I've worked and lived in Moscow much longer than probably everyone on this list, I arrived 19 September 1990, I worked for the US State Department at the Embassy until Sept 1994, worked in the private sector in Moscow, married a lovely Russian woman in 1994 and now we operate our own business in Moscow ..... there ARE many things about Russia, the Russian people and the Russian culture that I actually love AND there are, of course, especially to us westerners, many things that we have a very difficult time accepting and dealing with. I also do not understand the attitudes of Russian employees in restaurants, stores, coffee shops and so on, I decided many years ago that it was of no productive nature to try to understand these attitudes of the employees and so I no longer make the effort. When they perform poorly or withhold change as has happened to you, I simply don't tip AT ALL. I usually get the evil eye the next time, but if the employee has a decent learning curve, he / she provides better, acceptable service then I tip and attempt to be as pleasant with them as far as they are pleasant with me. They do seem to love to deride us, especially Americans (holdover from the "Cold War", probably), yet make no effort to rise to the occasion. Nevertheless, Moscow and Russia is more than half of my life, I have a wonderful Russian wife, we have a son together, run our family business from Moscow and split our time between Moscow and the US. I am inextricably locked into this culture and try to make the best of it for my own sanity, for my wife's personal feelings and to impart on our son a sense of parity, equality and fairness, albeit seemingly often lop sided. Just my humble comments. Bill B
2009/3/17 peter stark <[email protected]> > Of course, Moscow restaurants are abominable, but I've discovered a new > low. > > I've forgotten the name...it's a French bakery-cum-restaurant chain and > this particular > one is on the corner of Novi Arbat and the Kelso U-turn...on the right > side. > > Since I now walk about 2 km mid-mornings, I've decided to make a stopover > at this place (chiefly because they had a really nice washroom). So, the > first time, the check came to > 365 Ru and the waitress blithely gives me back 130 from my 500 Ru note. I > asked: "where > is the other 5 rubles?" It took three move queries before she finally > brought me about 5 of those miniscule coins. I left that plus a 30 ruble > tip. > > Next day, I came in again. This time a splurged and the check came to 835 > Ru. For my > 1000 Ru note I got back 160 Ru--again she (more probably--the restaurant) > swallowed > my 5 rubles. Now I was fuming. I asked a neighbour-guest to tell the > waitress that, unless > they gave me my 5 rubles, I would not be coming back anymore. The waitress > had nothing > to say. Obviously, it was restaurant policy to grab the 5 rubles for every > check as all prices > ended up with it. WHAT AN OUTRAGEOUSLY STUPID THING TO DO! > > Restaurants the world over spend thousands trying to entice customers and > here's an idiot owner/criminal/manager who goes out of his/her way to spit > in the customer's eye. I fail > to understand it lest it falls under a suspicion of mine: in my 5 years > here I have learned > that the Russians' greatest pleasure is in "THE TRANSMISSION OF MISERY". > > What a sadly infected mind they have! > > Peter > > Oh yes, one other thing: the sheer stupidity of the waitress is not to be > over-looked. > Had she kept a roll of 5 ruble pieces and given one to me, I probably > would've left > a 50 ruble tip. One would think that she would've known that since I had > been there > the day before... >
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