10 facts about Russia

- Vladimir Putin is not the president anymore. In 2008 he became the prime minister and he still is. The current president is Dmitry Medvedev. Mr Medvedev is already using iPad.

- Russia is huge. Bigger that you can imagine. You can take the flight from Moscow and within 10 hours you will be in Thailand. But you can take the different flight from Moscow and within 10 hours you will be still in Russia. Untill the last year our country had 11 time zones. From this year it has only 10.

- Believe me, you will find no bears in the streets with bottles of vodka. And russians are not hard drinkers. We drink like everyone else. Someone more, someone less.

- We’re not saying “Na zdorovie” when we are drinking. It’s a Hollywood myth.

- Moscow is a safe city. And Russia is a safe country. It’s not more dangerous than New York or London. All you have to do – is not to be stupid and go to some areas in the middle of the night where we never go ourselves. Otherwise you will become a victim of a robbery.

- Moscow is more of bussiness city. St-Petersburg is more cultural. If you have time to compare – visit both. If you’re thinking about just one city, start with St- Petersburg. It’s much more beautifull than Moscow.

- Fyodor Dostoevsky is not the best classical russian writer and “Crime and Punishment” is not the best russian book to read. If you want to read real classics, try Anton Chehov. As for “Crime and Punishment” I don’t like it at all. But it has a very good PR in the rest of the world. That’s the reason for the succes. To get a tragic version of humanity you can re-read Dostoevsky... Or spend a week in a provincial russian town!

- Russian cosmonauts do not drink vodka (I’m talking about the “Armageddon” movie). All of them are super healty and very interesting people. I know few guys personaly and can tell you that if you trust “Armageddon” image – it's all fake.

- Russian winters can be really cold. This year we had minus 25 C in Moscow. As for the north part of Russia tempу ture can go down to minus 45 C.

- Russian womуn are sexy and attractive. That’s why so many foreigners were caught in their nets.

If you have any additional questions about Russia, you can ask me. Every week I will answer the most interesing ones.