A Russian's Guide To Happiness

What can the rest of the world learn from Russians about happiness?

Russian is the happiness of family and friends. If you have these people around you, that's happiness.

Is the stereotype of Russians being unhappy true?

Russian people, they know about happiness in the world, but there's a lot of grief, and there's a lot of unhappiness as well. You have to focus on the unhappiness because there is a lot of it. How do you say? There is a lot and happiness is very small. We treasure it. Yes.

How is a Russian's perspective on happiness different from a Westerner's?

The reason why we feel different happy is because we have different lives. We have hard work, long hours, less money, and very bad winters, where it's cold, very cold. So the happy is very small. So it's different from America. America is very light and happy, and very peppy. So, I don't know. That is the difference for Russia happy and America happy.

Why do Russians have a different view of happiness?

Americans think that happiness is very Disney-like, very romantic happiness...happiness cannot be bought with money. In Russia, it can be. Very much so. I mean, many people in Russia will be so happy if you just buy them some food. And that's great. Here, if you buy food, it's not like, no one is that happy. Because you have to have a degree in something.

Do you consider yourself happy?

I'm really, really happy. Very happy. Just ask my friends... I'm really happy. I know. You know I'm very happy. Everything in my life is perfect, everything's perfect.