3 ms·

Why would you expect it to be exotic? Russia is not Asia culturally, it's not East in any way except for geography.

• nraynaud 13y ago
  Their traditional architecture is way different than the ones from Prague or Paris, they have a different traditional religion, they have been isolated from the western world for 80 years. But I don't know their culture well enough to know what would be typical and different from the west. I would not try to generalize Asia anyways, because Siberia, Saudi Arabia, India and Japan are all there and all completely different.
  • cema 13y ago
    St Petersburg was built as a European imperial city, and architecturally it is still very much that. (Outskirts are different, just like in Paris.) Religion (Orthodox Christianity) and script (Cyrillic) are different from the Western and Central Europe, true, but culturally it's a vibrant mix of different European and different Asian (especially Central Asian) influences. The isolation you mentioned did happen but it was not total, and I would say in some respects (especially scientific) there was less isolation then than, say, before the XIX century.