There is something uncanny about smells in Russia. Not just the musty vapors that arise from the unwashed or improperly deodorized metro rider next to you. Stink is just a fact of metropolitan life. It’s the supposed “good” smells that are the most troublesome. Walking down a metro platform makes you an open target for a waft of strong perfume from Russian women. Their faux scent can be so strong that you wonder if they bathe in eau de Cologne or carry bottles of it in their enormous handbags for quarterly douses. But even the strong stench of cheap perfume is somewhat normal . . .
What isn’t “normal” is the plethora of scented toilet paper, tissue and overly scented soaps and lotions. When I first got to Moscow three weeks ago, one of the first trips to the market was to purchase a package of toilet paper. Toilet paper here is a serious purchase. One must find a brand that doesn’t feel like cardboard and doesn’t disintegrate on touch. The three-ply, bouncy, thick and fluffy rolls that populate the shelves at Target (or whatever might be your favorite American box store) just don’t exist. The Charmin squeeze test is an essential practice when making your choice. What I didn’t expect and discovered when I got home is that the toilet paper is scented. That’s right, scented. In fact, the vast majority of the asswipe has a manufactured smell added to it. There is paper in vanilla, strawberry, some kind of flower smell, and an assortment of “fresh” smells. Now why the hell would some one want scented toilet paper? Especially if its just going to be used to wipe the smelliest thing humans produce. Am I missing something and the paper also serves as air freshener? And what about concerns of chemical irritation?
The same goes with tissue. I bought one of those ten packs of tissue paper unaware that it has “Aroma” stamped on the front. I didn’t notice because I didn’t look. I didn’t look because I didn’t think to. Now I get a scent of fake strawberry every time I blow my nose.
Smell, it seems, is cultural. I already discovered that this is the case for taste. For example, in America everything has more sugar–yogurt, juice, ice cream, cake, chocolate–than its equivalents elsewhere. Apparently, in Russia products have more smell. It is not Russian companies that are selling products with more smell. International corporations like Kleenex, Dove et al, are producing scented items for a particular Russian market. For example, I brought a bottle of Dove “Go Fresh” cucumber and green tea body wash from the States. The other day I bought another Dove “Go Fresh” at my local market. The same brand, same bottle (though the Russian version is smaller. This is another difference: Americans like their products BIG.). Totally different strength of smell. The American version is a slight fake cucumber and green tea aroma. The Russian version pierces your lungs to the point of choking.
There is a new topic for all your Russianists out there: The history of smell in Russia. There is already such a book for France: Alain Corbin’s The Foul and Fragrant: Order and the French Social Imagination. Given my recent experience, it’s high time for a similar cultural history for Russia.
Five years in Moscow and I never noticed, probably because the fog of benzene fumes rendered all other scents unnoticeable.
While it’s not central to the story maybe you could name the markets and areas of Moscow as you visit, it helps me visualize.
Regards
I’ve been here six years and have not noticed this either. Every now and then you can not help but smell a unwashed homeless person, but that is rare. But Russian women using strong perfume, never noticed it, stinky metro and stinky streets, never noticed it. Maybe my nose just is not as sensitive as yours.
Hey, I use Dove “Go Fresh” cucumber and green tea body wash! It smells like soap. Americans are obsessed with cleanliness and want to smell “clean.”
You are correct that cosmetics & toiletries change their formula acc’d to country. And not just Russia. American and German Nivea are so very different, I have to go to to the European shops to get what I want. (FWIW, European products are scented stronger than Americans, from my experience, with a wider variety of scents. Go to the store in the US and you’ll see an infinite variety of soap scents. Smell them; they all smell the same.)
Ah the smell of Moscow… But just what does California smell like? I remember Moscow smelling quite horribly, so much so that after several washes back in America, my clothes still reeked. But at the time my home in America was a quaint upscale suburb. Having lived in a big polluted city for the past several years, I doubt I’d be so surprised by the smell of Moscow. Every smelly big city reeks in its own way, I suppose.
While I’ve not read Corbin’s book, I understand that things like perfume and good smelly things developed in response to the foul smells that people emanated and became more noticeable and offensive once they moved indoors. I suspect in the case of Russia it is the same, only their response is predictably hyperbolic and late.
I always notice the strong smoked meat/fish smell in the meat/deli section of Russian grocery stores. And that most Russian ice cream has very little ice cream to it, mostly whipped this and candy that flavored concoctions.
When I lived in Germany it was the smell of local bakeries – cakes and pastries in the morning. In the gray autumn it was the smell of fermenting sugar beets that was everywhere.
I hate the high sugar content of so many American foods. I don’t drink soda at all (I sometimes do buy Polar brand seltzer water, which is unsweetened) and I prefer plain yogurt. However, I do have a weakness for dark chocolate, so perhaps too American after all.
Katja and the in-laws notice all the pepper and seasonings that American restaurants put on meat and other foods. Everything has a sauce, generally quite peppery to their palate. They also notice all the margarine and other “butter” flavored oil products we put on things.
Every smelly big city reeks in its own way…
Well, poemless, I guess you’ve written the second sentence of the book that Sean is calling for, Tolstoy reference and all.
Tangent Moscow smell memory: I used to torture my Moscow roommate by using the birch-scented soap that basically made the entire flat smell foresty. I wish I could get that stuff again. Couldn’t find it in Brighton Beach.
In my student days i went across the Pond to California and had a job as a travelling salesman for Watkins products. The rich aroma of their cosmetics and their spices and herbs were far more overpowering than anything i’d experienced in Europe. That was 1974…and i still have some of their stuff here in London…and it is still overpowering when i open up the jars, but it feels like natural scent. We also have a lot of Russian women in London and yes you can smell them a long way off, because their perfumes seem artificial, almost rancid, like there is a higher % of skunk oil in the recipe. And my student days were spent in Salford, right next to Cussons imperial leather factory. The factory women came on board the bus literally smelling of roses. After 5 minutes sitting next to them on the bus, i stepped off into Student Halls and was greeted with “You big pooftah, you been at the cosmetics counter again?”(we used the department store testers of course, as students. ) ;o))