Stereotypes of Russians

Stereotypes of Russians include actual or imagined characteristics of Russians used by people who view Russians as a single and homogeneous group.

These stereotypes in popular culture reflect increasing Russophobia.

Common stereotypes
Russians are often characterized as being grim and stoic. While smiling is seen as an obligatory gesture of friendliness in Western countries, smiling at a stranger in Russia is regarded as insincere and is reserved for close friends.

Vodka
Vodka is Russia's national alcoholic drink, and the country leads the world in vodka consumption per capita, and so Russians are viewed as drinking vodka on a daily basis or in heavy doses. Vodka has been blamed for 8,000 alcohol related deaths in Russia.

Communism
The emergence of the Soviet Union as the world's first nominally Communist state has led to a lasting association of Communism with Russia, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation remains the second-largest political party in Russia. Russians are often stereotyped as holding nostalgia for the Soviet Union; a 2018 poll showed that 66% of Russians regretted the fall of the Soviet Union.

Russians are also stereotyped as addressing each other as "comrade" (товарищ). The term has a long-lasting association with Communism after the Bolsheviks began using it to address those sympathetic to the revolution and the Soviet state. By the mid-1920s, the term had become commonplace in the Soviet Union, used indiscriminately similar to the words "Mister" and "Sir" in English. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the term has still been used as a standard term of address in the Russian Armed Forces and Police of Russia.

Mysterious nature
Many Russian authors, such as Nikolai Gogol, Leo Tolstoy, and Fyodor Dostoevsky have discussed the concept of the "mysterious Russian soul" in their writings. Winston Churchill famously described Russia as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." Russia's mysterious nature also stems from the fact that a large majority of Russia is uninhabited wilderness.

In pop culture
Since the times of the Cold War, the Soviet Union, and later Russia are the traditional antagonists of the United States, which affects the stereotypes of Russians in American popular culture.

Women
In Cold War spy fiction, Russian women are often depicted as beautiful, seductive, and deadly spies.