What's Russia Like?

Travel Info
I am part of an orchestra. Next year, we'll be travelling to Russia to perform in Moscow (cool, right?)

What are the Russian people like? What are some basic phrases I should learn?

Travel Tips

Russians are extremely friendly socially and in my experience very warm. I agree that drinking a toast with them is the best way to break the ice. If you are a man, you will be expected to drink neat vodka shots all night and it can be difficult to decline. A good Russian toast is 'na zdorovia'. Some other good phrases are 'Privyet, kak dela?' (hi, how are you), spasiba (thank you), pazhalstah (please), paka (see you) but buy a little phrasebook and you'll be fine. Many people in Moscow speak English but they will like it if you try to speak Russian. Try to learn to read Cyrillic as well. It will help you get around the city. Have a great time!

Others
i dont know but avoid the guys with the radiation
Kind of like New Jersey, but without deodorant.
russia is very cold

and there are a lot of those dirty commies there
cold diased forgien white and boaring as shi.t
uhh...their russian...and uhhh...they speak funny?! sorry, but idk. good luck in the concert though! :)
I have never been to Moscow, but I visited Vladivostok and the people were nice, but seemed afraid to of us. Tour guide was nice, but they are supposed to be, right?
There was lots of disrepair to the streets. One really odd thing was that most of the cars had the driver on the right, but they drove on the right. Come to find out that on that side of the continent, they were too far from the Russian car manufacturers, so they got used cars from Japan where they drive on the left.
I envy your trip to Moscow.
I attended a concert by the Russian Army Band one time and it was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.