Ah cool, I was torn between staying in Moscow or SpB. Settled on SpB because it seems more balanced and cultural but I still intend to visit Moscow and Kazan if I can.
I think a major reason people negatively judge Russia is that they fret too much over corruption and over-estimate its effect, imagining people living in constant fear. I can't speak from personal experience (never been outside Aus/NZ), but I suspect that corruption is simply the status quo in many countries as it's just the way things are done and people accept it. If you live in India, you probably have to pay off people every now and then in order to get things done. Sure it's not ideal, but I imagine it's no biggie for the most part. Of course, if you're a foreigner, it's much harder to know how to play the game. I guess it's just something you have to learn, just as you'd have to learn how much to tip a waiter if you go to America.
I'm kinda curious about the political opinions of Russians and I've been trying to gauge them from reading Russian forums etc. But at the same time, I think it's probably sensible not to discuss politics while I'm over there.
Haha, from what I've heard, I don't have high expectations of Russian food... dill on everything and spices on nothing! But I might be pleasantly surprised. After all, I've cooked solyanka and shchi and liked both.
Haha, my brother said the same thing
Yeah, I'm not too worried as I've studied French and Latin, so I should be mostly ok with the grammar.
Though I've actually heard from a few people that the learning curve becomes a fair bit steeper after a couple of years. I remember seeing some meme about it somewhere. I'm trying to find it, but all I can turn up is
this 