Russian Relaxing

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Main
  • Wikipedia
  • All Subpages
  • Create New
    /wiki/Russian Relaxingwork

    What people in Russia do for fun.

    Literature

    See Russian Literature and Russian Reading.

    Film

    The Soviet Union had its own film industry, doing quite a few science fiction films (the original Solaris for example), a lot of films on the Great Patriotic War and other glorious historic moments for Russia, a whole genre which is essentially the Russian version of The Western (other states in the Warsaw Pact would do it as well) plus quite a lot of stuff that could really be called propaganda (mainly melodramas and love stories that initially were painfully "industrial romance", but later took on a surprisingly earnest and touching tone). However, the genre that seems most popular in Russia itself is the Soviet comedy as exemplified by the works of Leonid Gaidai, Eldar Ryazanov and Giorgi Danelia. Most of these comedies have elements of drama, tragedy and stealth satire, while much of their humour is extremely culture-specific, being based to a large extent on the daily experiences of ordinary Soviet citizens. Because of this they are largely unheard of outside the former USSR. Additionally, the Soviet film industry was not driven by box-office, but rather by cultural and educational value of films (and their implicit total accordance to ideological dogmas). Yeah, it was official, and surprisingly, it somewhat worked. Between the Scylla and Charybdis of dissent and ass-licking (the latter was discouraged too, by natural means of ass-licking pieces being shitty and unpopular), a lot could be done. That is not to say the Soviet censorship didn't drive many creators to despair, cut short careers of many a genius or force them to emigrate, make the plot choices awfully small and much of the work bland and uniform. But still.

    Some of the more notable Soviet films are:

    (all four of these were directed by Sergei Eisenstein)

    Animation

    The Soviets had quite an animated film industry; most famously, there was Soyuzmultfilm, a truly world-class animation studio. They produced something like 1500 animated films over their long history.

    Taking Steam

    Russian tradition of public baths (banya) dates back to pre-christian times. It includes being in an overheated, moist room and getting beaten by tree branches. Once that's gotten old you jump into a freezing cold pool, and/or drop a bucket of aforementioned cold water on your head. Then repeat. Somehow, it is supposed to be relaxing, and remains popular even today. And well, it is relaxing once you used to it and additionally softens outer skin layer, allowing to remove it and wash very clean. Traditionally a person who has just taken a bath is greeted or complimented with the phrase S lyogkim parom! (the "g" is pronounced like an "h"), which literally means "with light steam!" and can be roughly translated as "congratulations on your bath!" or "I hope the steam was good!"

    Drinking

    For much of Russia/the USSR's history, taxation of vodka formed a major part of state income. Also, one of the main reasons that Vladimir I of Kiev converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, so making Russia an Orthodox nation, was the fact that they were pretty tolerant when it came to alcohol consumption; he feared, for example, that if he made his kingdom Muslim, which prohibits alcohol and the consumption of pork, that his subjects would revolt against him. Also, his envoys were impressed by the great beauty and ceremony they saw in the Greek Orthodox churches. Much later, one of the major problems the Soviet Union faced was the high incidence of alcoholism. Another funny example: when the Soviets developed and deployed one of their first ballistic missiles, a V-2 knockoff, there were some problems with the fact that the R-1, the knockoff, used alcohol as the fuel. The generals were a little cagey about that, needless to say.

    Music

    Russia is famous for not only its music, but the style of music. The Tetris theme tune, "Korobeiniki", actually has lyrics.

    Tchaikovsky is by far the most famous Russian composer. You'll have heard of Swan Lake, The Nutcracker.

    There is a lot of folk music. The Mary Hopkin song Those Were the Days is based on an old Russian folk tune.

    In the good old days of the Soviet Union, the tendency amongst the intellectuals was that true art should stick it to the man - The Man being the party establishment and bureaucracy. Given that the only way to do that without an exciting free trip to The Gulag (or just being stripped of all benefits due to a performing artist in less strict times) was to smuggle crap past the radar, intellectuals grew adept at figuring out just how everyone are Stalin in the Masoleum. Interestingly enough, intelligentsia actually called the smuggled crap an «Aesop language», making them Trope Namers. A band could also gather acclaim by using the Power of Rock to kick against tame mainstream music establishment. All this gave rise to a unique genre, called "authors' song", or better known as bard music.

    Bard music appeared in 1960s Soviet Union and became immensely popular. It is very simple in terms of musical techniques, but lyrics-heavy, played on a common acoustic guitar and little or nothing else. The most well-known Soviet bard was Vladimir Vysotsky; other performers of note were Bulat Okudzhava and the noted musical dissident Alexander Galich.

    The late 1970s and early 1980s were the time when native Russian rock appeared, growing from bardic tradition but adding more complex rock music techniques to the genre. The most famous founding fathers of Russian rock are Boris Grebenschikov and Viktor Tsoi.

    Another, little-known offshoot of bard music is the so-called "minstrel music", which is fantasy-themed bard music, like Heavy Mithril except not heavy at all. It appeared in Russian LARPG community and Tolkien fandom during the 1990s.

    Modern Russia still produces notable music of its own. You'll have probably heard of t.A.T.u., who played the Schoolgirl Lesbians image for a while despite being neither lesbians nor schoolgirls.

    Television

    In Soviet Russia, television watches you!

    Thank you, Yakov Smirnoff. Television in Russia can be roughly divided into two eras- the Soviet era and the post-Soviet era.

    Notable TV shows from the USSR:

    Russian TV series:

    • Yeralash: a Sketch Comedy running for nearly forty years already.
    • Bednaya Nastya ("Poor Nastya"), a Russian telenovela, broadcast in the US.

    Chess

    Russia is famous for its chess playing- in Irregular Webcomic, you can no longer actually play Chess in a Chess with Death scenario because no Russians died for about a decade. Of the top 10 current chess players in the world (FIDE rankings), 2, including the world No.4 Vladmir Kramnik, are Russian and 4 (5 if you count the Latvian-born Alexei Shirov, who has since defected to Spain) are from the other former Soviet states. Of the World Champions between 1927 and 2007, only Max Euwe (1935-1937, Netherlands) and Bobby Fischer (1972–75, USA) were from any other countries.

    Card Games Russians like to play card games, just like everybody else. Games unique to Russia are Preferans, Durak (a mostly children's game) and Ochko (a local variety of blackjack played with 36 cards). The usual Russian deck of playing cards consists of 36 cards, 6 to Ace, no jokers.

    Video Games

    The Soviet Union invented Tetris. More recently, the Eastern Bloc has produced STALKER, Turgor, Pathologic, Cargo the Quest For Gravity, Metro 2033, Silent Storm (nearly ruined by Western Executive Meddling), Space Rangers, Il-2 Sturmovik, King's Bounty: The Legend and King's Bounty: Armored Princess, Death to Spies, Rage of Mages and Allods Online.

    Tabletop Games

    Russian tabletop game industry is still in the development phase, producing mostly boardgames. But in recent years some notable trading card games and tabletop RPGs appeared.

    Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Russian_Relaxing?oldid=1913705"