Things I like about living in Russia: A List in No Particular Order

• Once I've gotten past their serious-faced rarely-smiling exteriors, I've found the Russians I know to be some of the most earnestly friendly people I've ever met. I love my Russian friends.
• The enormous forests of tower blocks that comprise this city make me perpetually feel like I'm walking around on the bottom of the ocean.
• People park anywhere. Literally anywhere. As long as you leave your phone number on your dash you seem to be able to block in as many other cars as you need too. On the sidewalk no less.
• The way people are so often shocked and even oddly grateful that a foreigner from such an exotic place as America (where so much pop culture comes from) not only lives here but is actually interested in everything Russian and LIKES it here. It makes me happy to be able to show half the people I meet that all Americans are not terrible people, and the other half the people I meet that some Americans actually know about and care about Russia.
• Russians applaud in a rhythm after some performances. It really confused me at first. And when a slow song comes on, even at a club, couples often partner dance like twelve-year-olds at a middle school prom. 
• Not understanding what most of the people around me are saying, most of the time. It's actually kind of a relief not having to listen to everyone else's inanities--with that distraction gone I can much more easily listen to my own internal inanities. On the other hand...
• Trying to learn Russian is super fun. It gives me an enormous sense of accomplishment when I splutter through an entire conversation with a taxi driver or stranger, or actually manage to read and understand an entire poster.
• The fact that it's more or less just like living anywhere else, which is relieving in an interesting sense: yes, humans basically are the same everywhere. Not, actually, that surprising. 
• Riding the metro every day. It's dirty and loud, though the stations are extravaganzas of marble and chandeliers and Soviet art. Honestly I think the reason it doesn't get old is that I spent so much of my life in a tiny cornfield town that it's still pretty damn exciting to get on a train.
• Ice skating is a serious thing here. My favorite park now has a rink that's not even just a big space, it is almost trail-like areas that take you to little coffee huts where you can stop and have tea or mulled wine. 
• They have hedgehogs here. Yeah, that's right. HEDGEHOGS.

racism and homophobia. yes, they exist here.

People from home tend to ask: “But isn’t Russia super racist and homophobic? How can you want to live there?”

            And my answer is yes: yes Russia is racist, yes Russia is homophobic, at least to a greater extent than that to which I am accustomed. 

           There are the boys sniggering the “n word” over pictures in our textbooks. There is the boy saying Freddie Mercury died because he was gay. There is one of the summer camp directors banning a group of kids from using Conchita Wurst as their group’s celebrity. There are the two girls in my class reading their speech on immigration in their country: “we have many immigrants, Tajiks, Uzbeks, etc, they are very bad, they look at our women, they rape our women, 80% of crime is these foreigner. Russia would be better with one nationality.” There’s our security guard constantly questioning the presence of our Asian-British teacher. There's the cab company whose mobile app lets you call a "Slavic" driver.

            And to be honest, when I'm not in the mood for eliciting looks of shock and horror I generally tell random strangers that I'm from London. Though when I do cop to California or Florida or general America, after the initial shocked splutter about Obama, sometimes I can find some common ground or at least manage to talk a bit with the stranger, and I like to think that the person might go on to tell other people that today they met an American who was actually a pretty decent human being.

            And for each of these less than pleasant encounters there are an equal number that go: American! You’re American! It is my dream to go to California/Miami/live in New York. It is beautiful? I love America/Americans.

            And despite the overheard homophobic comments there’s also the occasional piece of writing by a student that says: “Conchita Wurst is the coolest, I don’t care if he/she’s a man or a women he/she’s my hero”. There’s the late night conversation with a camp counselor about how the gay night at a club is one of her favorite nights out, that it seems to her there isn’t actually anything wrong with gay people, that they are, in fact, great and should be able to be married or do anything else they want. There’s the fact that the group of kids voted for Conchita as their celebrity symbol in the first place.

            And for every cringingly racist comment that gets flung about in class there is often a counter viewpoint, such as emphatic responses of: “No, no! I don’t agree! Different cultures have good things, we can learn from different peoples. People shouldn’t come to Russia and be bad, but people are good too,” etc. Or I might have a discussion in which I point out that children of gay parents not knowing that they don’t have to be gay too is not one of the arguments that can rationally be used against gay parenting (unless said gay parents are planning to raise their child in a closet, and no one is arguing that that isn’t a bad policy). There is definitely room for dialogue on many occasions.

            And then of course, in spite of it all, there’s the pair of young men scantly-clad in short shorts in the shop, clinging to each other’s necks and giggling, who a dour looking middle-aged man has a perfectly civil conversation with over the frozen fish. Sometimes there’s a lesbian couple, or a mixed race couple, in the park with a baby stroller.  Sure these incidents are vastly fewer and further between than they would be in London, New York or San Francisco, but some of Moscow, at least, is trying.

            Yes Russia has a long way to go, and yes Russia is taking steps back as well as forward, but let’s keep supporting the people here who want more tolerance. And please, let’s keep showing ourselves and the rest of the world what it looks like when people allow more and more equality, in whatever corner of the world we might find ourselves.