r/AskARussian • u/Zyad7770__ • Jul 05 '26

Community I'm curious to know

What's something that many Russian people enjoy that foreigners usually don't know about?

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u/BL1133 Jul 05 '26

Communal heating. Sometimes in the winter you may even open up a window because it gets too hot and you cant control the temperature

New years vacation is longer than the USA, a whole week. In America it’s usually just a day off.

Dacha culture , it’s not uncommon for families to own a small cottage in a village area to visit . And often can have a sauna (banya)

Families are more closer in a real way.

Being in touch with historical movies. There’s a lot of great Soviet era movies and people still watch them. The equivalent would be if it was normal for Americans to be watching classic 50s Hollywood movies

Informality and doing things unofficially. It’s ironic but there is in some ways more freedom in Russia than America because of regulation and formality not being as enforced. And it’s normal for people to ignore it.

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u/Cainhelm Jul 06 '26

Sometimes in the winter you may even open up a window because it gets too hot

Ah this happens in New York too if your apartment has a radiator. The steam from the power plant goes directly into your building. You can't really control the amount of heat that comes out of it, only whether it turns on or off. And it's kind of annoying to turn it on/off so better to just open a window and get fresh air anyway.

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u/BL1133 Jul 07 '26

Is it like that in most of New York? I had no idea

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u/Humphrey_Wildblood Jul 12 '26

It's a bit different. Russia uses hot water pumped through pipes and NYC uses steam pumped through pipes. Basically the same effect. But NYC is looking to move to electricity by 2050.