Myths are the feature of all peoples and nations. When one comes for a visit or settles in a foreign country he is usually amazed at how many things appearto be very different from what he has read and heard about this country and the people.

     All nations cultivate most positive myths about themselves. Whereas Russians appear to be a unique nation that seems to agree that they are drunkards, there is mud, filth and collapse everywhere. A famous reference to fools and bad roads, theft in all spheres and that Russia has never had true democracy is heard almost everywhere and are used by western science and press.
There are many more myths and prejudices about Russia, most of which are far from the truth.

     A professional historian, professor and State Duma deputy Vladimir Medinsky is trying to find out what historical and social background of these myths is, who is responsible for their appearance and if this is really true.

Vladimir Medinsky is the author of the book "Myths about Russia: Russian hard drinking, idleness and cruelty" and a book ""Myths of Russia: Abbot Russian slavery, filth and a prison for other nations". His colleagues and he created "Myths of Russia" - a 12-series documentary of Russian TV that is dedicated to this topic.
Based on sociological inquiries and statistics authors found out 12 most popular myths about Russia that include: myth of filth and hard drinking, myth of Russian laziness, myth about cruelty and murderous deeds in Russian history, myth about obedience and long-suffering of Russians, myth about Russian nationalism, myth about traditional Russian theft in all spheres, myth of the Soviet Union , myth of mysterious Russian soul, myth of technical, technological and scientific regress in Russia and others.

     Speaking about notorious Russian laziness, people are used to refer to Russian folklore (A fairy take about Emelya, who had the pike do everything for him. Tale about Illya Mutomets who was lying on he stove for 33 years), classical literature ("Oblomov", etc) and everyday experience - for example seasonality of farming that determined annual activities.
This is the top of the iceberg though, because if we take fairy tale characters, Illya Mutomets was in fact paralyzed in his childhood and treated himself with herbs, as for Emelya, he had some sort of mental disease. Interpretation of classical literature was for long time engaged by the Soviet ideology emphasizing that all aristocracy were lazy fellows.

Some Russian historians, as Soloviev and Kluchevshy insisted on seasonal activity of Russian farmers, that farmed for short time and lied on the stove doing nothing for the rest of winter. Due to severe climate in Russia there has been little time left to sow and collect harvest - 3 month in total as opposed to 6 month in Europe. In fact Russian peasants left villages for seasonal work during winter time and made future kulaks, merchants and manufactures.

Another source for myth about Russian laziness is "travel notes" of first foreign visitors and reemigrants from Russia dated 15-16th centuries. They all emphasized abundance and cheapness of food, which created an image of land flowing with milk and honey, where people do not have to work hard because the land is huge, has thick forests full of furs and game all coming into one's hands.
In fact the God and Fate granted Russia very strict natural conditions - little fertile land with mainly rock and sand, continuous invasions, severe climate with shirt summer. For example the annual temperature difference in Yakutsk, a city built by Ural kazaks and is inhabited by 300 thousand people is 100 degrees centigrade. This made Russians work all the time to be able to survive, populate, create colossal kingdom, consolidate and fortify it among the 3 oceans. Russians had to toil to restore the country after the WWII which was mainly on the territory of Russia.

Russians have never been actually lazy, there are some other aspects that affected this image and caused such laziness and indifference to own work:
Best qualities and diligence in Russian farmers were destroyed by slavery till 1861, reforms of Peter The Great, dispossession of the kulaks in 1930th which actually meant that hard work had to be punished and by actual slavery for collective farmer (kolkhoznik) during the Soviet time (till 1950).
Lots of efforts were in vain when huge construction was stopped and another one started suring the Soviet times, when having own legal business was hardly possible, when in 1960-70th University students were sent to dig potatoes every September and professors to sort out vegetable at storehouses. Such contempt to intellectuals generated indifference.

     Medinsky thinks that Russian hard drinking is also a myth. Russians are no different from other nations when it comes to alcohol. Mass alcohol drinking in Russia stared after the WWII and was caused by great stress, front habit to have 100 grams. It was the time after Great patriotic war when Russians started to belt down.

Even nowadays Russians are not most drinking nation (Russia takes 12th position according to the United Nations statistics). Vodka was introduced to Russia in 15 and invented in Europe. So the saying that vodka is Russian drink and even Mendeleev invented it is also a myth. Traditional Russian drinks were med, braga, beer- all the drinks lower then 40 degrees. That is why it did not sound ridiculous when Illia Myroments and Dobrynya Nikitich, the fairy tales heroes could drink a bucket of braga and did not get drunk.

Historic documents show that Russia did not experience a problem of hard drinking till 15th century and it did not know vodka, which was brought here by Italian merchants. An intersecting illustration is that state politics of that time was to ban alcohol sale in Moscow except for the areas where foreigners lived. It originated a name of one area in Moscow "Nalivayka".

Spread in the 17th century hard drinking still did not become everywhere habit. It was encouraged by Peter the Great who liked to drink himself and then Ekaterina the Great who said that "Drunk Russians are easier to rule".
It is worth mentioning that until 19th century one could not buy vodka and other alcohol drinks anywhere except pubs (kabak) and there were very few professional drunkards.

One of the reasons why such myth appeared is during the Soviet time drinking gained a very positive even romantic attitude to it and became a part of culture. This is proved by a great number of anecdotes, films, fun storied about people that decided to take a drink and what fun they had afterwards. The cult movie "S legkim parom" (Hope you enjoyed your bath!) is a vivid example. It was a sphere of life where people felt free from the Soviet rule. Russians approach drinking as a process, an excuse to get together, relax and feel fun and strong and still like to joke about it.
It is however changing with the time due to national policy, propaganda, limit to alcohol ads and commercials, and a new image of Russians.

     To speak about unprecedented cruelty of Russian history and support this myth one has to firstly refer to real historical facts and compare them with world history.

Let's bring up extermination of millions of Indians in North America, genocide of Australian aborigines; slave-trade that cost 10 thousands lives to Africa, deaths of millions of people in British India at the end of the 18th century and in Belgian Congo at the end of the 19th century.

The heritage of Great Roman Empire is the idea of civil rights for all citizens, fine inventions, Latin, which was the international language for centuries since then and also the slavery with its gladiatorial fights, sales of slaves, harassing labor and deaths.

Why don't we study most ancient historical and literary sources that appeared almost at the same time: German The Song of the Nibelungs ("Das Nibelungenlied"), Spanish "The Song of My Cid" ("El cantar de Mio Sid") , French "The song of Roland" ( La Chanson de Roland), Scandinavian sagas. The plot of all of them is based on war and fight with enemies. Poetic lines narrate of coolly attacks, robbery, killing children and women and rivers of blood that warriors drink to quench the thirst.
One can never find detailed description of bloody fights and violence especially towards women and children in Russian epos (Bylina). The exception is bylina about princess Olga, who revenged for the death of her husband, prince Igor in a very cruel manner. But one has to take into account that Olga was Varangian princess, not originally Russian.

Now - Medieval history, which itself sounds as an excuse to inhumane acts of European governors, crusades, inquisition, religious wars and horrible tortures. Russian Middle ages did not experience such brutality.

Ivan Grozny (Ivan the Terrible) has an image of inveterate murderer. By the way "Grozny" is usually translated as "Cruel", which is absolutely wrong from the linguistic view point.
However one has to recall world history and mention the king Genrih VIII executed 70 thousands of his nationals and ordered to annihilate 30 thousand people during one massacre of St. Bartholomew. Historians that make a thorough analysis of the period of reign of Ivan Grozny come to conclusion that he was one of most humane ruler.
Still Russian are ashamed of Ivan Grozny as the most cruel governor and forget that at the end of his life he confessed his sins, sent lists of his victims to the monasteries and families of the executed (so they became available), and granted huge financial compensations; assigned monks to pray for the killed people and repented till the end of his life.
No European ruler acted this way. There are no historical facts for example that Cromvel was pity about that he simply cut out half of the Irish in order to suppress the revolt in 1649. And still there is a monument devoted to Crionvel near the British parliament.

Russia never had 1/10 of ways of executions and torture Europe used. Russians never had it as a good manner to know the names of hangers, give affectionate names to gallows. They never treated public executions as attractions or turn them into festivals and make children watch them as Europeans did. Russians think that if a person enjoys other's sufferings, he is truly sick.
Britain of the 19th century offered such strange entertainment: noble gentlemen took their ladies to prisons to watch how hookers are flogged.
You can not find in Russia a single museum of torture so numerous in Europe. Russians never had anything resembling to cu clux clan or hangings by a mob according to Lynch verdict.
Besides, Russian wars were mainly defensive, not aggressive ones.

It would be wrong to say that Russian history is a smooth and peaceful. It had a lot of tragic and cruel episodes like Turkish war, revolution in the 20th century and the civil war, collectivization, famine, political repressions Great Patriotic War , after war repressions, ets.
The myth of bloody deeds and cruelty of Russian rulers since the time of Mongol- Tatar yoke is very firm because for many years this myth was confirmed by Russian historiographs. It is very typical for new Russian rulers to slander the previous ones if only there were not relatives. The Romanovs acted this way toward Rurikovichi and each other. Fro example Ekaterina created a myth that her husband was mentally retarded, Alexander spread same rumors about his father Pavel. Bolsheviks perverted the Russian history for the last 400-500 years in the awful way to justify their government.
Unlike Europeans and Americans that do not like discussing the ugly sides of their governors and society , Russians willingly speak bad about themselves. Russian historians often moralize and condemn governors and this greatly supports the myth of cruel and bloody history. However even few historical facts mentioned above prove this is wrong.

One can find much more historical facts, statistics and in information, meditation and analysis regarding other myths about Russia in Medinsky's books and probably reconsider the attitude to this country that is still mysterious and incomprehensible for many.

Based on "Myths about Russia: Russian hard drinking, idleness and cruelty" by Vladimir Medinsly

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