Ciao a tutti!
What do Italian people think about Russia and Russians?
Did your opinion change during last couple of years? I mean TV news and newspapers.
What do you think about Russian women in general?
I saw an italian movie Smetto quando voglio. A great comedy, but the "escort women" were russian speaking and were called Russians. Is it common for modern Italy? I had no idea before i watched that movie :)

Grazie!

Question

Ciao a tutti! 
What do Italian people think about Russia and Russians?
Did your opinion change during last couple of  years? I mean TV news and newspapers.
What do you think about Russian women in general?
I saw an italian movie Smetto quando voglio. A great comedy, but the "escort women" were russian speaking and were called Russians. Is it common for modern Italy? I had no idea before i watched that movie :)

Grazie!

Dolcetto · Answer

There are different opinions but you need to know that for two decades here in Italy there have been immigration from ex urss countries and est europe in general. So not many Russian people live here, at leasy they are less common that Moldovans, Romanians, Ukrainians, Bulgarians and so on. When these people came here, most of them didn't know what the financial amd economic situation was in Italy and Italy itself wasn't prepared for such as huge immigration flows. So people started coming here, didn't know the language and didn't have any visas so there were lots of illegal migrants. If you don't have visa you can't work legally, so these people stared to work illegally (with absurd low income, no rights etc) specially in eldery amd child care and constructions. Others started to try other illigal amd criminal ways to make money (like robbery, thieving and with drugs productions) and some of them started to trafficking women for prostitutions. Italians at the time (90s-early 2000) didn't know that much about these differents countries so they were all Russians in their eyes and most of people  from ex urss countries identifies themselves as Russian too. In that way, people becomes to associate russians and est Europeans as prostitutes, criminals and in general bad people (dangerous). At the time was really difficult for.them to integrate well but after some years (we are now between 2000-2003) lot of immigrants had visas (bossi fini immigration law was promulgated  n 2002): people became to work ligally and started to reunite their familes. At that time, children from ex urss countries became a new "problem" for italian schools (we didn't hav italian courses and programs to help the children to learn and integrate well). Now the situation is more stable and these migrants are part of the Italian multi cultural background: lot of families have east euripe or russian ladies that take care of their children or grandparents, lots of migrants children are enrolled in university or have good jobs and lots of them have now italian citizenship. The russian maginary as criminals is still present but less than in the past.

Dolcetto · Answer

As martastick said, even if  Italian-Russian economic relations are strong (I live near Venice and here most.of the companies commerce with Russia), we don't learn and know much about culture and everyday life. In school, we don't really learn russian history and only few high school can teach Russian. It isn't a common vacation goal either, maybe because people here love warm places ;) Also, politically speaking,Russia is controversial (civil rights, corruption of political parties and police, wars etc) and differs with the Italian view, but in some cases the severity and austerity is appreciated. Also Russian are know for the bad attitude around women (domestic violences) and the problems of drugs and alcoholism. I think that Russia is an interesting country but really different from Italy.

Dolcetto · Answer

For corruption, I think that our two countries are similar. About alcoholism, in 2010 in a statistic of pure alcohol consumption among persons, Russia was 4th worldwide amd Italy was 87th ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption_per_capita). For drug consumption, here Russia is famous for krokodile, there was a period where all the news talked about this new terrible drug common in Russia ( https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2682111/pics-addicts-scaly-wounds-crocodile-injecting-drug-krokodil/amp/). About domestic violence, I suggest you to read this article ( https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/russia-country-of-concern--2/russia-country-of-concern#womens-rights): " According to official figures, 12,000 women are killed annually in Russia as a result of domestic violence (one woman every 40 minutes)." Also was promulgated a law about depenalization of domestic abuse( http://embedded.).
I'm not trying to judge your country or anything like that but unfortunately Russia. Is not so well seen in the human rights side, not only in Italy but worldwide

ImCarlo · Answer

>What do Italian people think about Russia and Russians?
I can only tell you about me. I have nothing against your country, I'm even trying to learn your language actually, but personally I'd not like to live there. Not because of people though, for what I've seen you are very friendly.

>Did your opinion change during last couple of years?
Yes, better and worse. Better because I've recently started to study Russian so of course I got fascinated by it, worse because nowadays Russia is the Eden according to far-right movements here and it's pretty annoying to me sharing the "club" with these people. Not a very mature point of view, I know, but still.

>What do you think about Russian women in general?
I like them. I mean, not only physically (I must admit that you care your appearance very much) of course: all the Russian women I spoke with were very friendly and with a strong sense of humor!
Unfortunately there are many people here that consider Russian women as "gold diggers" who are interested in money and nothing more. I'm not an expert since I don't know so many Russians, but for what concerns my experience the stereotype is totally false. Anyway, even this stereotype is slowly disappearing.
As you can see the popular opinion about Russia here is quite polarized!

ImCarlo · Answer

@LanaJaf uh, you know, the Garden of Eden... It was just a metaphor.
I've started to study Russian few time ago because as I said I like Russian people, but especially because of Russian history (mostly the Imperial one).
Thank you for the offer! Of course if you need any help with Italian it's the same!

martasick · Answer

Even if it's hard to answer on behalf of all italians, I believe what first pops in most people's mind when you say Russia is: comunism, Putin, Dostoevskij (and russian litterature in general), Vodka, cold, beautiful women - with no specific order. I've known many people who are very fascinated by Russia and a few people who have a very negative opinion about russians (from what I could understand, they didn't like the attitude of rich russian tourists, considered arrogant). The part of escort women... I am not well informed on the predominant nationality of foreign sex workers in Italy, but we get lots of stories of "east european women" who are forced to become prostitutes when they reach Italy. I don't know whether we actually have russian girls here wishing/being forced to work in such field, or the movie wrongly called "russians" those girls, when actually referring to other eastern europe nationalities.

martasick · Answer

There are, on the political and economical side. Not much about the social life, although I am sure if one's interested it's not hard to gather those infos on the web.

martasick · Answer

I can't really explain myself why we get so little from Russia. I wonder whether it's due to some political or economic or diplomatic reason. As I said above, many people I know are fascinated from Russia, yet we don't really get any hint here of its pop culture and what's modern life like. Only example that comes to my mind of something close to modern Russia related to music is Pussy Riot, even though I am sure that those who are much into Russia may know more of its modern music and life. But it's all infos that you have to search, not stuff you get passively like american music. Most goods related to Russia here are kind of "vintage": I love russian litterature and so do many people I know, and I've seen and enjoyed several russian theatre plays. In Rome there are no restaurants serving russian cuisine food (maybe one, very small), but in its biggest market you can find a stand selling russian gadgets from the comunism period. It's not so common to hear that people have been to Russia on holiday, but it's not rare either, like I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me (s)he's visited Russia, but it wouldn't be as average as places like England or France. 
Personally, I'd love a trip on the Transiberian route, it's been years I wish to do that! I hope in future we'll get more of Russia's modern lifestyle and culture :)

martasick · Answer

Yup, mainly Checov (The cherry orchard, Uncle Vanya). 
Soviet gadgets are mainly small pins and coins, I think they're bought mainly from collectionists. :D The real problem with transiberian railways, apart from money and time, is on where and how to buy the tickets - on internet you're strongly suggested to have your ticket requests written somewhere in russian because you're likley not going to be able to communicate in english, and the ticket offices don't have fixed timetables? I don't know, from internet it looks like an adventure itself buying those tickets :D Don't know if it's all lies or not proper information or what. I don't have enough time for that travel at the moment anyway :)

FrancescoPizza · Answer

Vodka, AlcoholVladimir, Many Cheater(on videogames), beatiful women .
( hey, dont get me wrong, that's what many people that i know, think ) 
These are just thought, the majority of us dont know much about russia, (me too)  .Bye

nanraf96 · Answer

I personally love Russia and Russians

There are, on the political and economical side. Not much about the social life, although I am sure if one's interested it's not hard to gather those infos on the web.

I personally love Russia and Russians

Vodka, AlcoholVladimir, Many Cheater(on videogames), beatiful women .( hey, dont get me wrong, that's what many people that i know, think ) These are just thought, the majority of us dont know much about russia, (me too) .Bye

Pergunte a falantes nativos gratuitamente

Vodka, AlcoholVladimir, Many Cheater(on videogames), beatiful women .
( hey, dont get me wrong, that's what many people that i know, think )
These are just thought, the majority of us dont know much about russia, (me too) .Bye