Why is Russia so weird?

Because you come from a place that is very unlike Russia.

Weird is about context. I dated a girl from Russia. She grew up near Moscow. “Near” being about one hundred miles East. Where I grew up, if you went 100 miles in any direction, you cross a State or even a National border.

You want weird? The look she gave me the first time she saw me eating icecream, outside, in the middle of winter, with knee-deep snow…oy. She thought I was crazy. But that’s perfectly normal where I grew up.

Russians have “weird” tea, in that they prepare it with a samovar, instead of a kettle. Once I understood how it worked, I really liked it. I like my tea strongish, she liked hers light, and we could get that from the same batch because of the samovar. [I’ve been told by a ton of Russians that samovars aren’t so common anymore. My girlfriend and another Russian-American friend both used one, so I thought they were more common than they are.]

Russians have this “weird” thing where they can make almost any name or noun a diminutive. For example, DShK becomes Dushka, which roughly means “Heavy Machinegunkins”. They called their first real MLRS Katyusha, which is roughly “Katykins”. I find this hilarious and delightful.

They also can do this “weird” thing with “mat”, where they can, through joining roots, turn almost every word of a sentence into a swear. Like “Abso-fucking-lutely”, but for every word! Weird, sure, but also neat if crude.

Are Russians weird? Eh. Maybe? Personally, I’m quite fond of Russians. They’re an interesting people with a fascinating history.

Weird is relative.