Does Russia have a good physics program

[relativelyslow]

hola. i have inquiries about inhabiting russia. does russia have a strong physics orientation (are there many research or physics opportunites)? is there anything in particular that would deter me from living there (ubiquitous poverty, evil tyrants, terrorism, bad things...)? i think it would be pretty cool to live there but i don't know much about the living conditions. ok. i hope someone is able to respond to this.

 

[Andy]

I heard that its quite cold in russia.

 

[PerennialII]

hola. i have inquiries about inhabiting russia. does russia have a strong physics orientation (are there many research or physics opportunites)? is there anything in particular that would deter me from living there (ubiquitous poverty, evil tyrants, terrorism, bad things...)? i think it would be pretty cool to live there but i don't know much about the living conditions. ok. i hope someone is able to respond to this.

Well, I'm next door so can give some general pointers : great minds, theoretically extremely high level of research, lousy resources, overall living conditions under what we comfy westerner's have gotten used to, wouldn't get lost at he streets after nightfall and cheap, the original, vodka.

 

[relativelyslow]

what "comforts" would be lacking? on the converse, are there any particularly good things about russia?

 

[wasteofo2]

Most of the media is State-run, Putin recently abolished the people's rights to vote for local governors and representatives in Russian Parlaiment, and he now appoints both. The State is also moving to control larger and larger parts of their oil industry, and many other industries, as well as regain spheres of influence in former Soviet States.

 

[Smurf]

Well, one advantage to living in Russia is you tend to pick up russian after a while, which means you could read the original works of Doyestovesky (however you spell his name) and Bakunin. And I personally think russian food is quite good, others don't share my opinion on that.

I heard that its quite cold in russia.

how'd I know that would be the first response

 

[PerennialII]

what "comforts" would be lacking? on the converse, are there any particularly good things about russia?

The overall standard of living doesn't match that of the western countries ... so people in average have to come by with a whole lot less and in a whole lot harsher conditions. What the place lacks in heat is typically compensated by the Russian people.

 

[Smurf]

What the place lacks in heat is typically compensated by the Russian people.

*hint hint* *nudge nudge*

 

[stoned]

Russia,great country ! living there for us from the west is cheap.Great people, very warm, and very smart!
Russia has more hot women/men than any other country!

 

[ek]

WHY would you want to live in Russia?

Gives me the creeps just thinking about the place.

Russia is like China, great place to visit, horrible place to live.

 

[Pengwuino]

Russia,great country ! living there for us from the west is cheap.Great people, very warm, and very smart!
Russia has more hot women/men than any other country!

Why in the world would you say such a thing. Sure your money can get you a lot more but there isnte xactly things available to you. Plus the government might just decide to make you go 'missing' outa nowhere. Oh and stay away from Chechnya less you live your life in fear (its basically Israel/Palestine but worse with little to no media coverage)

 

[stoned]

Plus the government might just decide to make you go 'missing' outa nowhere.

Whaaaaat?
You guys get caught in White House rhetoric about Russia and how bad is Putin.
Think for your self and don't repeat anti russian propaganda.

 

[Pengwuino]

haha a professor of mine had a friend who up adn went missing in Russia. He also visited russia and the satellite states after the soviet union collapsed and he said it was a sad sight to see. Plus of course there's multiple experts from around the world who know what the still-living KGB do.

Guess you can't help but listen to your communist rhetoric :). I mean hell haha, Russia has no idea what free press is all about. Anyone hear what Putin said a few weeks ago about being upset that Bush forced dan rather off the air and how he fired those CBS employees? I mean come on, a head of state doesn't even understand how freedom of the press works in the US... how well off can you be :)

 

[Data]

Russia isn't that bad. I would never want to live in Moscow, of course, but the country itself is very nice. You just have to get used to long train rides if you want to get anywhere.

The quality of life does vary A LOT, though, from place-to-place. Moscow is one of the most expensive places in the world to live, while even in smaller cities the prices drop to less than half of western standards, and outside of cities they can be more than twenty times lower. The average income drops even faster, though, accounting for the lower quality of life. Despite this almost everyone manages to have a cellphone (it really confused me when I was there).

I was actually only an hour or so away from that high school that got captured over the summer. It was a little nerveracking being to close to something that might be called a warzone. A couple of weeks after I left an airplane was bombed leaving one of the cities I visited. Glad I took the train.

As others have mentioned, the people are unbelievably welcoming. Except for "taxi" drivers (not that most of them are any more than people trying to earn extra money. They get pretty annoying, though). But you get used to them too.

Edit: I will note that I agree with everyone else than Putin is definitely a big disadvantage. It is a REALLY big country, though.

 

[stoned]

Freedom of press in US is not so free afterall,every major news paper repeats WH view without any criticizm.And TV is even worst,tried ever to watch those idiots on FOX TV?
Russia is evolving slowly after decades of communism, it takes time to achieve what west has build over the centuries.

 

[cronxeh]

It highly depends on the region. If you plan on living in Moscow and attending their most prestige university - Moscow State University - then you'll be living in a very expensive city, with some of the biggest losers in Russia (humanwise), and in a city that is basically like Chicago.

If you want to 'experience' the simple life, go visit one of those smaller cities in Russia and attend technical colleges there. I can give you a list, but you'll have to know Russian fluently - local public outside of Moscow is not very friendly towards foreigners, and even if you have a slight accent there will be raised eyebrows

 

[Pengwuino]

Freedom of press in US is not so free afterall,every major news paper repeats WH view without any criticizm.And TV is even worst,tried ever to watch those idiots on FOX TV?
Russia is evolving slowly after decades of communism, it takes time to achieve what west has build over the centuries.

Do you even live in the US?? Do you even read hte newspapers? I haven't heard one good thing in the last 5 years about the Bush presidency coming out of the Washington Post or LA times (tens of millions of subscribers too). Do you live your screen name or something?

As far as Russia goes, id love to take train rides if the trains are close to what they are in the US. As far as the terrorist attacks go, what really troubles me is how the entire western media covers such stories. A few bombs go off in madrid or a bomb goes off (well during election months it was like this) in iraq and its plastered on the news for weeks. Then you have hundreds of children die in Russia or airplanes blowing up or terrorists taking over a threatre and the western media covers it for about 2 or 3 days. Everyone beraits the US media's FOX news but they were one of hte only news networks really interested in that school attack... or at least what i was seeing by flipping around. Was anyone watching that go down on other networks (it was like 3am... but hell it was summer so i didnt have anything to do hehe)?

 

[Data]

The trains are just fine. In one of them, I had a television for the whole ride, playing movies (in Russian of course, but that's no problem!). When I said long, though, I meant LONG. My longest ride was thirty hours, but the trans-siberian express takes more than two weeks to complete its route (I was only going a pitiful sixteen hundred miles or so). People there regard a 10 hour drive the same way that I regard a two hour drive.

I've actually never noticed Russian events underpublicized. Fox is a really horrible news station, by the way.

 

[relativelyslow]

thats a really long train ride. are there stops or is it continuous? i ask about russia because i think the language is really cool and at college it would be awesome to take a semester abroad there. plus, I am wondering if there is any alternative to the united states. are there any freedoms that would be stifled there? i mean, other than the lessened commodities, what would be the most drastic change in lifestyle?

 

[physicsuser]

hola. i have inquiries about inhabiting russia. does russia have a strong physics orientation (are there many research or physics opportunites)? is there anything in particular that would deter me from living there (ubiquitous poverty, evil tyrants, terrorism, bad things...)? i think it would be pretty cool to live there but i don't know much about the living conditions. ok. i hope someone is able to respond to this.

It depends on where exactly in Russia. Western Russian, ie Moscow and St. Petersburg, is expensive and living condition are just as good as in any other western city. On the other hand the farther east you go the worse it gets. Russian is not a city. It spans 11 time zones. So what you can expect from Russian differs from time zone to time zone.

 

[Smurf]

I thought the russian terrorist attacks got a lot more media coverage than the bombs in madrid and paris.

 

[brewnog]

The UK media seemed to give marginally more column inches and TV coverage to the Russian school incident than the Madrid train bombings.

 

[wasteofo2]

Freedom of press in US is not so free afterall,every major news paper repeats WH view without any criticizm.And TV is even worst,tried ever to watch those idiots on FOX TV?

I'm sure Bush would love that if it were true, but in America, the media is almost always critical of everything George Bush does.

Whaaaaat?
You guys get caught in White House rhetoric about Russia and how bad is Putin.
Think for your self and don't repeat anti russian propaganda.

The White House and George Bush are actually very nice to Putin and consider him an important ally, and generally are very reserved about any criticisms of him. When they speak about things they want Putin to do, it's always like "He's done a GREAT job so far, but we'd like to see him work JUST A LITTLE HARDER on a few little things." It's our relatively free press, not our state, which alerts us to Putin's abolishment of Democracy and the like.

Unless of course, the press was wrong, and Putin infact DIDN'T take away your right to vote for members in the Parlaiment and your local governors.

 

[wasteofo2]

Freedom of press in US is not so free afterall,every major news paper repeats WH view without any criticizm.And TV is even worst,tried ever to watch those idiots on FOX TV?

I'm sure Bush would love that if it were true, but in America, the media is almost always critical of everything George Bush does.

 

[Pengwuino]

I've actually never noticed Russian events underpublicized. Fox is a really horrible news station, by the way.

haha watch CNN and read the newspapers and do some research and then try to tell people with a straight/intelligent face taht Fox news is bad.

 

[Pengwuino]

I thought the russian terrorist attacks got a lot more media coverage than the bombs in madrid and paris.

Maybe in Canada. In the US though... well FOX was the only news station seriously covering the school attack... but the theatre one did get a lot of attention from all media sources. The airplane attacks though weren't covered by anyone though...

 

[wasteofo2]

Peng, I noticed tons of coverage of the school that was shot up in Russia, pretty equivalent to the coverage of the Madrid train bombing...

 

[russ_watters]

Freedom of press in US is not so free afterall,every major news paper repeats WH view without any criticizm.

You're not from the US, are you...?