they don't have enough tapichki for everyone, the host will undoubtedly apologize profusely.

Perhaps the most telling evidence of the prevalence of this belief comes from the gopniki, which are basically what Officer Krupke might call "street toughs."  They wear track suits, spit sunflower seeds, shake people down for loose change, and just generally get up to no good.  During the summer, you'll often see these guys hanging around outside their apartment buildings, drinking and carrying on.  In the U.S., they'd probably sit on the stoop; here, they squat just above the ground.

Is this an earth-shattering observation?  No.  But it's something you'd never notice unless you lived here, so I thought I'd share.  Plus, I just got 350 words out of the ground in less than fifteen minutes, and fulfilled my post quota for the day.  So there.




Still reading?  I'm not going to make a European hygiene joke.




Seriously.

Okay, fine, you mongrels: I'll give you just one, from Twain, who started this whole business: "In Marseilles they make half the fancy toilet soap we consume in America, but the Marseillaise only have a vague theoretical idea of its use, which they have obtained from books of travel..."

Hope that doesn't cause an international incident.  We love ya, France!