I am not a nigerian student or immigrant, just an average guy with a higher than average for this country knowledge of English. Ready to answer questions.

There are racists but they are few and nobody considers them seriously. And even they don't really care about blacks, they mostly hate on caucasians (chechens and dagestanis) and immigrants from Central Asia (from different -stans, like Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan etc). That anger is almost all deserved though, they behave horribly here. There isn't a week without some news about a bunch of chechens starting shooting in Moscow or illegal immigrants from Tajikistan kidnapping and raping some russian girl.

For example here in Siberia we have lots of native mongoloids (mostly yakuts and buryats) and nobody even thinks about discriminating against them. I have never heard of a single ethnic fight between russians and natives here.

We are ok with gays, but nobody likes public display of gayness (aka waving dicks and walking with naked butts). Almost nobody (except for the same radical neo-nazis and some religious crazies) cares if someone is gay as long as he doesn't publicly announce their perversions. Most people think about it as of coprophagia - nobody cares if you eat shit in your home, but you better not do it in public.
Also gays are associated with westerners here and most of the people hate or at least dislike west.

Why cant homesteady and abu mickey's crew on NL gain entry into Russia?
**pun**

5points: Why cant homesteady and abu mickey's crew on NL gain entry into Russia?
**pun**

Didn't understand anything. Is this about sports? If so I have never been interested it and cannot say anything. During whole my life I've watched only several Olympiad opening/closing ceremonies and several hockey matches.

Pls do you have any languages in Russia, or there just is one language- Russian

some username: We are ok with gays, but nobody likes public display of gayness (aka waving dicks and walking with naked butts). Almost nobody (except for the same radical neo-nazis and some religious crazies) cares if someone is gay as long as he doesn't publicly announce their perversions. Most people think about it as of coprophagia - nobody cares if you eat shit in your home, but you better not do it in public.
Also gays are associated with westerners here and most of the people hate or at least dislike west.

I cannot fault this!

Are people still being sent off to Siberia for political crimes?

5points: Why cant homesteady and abu mickey's crew on NL gain entry into Russia?
**pun**

You just ended up displaying your silliness! the guy couldn't even comprehend what you wrote 5 po^rn

some username: We are ok with gays, but nobody likes public display of gayness (aka waving dicks and walking with naked butts). Almost nobody (except for the same radical neo-nazis and some religious crazies) cares if someone is gay as long as he doesn't publicly announce their perversions. Most people think about it as of coprophagia - nobody cares if you eat shit in your home, but you better not do it in public.
Also gays are associated with westerners here and most of the people hate or at least dislike west.

I love russia!
Those imbe.ciles should carry their perversion elsewhere. They shouldnt come corrupt the Kremlin.

Nomski0: Can you tell me why USSR became Russia. I still dont understand it.

Nobody here understands it either.
From the first look it seems like tensions between national republics started to rise and Gorbachev decided to reform USSR into another union, less solid and with bigger responsibilities of national governments. But after USSR was disbanded and CIS was created Yeltsin suddenly usurped power in Russia, overthrew communists and banned communist party. Similar things happened in other republics except for Belarus and Belarus is the only country who is in CIS now except for Russia of course.

But if you dig deeper it seems like either Gorbachev himself or Yeltsin or both of them were either controlled by USA or were just outright CIA agents because what they did was pure traitory - they made it possible for our resources and scientific developments to be bought cheaply by Europe and US. The economy lay in ruins, people fled the country, starved, took drugs, forced each other into prostitution or mafia rings. As one of the ministers from that time said "We had no time to care about anything - we only had to destroy industry so that communists would never rise again".
People were overwhelmingly against USSR dissolution,yet Gorbachev allowed it to happen. Some strange snipers without uniforms were shooting and killing both supporters of Yeltsin, supporters of Parliament and even neutral military forces who tried to make opposing forces to negotiate. Thanks god it didn't slide into full-scale civil war.

Putin seems even a bigger mystery to everyone. He was appointed by Yeltsin and yet he basically saved Russia during the Chechen wars. He works perfectly in foreign politics but cannot make those corrupt asses to work good domestically. He is friends with some corrupt oligarchs and opposes other corrupt oligarchs. Nobody of common people knows what's going on there on top but at least Russia still exists and seems to be doing pretty well compared to 90s.

Shen Teh: Pls do you have any languages in Russia, or there just is one language- Russian

i'd like to know this too

Shen Teh: Pls do you have any languages in Russia, or there just is one language- Russian

National republics like Saha (Yakutia) or Nenetskaya autonomous oblast or Chechnya teach their students national languages but everyone knows russian and even natives speak in Russia most of the time. English is tought in schools too, as well as sometimes German or French but besides "My name is Ivan, I know cat eat dog." most of the people cannot say anything.

demelza: Are people still being sent off to Siberia for political crimes?

There are no political crimes now. Although there are punishments for propagating hatred on ethnic or religious basis and propagating terrorism. Usually criminals are sent to prisons in their home region.

Nomski0: Thanks for that explaination.

Russia is freakishly close to the Arctic circle, and from some movies i've seen it always snows, how's the vegetation under this cold condition. Do they import raw foods? Or do they cultivate farm lands?

No, it snows only half a year. Permafrost which covers 70% or so of Russian territory doesn't mean it always snows here, it means that ground's temperature is always below zero if you dig 1-2 meters in it. Russia actually more exports agricultural production than imports. Of course, the majority of stuff grows along the southern border and in southern regions and some stuff like rice, soy or corn barely grows here at all.

Nomski0: How about vines? Do they grow fruits, especially wine fruits, like grapes and berries?


They're also famous for their Vodka(I heard Russian Vodka is very expensive). How much of the strong drink do they brew per day?

Southern regions like Krasnodar grow grapes and produce wine but its not anything special and everyone prefers foreign made wines like cheap Georgian or more expensive european one. Also pear and apples are widely grown. Southern fruits like pineapples, oranges and bananas are all imported. As for berries we mostly consume wild ones (wild strawberries, blueberries, foxberry, briar or those grown individually like usual strawberries, raspberries, currant and gooseberry. Many people have their individual country houses or relatives with them or village relatives who grow all that stuff.
Also many people enjoy fishing, hunting, and picking mushrooms.

I for example get strawberry and raspberry jam from my grandmother every year, also whenever I visit my relatives from village nearby they give me a bag full of veggies and salted lard from their own pig farm.

As for drinks our vodka isn't really for export, almost all of it is consumed domestically and isn't of high quality. All those russian sounding brands are american, canadian, polish or finnish. Our vodka is cheap, has shit taste and is basically a cheap and safe way to get drunk. Many people from village produce moonshine though, its a lot better usually. My other relatives, now dead unfortunately, used to produce the best moonshine I ever tasted.

The most popular alcohol drink now is beer and also kvas which is basically something like low alcohol bread beer.

How long would it take a non Russian (Nigerian, precisely ) to learn to speak Russian?

Dannylux: How long would it take a non Russian (Nigerian, precisely ) to learn to speak Russian?

No idea.

Nomski0: So lastly, how would you rate their educational system? And their medical schools and nursing schools, how do they work?

Their? Did you mean Russian, Nigerian or what?

Nomski0: I meant that of Russia. Their meaning for them, as in, in Russia.

But you know, I am russian so you should have said "your education system". Whatever.

I don't really have anything to compare with. You come to Russia, you pay, you study and you go back home or something like that. I don't really know any foreigners apart from Kazakhs who are ex-USSR and thus not really foreign. Also the university I am studying in is not a usual place because we only have real scientists teaching us here and not just professors so I cannot speak for other universities. And finally in the recent days government has started reforming education and things are changing rapidly now.

For example in the recent days there were normal universities where they really teach you things and establishments where you pay them money for five years and then they give you a diploma at whatever you were paying for, no matter whether you ever attended lectures and seminars or not. Now government has started a rating of unis and disbands those who rank low so it must be getting better but on the other hand their rank is bullshit since its biased towards economic-oriented unis and many good technical and medical unis have been closed.

So, what I wanted to say is, I have no idea what's going on in the medical education sphere right now.

You're russian? Was thinking You're a Nigerian who lives these, how did you know about Nairaland?