The true Russians

I've been here for a few days now. I mean realy BEING here. You don't come to Russia for a nice 'visiting outsider' trip... You need to embrace the whole experience. (No Vodka, though, for me... You know me, I'm a good boy)
While doing my routine of living with 3 russian guys here, sharing an old apartment in a tall, dark building in one of the North parts of Rostov, I've learned some basic truth about life here and about the people:

1. They are hard on the outside, but something completely diffrent goes on the inside. Some are crule, due to the life they've had, but some are good hearted in a way that touches me a lot more than the soft spoken type.
2. Russians drink a lot. I mean they drink. Alot. It finally hit me why... They don't have anything else to fill their lives with. They don't know what to do about it, so they drink.
3. Rostov have some of the prettiest female faces I ever saw. I'm walking down the street getting a stiff neck (neck...right...) from all the turning around. They are very similar, but beautifull.
4. Comunism and the Soviet mentality still exist. Its in every corner. In the old people. In the younger ones. In the 'Baboshka' (old woman in Russian) house manager that sits in her small carton made cubicle in the entrance to the building. In the number of doors you need to unlock in order to go inside your house. Its in the languege and the slang. Communism did not happen here by mistake. It's in their blood. (for at least another 100 years)

I'm going to down a cup of pickel juice and hit the sack....er....my hard mattress... No other way to pass your quality time here. Russia trusts no tears.