The Russian Way of Life

In the West such outspokenness is seen as highly offensive, especially from someone you just met. The month I spent in St Petersburg went by in a blur, and by the end I didn't want to leave. It was a strange form of liberation through accepting rejection. As someone who had been starved of this kind of blunt expression most of his life, first by an emotionally repressed family life, then later by a meticulously constructed false display of confidence,. I got drunk on it like, well, like it was the finest damn vodka I'd ever had.