About public services

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One thing that’s still definitely hard to get used to is public services. My brain still refuses to grasp all the functionality of this service 😂 But the multifunctional centers are everything to us! Incredibly convenient. And another thing that amazes me about Russia is that you can even go to the local administration, the tax office, some road construction company, or the school principal’s office without an appointment, open the door with your “foot,” and get advice right away. To this day, when someone advises me and says, “Go to the administration and ask...”, I personally freeze for a long time, and my mind takes ages to accept that this is normal—that a citizen can immediately go directly to any government employee with their problems.

It’s hard to get used to the quality and speed of medical services—namely, that in Russia you can see a doctor the same day, get an X-ray, ultrasound, MRI, have blood tests done at any time, get a health checkup, and so on. 
I just can’t shake the crazy habit I developed in Europe, where you’re a useless being as far as doctors are concerned and they prescribe you only ibuprofen. 

As for children: it’s hard to get used to teachers—specifically, the homeroom teacher—being in contact with parents 24/7. 
In Germany, getting a one-on-one consultation with a teacher is almost the stuff of fantasy, and even then it will be useless 99% of the time. 
In Russia, you’re constantly in touch with the teacher, even about silly questions like which pen to bring to an exam. The teachers’ involvement in a child’s life and how easy they are to talk to are simply astonishing! 

And little things like this: we still sometimes forget that everything in Russia is open every day, and that you can even go to a hardware store at 9 p.m. on a Sunday 😂

Something we’ve gotten used to, but that seemed wild at first, is the availability of all kinds of bespoke services, such as having custom furniture made from your own design, having some never-before-seen metal structure welded, having a designer lamp made, or having a suit sewn by a tailor, and so on. In Europe, such services would cost an arm and a leg, and bespoke workshops have all but disappeared. In Russia, though, these services are reasonably priced, and there are craftspeople to suit every taste and imagination 🔥.
Now I can say for sure that houses in Russia are built much more beautifully than in Europe, and renovations really are designer-style, rather than practical, boxy, and cheap.