Russian Superstitions

1. If you whistle indoors, you will lose all your money. Which is apparently of concern to everyone else as well, because I whistled a little when I came out of the shower once and Lena (host's daughter) came RUNNING, no lie, to tell me that I mustn't whistle in the house. Unfortunately I forget sometimes, but I am working on it.

2. Spiders on the wall mean good luck.  There was one on the wall during class, but I'm not sure yet how luck factors into ethnic studies.

3. It always snows on October 14 (except when it doesn't). The date is always predicted to bring the first snowfall to St. Petersburg. I'm eager to find out if it will be true - let you guys know on Thursday!

4. Don't give someone an even number of flowers, because those are for the dead. I had about eight people remind me of this before I brought five small yellow flowers to the apartment in thanks last month.

5. If you're unmarried, don't sit at the corner of a table or you will stay that way!

6. Speaking of marriages, on some occasions when I pass wedding parties I hear everyone shouting "Gorka, gorka!" and then they count as the bride and groom kiss. I just figured out recently their shouts mean "bitter", and historically (or perhaps still) the guests pretended the wine was bitter and the couple has to kiss as long as possible to make the wine sweeter!

7. Don't get your haircut while a family member is in danger. Historical story- Yeltsin's wife apparently got a haircut to signal to the nation that he was fine after his bypass surgery!

8. Background story: The floor of our school is made of stone, and it gets pretty cold. But there aren't enough chairs/couches for half of us, so sometimes we sit on the floor during lunch or between classes. Once I was sitting on the [cold] floor with several other girls, and one of the Russian women directors came up to us and made us stand up, because she insisted the cold floor would freeze our ovaries. Well anyway, we stood up pretty fast.

These are all the superstitions I have personally come across so far in my semester (or at least the ones I can think of). I have a feeling more are to follow, so keep reading!

До свидания,
Эмили