What do I hate most about living in Russia? Is it the long, grim winter? Is the failure of democracy and the eclipse of liberal values? Is it the post-Soviet harship and suffering I see all around me?

No, it’s the queue-barging. I really, really hate the queue-barging.

For the English, an orderly queue is a thing of holy reverence. It is an indication of social deceny, of the ability of people to organize themselves in a calm and stable fashion, without the interference of the state or outbreaks of random violence. It is an expression of liberal democracy at work. If you queue-barge in England, you feel the full force of English disapproval – vicious tut-tutting, nasty stares, or even the terrifying ‘excuse me, mate, there’s a queue you know!’

In Russia, all is chaos. There I am in McDonalds, and I’m queuing up right behind the person being served, and then just as that person departs with his Big Tasty burger, some woman appears at my left and she gets served first! And I don’t know who to get angry with more – the woman for blatantly queue-barging, or the dumb McDonald’s assistant for blatantly not observing the proper queue order. And I splutter and say ‘Smotrite, ect ochered, vi znaete, ect pravila obshectva, ect prilichnoct, ect...ect...’ But you just end up sounding like a naive Englishman, because this is post-Soviet Moscow, and when it comes to queuing, anything goes.

The queue-barging is just part of that general trend, the famous Russian rudeness, which strikes so many tourists when they visit these fair parts. I meet it so often I’m used to it now, but it still shocks visiting friends and relatives.I remember my poor grandmother being barked at in the Marinsky Theatre for wearing her coat (it was mid-Winter). ‘Nelzya!’ snapped the hatchet-faced crone, as she practically pulled the coat off my 75-year-old grandmother. That was the defining memory of the trip for my grandparents.

Why this rudeness? You could point to historical causes. It goes all the way back, one could argue, to Rousseau, who had such a huge influence on Russian culture. Rousseau was the first to set up a major philosophical critique of French politesse. As a result perhaps of his own social awkwardness, he championed sincerity over manners, straight-talking over belles-lettres. This was picked up by both the Germans and the Russians, those two late-blooming nations, as they struggled to define themselves against French civilization. While before, both Germans and Russians had felt themselves to be social boors in comparison to the exquisitely-polite and witty French, after Rousseau and the Romantic Revolution, both Germans and Russians prided themselves on their boorishness, because this was a sign of their soulful depth, their spiritual freedom from deadening social norms.

Rudeness and disregard for social niceties became, in the Russian generation of the 1860s, a sign of political radicalism. Previous generations had prided themselves on their civility, even if they were violent revolutionaries like Herzen or Bakunin. And then this new generation appeared, the fore-runners of the Bolsheviks, for whom all politeness and decorum was simply sentimental old world bunk. You called a spade a spade.

Turgenev was one of the first to recognize this. Take this scene from Fathers and Sons (1861), in which the old-world country squire Pavel Petrovich clashes with the abrupt utilitarian commoner, Evgeny Bazarov:

"Have you such a high opinion of Germans?" asked Pavel Petrovich with exaggerated politeness. He was beginning to feel a concealed irritation. Bazarov's complete nonchalance disgusted his aristocratic nature. This surgeon's son was not only self-assured, he even answered abruptly and unwillingly and there was something coarse and almost insolent in the tone of his voice.

"Their scientists are a clever lot."

"Ah, yes. I expect you hold a less flattering opinion about Russian scientists."

"Very likely."

"That is very praiseworthy self-denial," said Pavel Petrovich, drawing himself up and throwing back his head. "But how is it that Arkady Nikolaich was telling us just now that you acknowledge no authorities? Don't you even believe in them?"

"Why should I acknowledge them, or believe in them? If they tell me the truth, I agree--that's all."

"And do all Germans tell the truth?" murmured Pavel Petrovich, and his face took on a distant, detached expression, as if he had withdrawn to some misty height.

"Not all," answered Bazarov with a short yawn, obviously not wanting to prolong the discussion.

Pavel Petrovich looked at Arkady, as if he wanted to say, "How polite your friend is."

"As far as I'm concerned," he began again with some effort, "I plead guilty of not liking Germans. There's no need to mention Russian Germans, we all know what sort of creatures they are. But even German Germans don't appeal to me. Formerly there were a few Germans here and there; well, Schiller for instance, or Goethe--my brother is particularly fond of them--but nowadays they all seem to have turned into chemists and materialists..."

"A decent chemist is twenty times more useful than any poet," interrupted Bazarov.

"Oh, indeed!" remarked Pavel Petrovich, and as if he were falling asleep he slightly raised his eyebrows. "So you don't acknowledge art?"

"The art of making money or of advertising pills!" cried Bazarov, with a contemptuous laugh.

"Ah, just so; you like joking, I see. So you reject all that Very well. So you believe in science only?"

"I have already explained to you that I don't believe in anything; and what is science--science in the abstract? There are sciences, as there are trades and professions, but abstract science just doesn't exist."

"Excellent. Well, and do you maintain the same negative attitude towards other traditions which have become generally accepted for human conduct?"

"What is this, a cross-examination?" asked Bazarov.

[...]

Pavel Petrovich rose from his seat. "Yes," he said, without looking at anyone; "it's sad to have lived like this for five years in the country, far from mighty intellects! You turn into a fool straight away. You try not to forget what you have learned--and then one fine day it turns out to be all rubbish, and they tell you that experienced people have nothing to do with such nonsense, and that you, if you please, are an antiquated old simpleton. What's to be done? Obviously young people are cleverer than we."

Pavel Petrovich turned slowly on his heels and went out; Nikolai Petrovich followed him.

"Is he always like that?" Bazarov coolly asked Arkady directly the door had closed behind the two brothers.

"I must say, Evgeny, you were unnecessarily rude to him," remarked Arkady. "You hurt his feelings."

"Well, am I to humor them, these provincial aristocrats? Why, it's all personal vanity, smart habits, and foppery. He should have continued his career in Petersburg if that's his turn of mind . . . But enough of him!

This radical pride in abruptness and straight-talking was picked up the Bolsheviks and institutionalized. They oversaw a complete proletariatization of society – not just in economic relations, but in manners, in how ordinary people related to each other.

Both the old aristocracy and the intelligentsia were swept away, and with them all the social norms and manners they had built up over centuries. In their place was Stalin’s New Man – supposedly a modern hero of altruism and industrial energy, but in practice, more often like the loutish Sharikov in Bulgakov’s Heart of a Dog:

Meanwhile Sharikov had stretched out his hand towards the decanter and, with a sideways glance at Bormenthal, poured himself out a glassful. 'You should offer it to the others first,' said Bormenthal.

'Like this - first to Philip Philipovich, then to me, then yourself.'

A faint, sarcastic grin nickered across Sharikov's mouth and he poured out glasses of vodka all round.

'You act just as if you were on parade here,' he said.

'Put your napkin here, your tie there, "please", "thank you", "excuse me" - why can't you behave naturally? Honestly, you stuffed shirts act as if it was still the days of tsarism.'

'What do you mean by "behave naturally"?'

Sharikov did not answer Philip Philipovich's question, but raised his glass and said: 'Here's how...'

'And you too,' echoed Bormenthal with a tinge of irony.

Sharikov tossed the glassful down his throat, blinked, lifted a piece of bread to his nose, sniffed it, then swallowed it as his eyes filled with tears.

The 1980s and 1990s were even worse, from the perspective of civility. What was the point of being civil? The most loutish people did best – look at Yeltsin. Young, thuggish punks were becoming billionaires over night. You had to stick your elbows out sharply, and take what you could get.

I think the rudest people I meet now are Russian women over 50. They have the worst of it – the bad Soviet manners, plus the aggressiveness and bitterness of the 1990s.

Civility is growing in Russia. It’s connected to the growth of liberal capitalism. Civility has always been connected to liberalism, and anti-liberal ideologies like communism or Cynicism have always been connected with intentional incivility. As capitalism grows in Russia, we are already seeing civility grow too. It begins with consumer power, with the demand for helpful and polite service. If companies and their employees continue to be rude and unhelpful, people just go elsewhere. Many Moscow journalists used to go to Prime for lunch on Kamergersky Pereulok, despite the chronic rudeness of its staff. Now Pyat Zvezd has opened, where they are slightly more polite, so everyone goes there instead.

It also begins with corporate governance – with the idea of the market punishing those businessmen who behave badly, and rewarding those who behave with propriety. The business class in Russia is the new bearer of western manners and social norms into Russia, because they are the ones who network most in the West, and have to learn how to be polite, how to dress, how to give Power Point presentations, all those social niceties that business people in London or New York observe so well, even as they stab you in the back.

But you know, it doesn’t always hurt foreigners, particularly over-polite Englishmen, to spend some time amid the bracing incivility of Russia. Living here has really taught me to better express my emotions, so that if someone is rude to me, I’m rude to them right back. I go back to England, and the rituals of politeness there seem torturous. I watch my family at Christmas, and they treat each other with all the decoroum and reserve of complete strangers. Drink some vodka, I think to myself, loosen up a bit.

Julian Evans, a British freelance journalist based in Moscow.

February 2, 2007