Jokes began to be made about Muscovites like Chukchi: six myths about the inhabitants of the capital

A Muscovite inevitably has to face the “capital-periphery” opposition as soon as he gets out of the region. Here he will learn a lot of interesting things about himself. Here are just some of the “near Moscow” myths.

The first one is definitely the main one. Muscovites earn a lot and live richly. Moreover, it is absolutely useless to dissuade the interlocutors, announcing the modest indicators of their budgetary earnings. However, why be surprised? Who are Muscovites in the understanding of the province? These are either the owners of “factories, newspapers, steamboats” who buy up entire resorts and erect high-rise buildings, or loitering tourists who have money for essentially useless mugs with local symbols and fridge magnets. But the idea that in Moscow cafes and souvenir shops in the same way guests from the regions litter with money does not occur to many. Although “rich Muscovites” somewhere in Altai are exactly the same as “rich Russians” in Turkey.

The second myth: Muscovites are stupid. It clearly enters into some contradiction with the first (I wonder how they managed to get rich massively with such mental limitations?), but it is no less widespread. In the capital of one national republic, we were told a whole series of jokes that began with the words: “A Muscovite arrives on a business trip …” This folk hero was distinguished by the ability to always behave as stupidly as possible. By the way, the “life stories” passed down in the regions by word of mouth support this image. For example, Muscovites came on a geological expedition, went on a route, but did not take food with them. They would have died of hunger if not for the locals who fed them buckwheat with stew.

In principle, one can guess what generated this generally incorrect idea. Of course, there are no more and no less fools among Muscovites than among the inhabitants of all other regions. But against the backdrop of difficult living inhabitants of small towns and especially villages, we, of course, look spoiled and not adapted to life. And how can we not relax with such an abundance of amenities and entertainment! So the second myth is not really a myth, only the wording needs to be clarified.

The third myth is the most offensive: Muscovites are selfish and callous people. The illustration most often is the situation when no one on the capital’s street explained to the visitor how to get to the right place. Everyone ran past and waved. Needless to say, callousness has absolutely nothing to do with it?

Firstly, the citizens who fled past might not have been Muscovites at all. We have millions of visitors in our city, and no one has written on their faces when and where they came from. So it’s very likely that when you ask for directions, you won’t run into a single local at all.

By the way, I cannot but note that in the provinces the road is sometimes explained in a very peculiar way. In St. Petersburg, for example, you can be sent to the desired point by two trams, instead of being advised to travel three stops by metro. And in Samara, I was once advised to go “straight and right, without turning anywhere.” But that’s okay.

Secondly, Moscow is so big that in my almost 60 years now and then I find myself in areas where I have never been. And if they ask me, who lives near the Rechnoy Vokzal metro station, how to get somewhere, for example, near Tekstilshchikov, there will definitely be no sense from me.

And in seemingly familiar places there are always a great many unfamiliar objects. A few days ago, a beautiful oriental woman in a long dress and a national headscarf approached me near Mayakovskaya and, to my considerable surprise, asked me how to get to the Sheraton Palace Hotel. The most annoying thing is that I would easily suggest the way to the Museum of Music, and to the Burdenko Medical Center, and to the universities – my native RSUH and Mendeleevka, but the hotel … And what would I do there? Hotels interest me in other cities. And not five stars. So I behaved like a callous Muscovite should: I shook my head and ran on about my urgent business.

In this regard, it is logical to recall the fourth myth: Muscovites are always in a hurry. But this is not a myth at all, but a bitter truth. We live in a city where “an hour before work” is the norm, and not the embodiment of a nightmare, as in small towns. And an hour, of course, not on foot. By the way, visiting friends is usually an hour too. And to relatives for a family celebration – again, an hour. How not to hurry – at such and such distances?

The fifth myth says that Muscovites get up late. Perhaps there is some truth in this, although this statement is unlikely to apply to doctors and nurses, city transport drivers and many other people whose presence at work in the early morning we are accustomed to take for granted. Yes, in Moscow there is a large stratum of those whose “sovism” is reinforced by the peculiarities of their way of life. People of art, programmers, and our teaching brethren are those who really prefer not to get out of bed with the first roosters. And in Moscow, in many public places, the queues grow after 10 am.

But at the same time, Moscow lays down much later than the provinces. Or rather, it doesn’t fit at all. Residents of the capital are in for a culture shock when traveling not only in Russia, but also in some foreign countries, where museums close at 5 pm, shops close at 6-7 pm, and cafes at 9 pm. We are used to the fact that you can eat, get a haircut, swim in the pool, buy food and medicine in the evening and even at night. On the other hand, a phone call at 7 am from a bored relative from the eastern periphery, who already has “lunch soon”, is sometimes very discouraging. This is where we begin to show our notorious callousness.

The sixth myth is close to me, a philologist, professionally. Muscovites shriek. I remember when I flew to Eastern Siberia for student journalism practice and called the editorial office from the airport, I was easily identified by my speech. “Ah, ma-Askvichka!” the editor-in-chief said cheerfully.

At lectures, I tell students that the Moscow dialect formed the basis of Russian literary pronunciation, so akanye is one of the orthoepic norms. Simply akanye is not a clear “a”, but rather a weakening of the “o” in unstressed syllables. And we, Muscovites, do not pronounce “MA-Askva”, opening our mouths wide. It’s just that we and “MO-Oskva” do not speak, unlike the inhabitants of the Russian North. As for other features of pronunciation, they are not very pronounced in our country, because, as I already mentioned, in our city there are millions of people literally from everywhere, and no single Moscow dialect has existed for a long time.

There are, of course, differences at the level of vocabulary. In Moscow, the entrance is not called the “front door”, as in St. Petersburg, but the large room is called the “hall” or “hall”, as in many provincial cities. And many native Muscovites go for a walk not to the Moscow River, but to their native Moskvareka. But these are particulars. But significant differences are still found not between the speech of a Muscovite and, for example, a Voronezh resident, but between the way educated people speak, on the one hand, and uneducated people, on the other: both in Moscow and in any other locality.

In general, Moscow, it seems to me, is the best operating model of the phenomenon that was much talked about and written about in the Soviet years. We were then taught that a new historical community had formed in the USSR—the Soviet people. It allegedly gradually erased national and territorial differences. But why “supposedly”? And today my peers, not only in Russia, but also in the vast post-Soviet space, remember songs about fawn-fawn and a Christmas tree born in the forest, cartoons about Cheburashka and Prostokvashino, jokes about Chapaev and Stirlitz, films by Gaidai and Ryazanov, and Soviet prices: a loaf for 16 kopecks, ice cream for 19 with a buttered rosette …

So, it is Moscow that today preserves with the utmost care the features of this very new historical community. I have lived here since birth. Among my friends are native Muscovites and visitors, Russians and people of other nationalities. Every day I see Uzbek janitors and Moldovan salesmen and I speak Russian with them. I really love my huge, vain, always in a hurry and never sleepy city. And if it did not work out with the Soviet people in the end, then maybe we recognize that we have formed a new historical community – the Moscow people?