Cultural Exchange - From Fortaleza to Novosibirsk

Abstract

Brazil itself comprises several cultures, regional cultures, but which, above all, due to its geographical immensity, hardly experience an intercultural reality. Nor are the Brazilian people privileged with contact with the outside world. Besides the excessive costs to leave the country, which a limited minority can afford, foreigners usually limit themselves to luxury tourism in resorts and give little importance to the complex and vast Brazilian culture. Furthermore, immigrant communities tend to settle in the interior of the country. This paper develops an analysis of an interview with a Brazilian, Keismy Silva, who lived three months in Novosibirsk, Russia. First, it is clarified why Keismy and her experience are appropriate for the study. Next, we explore the interviewee's impressions of various situations experienced during her stay in Siberia and what solutions she found to adapt to the "climate and culture shock". The political-economic relations between Brazil and Russia are also explored, in order to contextualise one of the most relevant factors in the construction of the Russian stereotype and, finally, the issue of cultural acquisition is reflected upon. The analysis of this intercultural experience from a perspective that identifies the most general traits of Brazilian culture contrasting it with another notion, almost homogeneous, of Russian culture, highlights a possible contradiction with the main purpose of the work to deconstruct stereotypes, reducing two immensely complex homelands, which comprise so many others within them, to a single culture. However, references to "Brazilian culture" and "Russian culture" should be understood as the sense of belonging of the citizens of these countries, as the points they have in common with each other and what differentiates them from the "others".