a rooskie in dublin

SORRYLAND

by Irina Kuksova

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As a foreigner the first thing I realised about myself in Ireland is that I am absolutely shameless and utterly ungrateful. Compared to an Irish person, I fall far behind on "sorry" and "thank you."

Well, why wouldn't I? These words are of little use in everyday Russia. A sorry won't help you on the Moscow metro during rush hour. Russian people will rarely take your sorry as a cue to let you make it through to the exit. It's your own fault you happened to be so far away from the door in the first place. Deal with it.

Same goes for "thank you" as far as most Russians are concerned. Although the phrase is useful in a number of official situations and it seems to be making its way back into social interactions between friends, the communist generation still see it as flimsy trickery. Think of it in comrade manner: If you're giving someone a square deal, there's no need for adornments, whereas if you've got something to hide, only then will you need all those social graces to cover up.

You can see now why at first I kept the number of my sorry's and thank you's down to a bare minimum. That was until I discovered that in Ireland these words work like magic. Literally. They have the power to displace people in shops or make space on the Luas. (Dublin's tram system.) They can manifest cups of tea and make people smile. I'm still discovering the effects these simple incantations can produce in this country.

Thank you for reading and if I bored you, er, sorry about that.