While Russian people are very poor, they are also very proud and use the resources they have to their best advantage. Everyone has a vegetable garden and grows and preserves their own food. Grocery stores are very small and do not have a variety of foods from which to choose. Fresh meat, other than chicken, is difficult to find. Once you know a Russian person on a personal basis, they are warm, open, deeply caring people who are very much like ourselves.
Most people live in a very small one or two bed room apartment.
These apartments were built under communism. They are all small and one looks like another so everyone's apartment is the same. Usually the living room couch folds out to become a bed. While I was there, I stayed with a host family. The family that I stayed with was a mother named Anna, her 19 year old daughter, Oxana and Marta, the 75 pound boxer bulldog.