Russia Strikes Back
A 23-year-old Russian author in her book, The UK for Beginners, Olga Freer claims Britons scratch their bottoms in public, don’t iron their clothes and are obsessed with television programmes about buying and selling houses.
“But an English guy told me he was surprised how many chubby English girls think they are stunning when they are not. He didn’t say chubby – he said fat, but I’m trying to make it nicer. Russians have a more severe view of being fat. If you are fat, you will be bullied. Here, you are quite tolerant.”
Freer says she recently contracted chicken pox, and after battling to secure a doctor’s appointment, was prescribed paracetamol: “That is not the way to treat the condition. In Russia, they would put you in hospital for two weeks.”
From her close reading of Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement, she has learnt that British hospitals in the second world war were well scrubbed. “But now they are all dirty. Where did it go wrong?” She concludes that all great civilisations must eventually decline.
Her most surprising assertion is that binge drinking is worse in Britain than in Russia. I didn’t think it was possible – but you live and learn. And her outrage reaches a peak when I ask about culture.
“In the UK, the only thing anybody talks about is football. In Russia, you can get in a taxi and talk to the driver about literature.
“If you go to a Russian house, everybody has books. But here!” (She’s had the misfortune to enter homes with no books at all.) “Isn’t it horrible! It’s disgusting.” (If this seems a bit strong, remember that Freer is an author.) “I feel pity for these people who do not read. They are miserable. They are in the dark.”
And in a similar vein: “You go to the theatre here, and it’s all tourists.” In Russia, by contrast, absolutely everybody is constantly queuing outside theatres.
As for education: “What you learn at university, a Russian would have learnt at school.” Ouch.
