Russian greetings

You probably have heard that Russians are not friendly. Imagine you see your neighbor – you don’t know the name but you live close and you wanna be nice to him. Would you say “Hello” Or if you enter the elevator with some other person – would you greet him?
For Russians the correct answer for both is “no”, and in elevator you would better pretend the other person just don’t exist.

So why does it go like this. Don’t forget that Russia went through many wars and revolutions during last 100 years. There were times when good friendly manners could tell you belong to different social class – and provoke people into something… And there are situations in Russia – for example, in elevator, when saying “Hi” you will sound impertinent.

Being very friendly in Europe and US and being ignorant for strangers in Russia we are passing the same message:
“I’m no danger for you, see I’m nice”
“I’m no danger for you, I don’t even see you”

Here is a list of most frequent Russian greetings. First list is for you to use.

• Здравствуйте (zdravstvujte) – with someone you don’t know very well, with someone who’s older or has big authority.
• Привет (privet) – with someone you know very well, or the same age
• Добрый день/Доброе утро/Добрый вечер (Dobry den’/Dobroe utro/Dobry vecher) – equal to Good day/Good morning/Good afternoon

Informal greetings, I would not recommend to use them

• ЗдоровО (Zdorovo) – hi
• Даров (Darof) –hi, only on speech
• Приветик (Privetik) – hi
• Приветище (Privetische) – big hi
• Добрутр (Dobrutr) – shortened Good morning
• Бобрутр (Bobrutr) - shortened and funny variant Good morning
• Превед (Preved) – Hi in Padonkoffskiy slang
• Приветствую (Privetstvuyu) – hello, but used in specific situation, and give you a certain image. Old-fasioned word.
• Хай (hi) – actually, a transliteration of english greeting