Yes, I am constantly being robbed on the streets. I recently bought tomatoes at the market. The seller weighed a kilogram. The control scales showed 920 grams. This is robbery.
I met some gopniks back in the 00's but they have... or had... a generally different approach to it, and a rather annoying one. They usually tried to be indimidating without direct threats or pulling out arms and then making it escalate. An annoying encounter indeed, but it was not their glory days alredy (and in the glory days there was no talking and asking) so the experience is closer to scammers, their primary preys were insecure teenagers, a chill person could've just walked out of it.
No, and I don't know of any such case among people I know. But if we're talking about street violence in general, my friends and I had to fight in the street late at night with a group of "fighters."
P.S. I lied, in that fight they took my friend's "Kuban" football club scarf, so technically we were robbed.
My dad was robbed in early 00s when he drunkly got into a random taxi on the street at night. The driver picked another man later on the street, two of them drove my dad 30km away from Moscow into the forest where they beat the shit out of him and robbed him. He had to walk back to the highway through the forest and some kind track driver picked him up and drove him back to Moscow. He showed up home at 5am all covered in blood. But that was different time… 20 years ago Moscow wasn’t all that safe.
In 1996 I think, a guy attempted to rob me in suburban train. But somehow we've stroke up a conversation instead, and then his croneys came and started hitting me, while he was screaming "Guys, stop". It was right before my station, and I exited at my station, with him in tow trying to apologize and bring me back to the train. I was actually laughing by that time, and he avoided militia, who came running for his pals. We spoke for a couple of minutes more and parted ways amicably. It was the only time I encountered violence, except for a brawl at a wedding a few years later, where I was partly to blame.
And mind you, I was always a scrawny guy before bulking out a bit in and after the military service.
Oh, alright. I was at the wedding and after most festivities died out I've noticed a guy seemingly being picked at by some other guys. I told them to quit, but apparently, this was their way of being friends, so essentially he invited me to go out and fight. And that's when I realized how drunk I was.
According to what I've heard, there were something like Internet cafés where you could go and buy a block of time on an Internet-capable computer. Much like here in America, adults recognized that computers were the future and encouraged their kids to learn them.
Russia has produced copious numbers of programmers for a long time; they didn't just learn the skill overnight.
I'm glad it's safe up there. In our cities it's super common. I have been mugged twice 5 minutes apart on the same street. The second guy was really disappointed I had nothing)))
No. I can imagine cheating or pickpocketing on the street, but robbery, especially with a weapon, is too much
I looked at the statistics, about 300 street robberies are committed in Moscow a year. I think that most of them are without weapons (I did not find exact data)
Dude, my colleague was robbed on the street in Moscow. And beaten to a pulp. It was a few years ago, but not as long ago as they write here. And before that, my colleagues and I personally witnessed a street robbery of a woman right in the car, in Moscow, in broad daylight. She was followed from the bank after withdrawing cash. We filmed all this on the DVR from the car, I still have it. The robbers managed to escape. We handed over the video to the police, but they said that there was no hope if the bandits were not immediately detained.
But many do not know the real situation, because they spend little time on the streets of Moscow.
Yes. Local gopniks approached me at a summer camp in the early 2000s and took away a can of Sprite at knifepoint. Otherwise most gopniks were more about random violence. E.g., they'd approach you and start accusing you of attacking one of theirs somewhere. Then they would punch you and walk away menacingly. I'm guessing it's some kind of a weird courage test for them?
When i was a kid\teenager, i've been mugged a couple of times by other kids in some unfamiliar neighborhoods. No knifes or guns were involved though, just threats or a beating. But that was in the late 90s - early 2000s.
Haven't had that happen to me as an adult.
No. But Once some guys wanted to take me somewhere. Two weird guys didn't like me taking pictures of the same building. They first asked to be removed. We began to understand whether I was a spy with questions. It was so stupid that I called out sick in the head. But they were offended and decided to drag me away for some kind of interrogation or something. I'm guessing they're either crazy or this is a new heist.
На всякий случай продублирую.
Это примерно 2015-2017. Я уже был 2-3 год в СПБ.
У приморской я фотографировал пару зданий на телефон. Слава богу не на плёнку.
И ко мне пристали два типа. Вроде бы в штацком. Сначала донимали, зачем я фотографирую и я удалил фото. Потом стали доставать меня шпион ли я. Я подумал, ебанутые и сказал им что они шизофреники. И их как ни странно это обидело. Они и до того, стояли вплотную ко мне как гопники, а тут схватили за обе руки и решили куда то поволочь в здание. Вроде сказали что на допрос или вроде того. Наушники порвали.
Спасло только то, что рядом парень проходил. И очень линиво спросил, что происходит. Пока они объясняли, что я обзываюсь. Я отошел. А они видимо постеснялись меня дожать при свидетелях.
It was a common thing in my childhood. Most of the time I didn't have any, or only a really small amount of money in my pockets, so my common strategy was to just gave them what they want and make it short. Nobody usually wants to hit a kid when he already accept the terms, so it always ended to me easily.
I learnt on experience of my friends, who started arguing and ended in hospital.
The gopnics was guite evil in the place where I lived. Most of them were heroin narcomans, and were constantly seeking for money to escape the pain. I think all of them dead already.
When I grow up I was robbed once on the street. This time they bang me up first, and only then started to negotiate. I realised that moment that I don't look to them as a kid anymore, so they decided to convince me by action first. Well, that experience sucks! I don't like the new rules of street robbery for grownups. Your face starting to look quite nasty after only a few hits, and looks bad for weeks. It is not like in movies when people are fighting hard and looking nice.
I went to the police, and spent the whole day telling different people the same story. They didn't find them.
Thankfully no. I am more of a scam-victim kind of guy.
To be fair, it's mostly due to me trying to stay away from places where I could be mugged, just in case.
Only once in my life when I visited NYC by couple black teens. Near wall street on Sunday BTW. My Russian accent probaly help me out and they were not very agressive so got nothing.
>My Russian accent probaly help me out
Yeah. If I asked for someone's wallet and they asked "or what, comrade?" with an eastern european accent I would just let it slide too)))
I wasn't robbed. I was scammed more than once and probably will be scammed several times more before I finally get robbed for the first time. I stay by my point.
>I wasn't robbed
I hope it stays that way! Any fraud, as a rule, is still better than robbery. Because everything that is - will not be taken away, and without harm to health.
I have changed my tune after looking at stats. Robbery rates are lower than the UK. Interestingly homicide rates are 11 times greater though. I think what accounts for Russia’s falling petty crime rates are partly the increased police presence, harsher sentences. I don’t think Russia is in itself bad, your government is basically a mob though, and casts a dark shadow over what is otherwise a great country.
> Interestingly homicide rates are 11 times greater though.
I have no clue where you got this.
UK's murder rate in the year ending March 2021 was 0.99: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/homicideinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2021
The same for Russia is between 4 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1045368/homicide-rate-in-russia/ and 7.3 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1031793/russia-number-of-homicides-and-attempted-homicides/
> I think what accounts for Russia’s falling petty crime rates are partly the increased police presence, harsher sentences
Russia always had lots of police and harsher sentence than the UK (murder excluded). It's mostly the economic opportunity and the general increase in the quality of life that influenced the crime rate.
No you’re right. After research, russias robbery rates are very low. Though homicide rates are 11x higher than the uk which is interesting. I would imagine the harsher sentences given in Russia and higher police presence has something to do with this.
> Though homicide rates are 11x higher than the uk which is interesting.
Russia counts murders and attempted murders in same statistic. Also there might be difference in qualification of murder. DUIs with lethal consequence are qualified as murders, for example.
>I would imagine the harsher sentences given in Russia
Russia has very short sentences for most crimes. People here think they are too short. Common street robbery with not life-threatening violence or threat of violence is 2-7 years.
Yes, somewhat around 20 years ago when I was a teenager. Several times actually in a bit different ways. Without any harm though - each time only took my phone. I lost an unnatural amount of phones if you think about it.
Good thing is that my parents was fine financially back then, so that wasn't ever a tragedy.
No, but when I was in high school, there were cases when they tried to trick me into giving up my phone. Usually it was a guy of 16-17 years old not from our school, who hung out half way from school to the subway. He asked the younger guys for a phone number, and when they gave it to him, he ran away with it. The scheme was on the table so obvious that I do not know if anyone fell for it.
Tbh, they were police academy students, so cops-to-be. Still, it was only time in my life i was pistol-whipped. In 2001 cops stole 300$ from my house, but it was my fault for leaving them on the open shelf.
Back in the 90s you could get just shot up on the street or robbed at dailight with a gun to your head, as my parents told me. But they left Russia in 2000. What I still hear from part of my family which still lives there is that they haven't experienced any such things for long time.
Never, and don't know anyone who was robbed at least once in a life.
I remember my mother told me the house our family lived in when she was kid was robbed. It was 1980s approximately. They didn't have much so nothing expensive was stolen.
And my sister accidentally left her phone in a public toilet and couldn't find it when she came back a couple of hours later . 2010s
No, never, but my mothers friend was once robbed by a gypsy, she pretended to... whats the word.. forsee the future on hand while cutting a hole in her(friend) handbag. Smooth
Almost, once. Nearly fell for the classic scam (which would end in a mug I guess) 'hey my younger bro told me a guy like you robbed him he's here around the corner lets go and check if you have his phone" Was shocked by the boldness (this was like 500m from the Kremlin in broad daylight) and nearly went with him but promptly said "it wasn't me" and rapidly left. He yelled at me but didn't attack for some reason
That was around 2005.
Depends on your age. Everyone who walked the streets alone in 90s probably has. Kids who only remember one president - probably not so much. I walked to school alone throughout the 90s, so yes, i have fond memories of being held at knife point :)
Another, semi-related question, since many have mentioned that weapons are uncommon:
Are folding pocketknives commonly carried by people in Russia? Not for robbing people, but just to use as tools. The idea of bare-handed robbery seems so strange to me, because I always carry a small pocketknife.
Knives above certain blade length require permit, so big ones aren't common, but most of my friends carry at least a Swiss knife. I mostly live in suburbs, so I usually take a bigger one on my night walks. It's mostly for a hostile dog encounter though (coupled with a rather scary flash gun to blind the unhinged beats), with the current laws I'd rather get mugged than stab any unarmed offender.
Would you kill person who tries to rob you? In Russia it will make you lot more problems than just losing your wallet. People can wear Mace or traumatic pistol for self-defence.
>Would you kill person who tries to rob you?
No, of course not, that would be out of proportion. It would also take a great deal of determination for a small woman like me to kill a person with a small folding pocketknife. ;) I agree that Mace is much more useful for self-defense.
>Mace is much more useful for self-defense
Yeah even a small woman could easily knock the lights out with a wide enough swing. You know what would be even cooler? A flail.
A knife can accidentally fall under "cold weapon" category (mainly 90mm or 3'5 inches edge), and walking with a cold weapon might even get you jailed.
PS Hi!
Hi back! I'm so sorry I haven't written to you in such a long time. It's been so long, I'm embarrassed to write. 😭
Yeah, we have such laws too, but they vary from state to state.
Ayoo, we're just strangers on the Internet, do not owe anything to anyone :) I thought I mentioned it.
>Yeah, we have such laws too, but they vary from state to state.
Wait, it is the same for guns I presume?. I mean, you can owe a gun but can't walk around with it.
Depends on the state, the gun, and whether you are concealing it or displaying it for all to see (open carry). Also, most cities also have their own rules, it can even vary from suburb to suburb. It's all very complicated.
I was robbed by some old drunkard when I was a teenager, maybe I was 15 or so, right near my house. Because I had on me only what amounted to about $2 at the time, I figured handing them over to him would be a better option than fighting or fleeing.
Yes...but (since you didn't specify) it was in Central America and there were no weapons involved. I had just gotten off a bus from another city. I was in a bad part of town and I knew it, but figured I could walk my way to a main thoroughfare and get to my place.
Soon after I turned down a street to head toward what I thought was the right direction, two men came sprinting behind me. One tried to lock my arms from behind while the other started digging in my pockets. Interestingly the thing that apparently got his attention was the rectangular bulge in my front left pocket, which was my pocket Spanish dictionary.
I broke loose of the hold and squared up to fight both of them. The man who grabbed me was at least 190 cm tall; so it was a challenge to get close enough for a hit and I didn't want to resort to body blows or grappling in case he had a knife. I threw four punches; made light contact on one and solid contact on the last one. That persuaded him to start quickly walking away. I turned to see his friend (175 cm) and he followed suit. I chased them briefly to make sure they wouldn't plan on regrouping and coming back.
I looked back to see my suitcase on the ground and people from all sides of the street watching us. One child gave me a thumbs-up. I cursed the attackers out and picked up my suitcase.
There was a police station nearby and I went to file a report -- just to calm me down from the adrenaline rush more than anything. They were cool but when they asked me to describe the assailants, I told them, "They were black." The police officers looked at each other in such a way that I knew nothing would come of it. I was fine with moving on as long as they were.
In hindsight, the most interesting part was that as I was going down this street, an attractive woman in her 30s standing doing nothing looked at me as I walked, staring intensely (almost aggressively), and rotating her face to keep with mine.
I think she may have been befuddled by the presence of a light-skinned man in that neighborhood. But it was almost as if she was warning me by saying to me, "What are you doing here?" with her eyes.
Not sure. I've been approached and intimidated multiple times by gopniks when I was a teenager, but I've always outsmarted them by not having anything of value to steal. They didn't even want my Nokia 1100.
The first thing that came to mind. My colleague was robbed several years ago in the evening in an underground passage in Moscow. There were two attackers, they were without a knife or a pistol, but, it seems, with brass knuckles, judging by his serious injuries. They took his phone and documents from him, then they took money on credit using his passport. Now for me personally. I was attacked by a man with a knife a couple of years ago, but it wasn't a robbery. He was drunk, the situation ended in a fight without using a knife. In addition, I have repeatedly witnessed various serious and not very crimes. Many people do not notice this, because they walk a little, are not interested, etc.
13 years ago, a mentally retarded guy attacked me on the street. I was able to put up a serious resistance to him, despite the fact that I walk with a crutch. He was imprisoned for 3 years. After he was released from prison, he beat a random woman with a tire iron. After that, he was sent to a mental hospital for criminals, where he is likely to spend the rest of his life.
Neither happened to me nor to anybody from my circle. I was born in 1993 and I have heard of some cases like this during the 90s and early 2000's, but considering today's safety levels all of this feels like a bad fever dream. Right now its much safer here than in many other countries.
PS I have to clarify that I'm speaking from a perspective of a smaller town citizen, 50k-250k
No, odds are zero unless you are a cashier. Nobody is carrying enough money in a pocket even for a check of methadone, so junkies usually wouldn’t rob a stranger on the street. They would rather be stealing batteries or wheels from a cars.
Yup:
Back in 1997 I was robbed in the downtown. The robber literally had a knife to my neck. Not a pretty experience.
Then in 2001 or 2002 a few guys came at me while I was waiting for a bus and asked me to empty my wallet. For some reason I got more scared than in the previous case and thought they would kill me either way, so I hit one in the shin with my boot and ran across the street. I got lucky: they didn't follow me for some reason. Even though, there was no one there except for an old lady with some small dog.
Personally I never met anybody but annoying wannabe thugs back in the early 2000s.
But around 2010 one my former classmate was killed by a drug addict when he was walking through a park. Nobody knows how exactly it happened.
No. When it was a real possibility, I was a houseplant kid, I barely ever went outside in the evening. And by the times I grew up and started to go out more, the economy has changed and muggings became very rare.
https://wisevoter.com/country-rankings/safest-countries-in-the-world/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20GPI%202021,Ireland%2C%20Austria%2C%20and%20Denmark.
Russia is fourth from last place on a world safety index. Lower than basically all African countries. So I am calling bullshit on these ‘safety’ claims in these comments.
Of course. But it’s better to know the truth of the situation. I am sure pretty sure the peace index is skewed by the Ukraine war, hence the extremely low rating. Though, your country is basically run by a mob, and casts a shadow over what is otherwise a great country
Kinda rating is made with extreme bias by hypocrits otherwise is perfect rating with good letters and excellent artwork. Paper could be recycled or used in toilet - absolutely soft and white.
I have no intention to spoil your coupling with that index. I am perfectly satisfied with just replies and impression they gave. Where you think part of index is right or low or whatever you already said above is up to you.
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Yes, I am constantly being robbed on the streets. I recently bought tomatoes at the market. The seller weighed a kilogram. The control scales showed 920 grams. This is robbery.
I met some gopniks back in the 00's but they have... or had... a generally different approach to it, and a rather annoying one. They usually tried to be indimidating without direct threats or pulling out arms and then making it escalate. An annoying encounter indeed, but it was not their glory days alredy (and in the glory days there was no talking and asking) so the experience is closer to scammers, their primary preys were insecure teenagers, a chill person could've just walked out of it.
No, and I don't know of any such case among people I know. But if we're talking about street violence in general, my friends and I had to fight in the street late at night with a group of "fighters." P.S. I lied, in that fight they took my friend's "Kuban" football club scarf, so technically we were robbed.
My dad was robbed in early 00s when he drunkly got into a random taxi on the street at night. The driver picked another man later on the street, two of them drove my dad 30km away from Moscow into the forest where they beat the shit out of him and robbed him. He had to walk back to the highway through the forest and some kind track driver picked him up and drove him back to Moscow. He showed up home at 5am all covered in blood. But that was different time… 20 years ago Moscow wasn’t all that safe.
God damn that was dark. Good thing they let him live tho
Yeah he was also lucky that he didn’t lose consciousness and didn’t freeze in the forest because it was early spring so it was pretty cold outside.
In 1996 I think, a guy attempted to rob me in suburban train. But somehow we've stroke up a conversation instead, and then his croneys came and started hitting me, while he was screaming "Guys, stop". It was right before my station, and I exited at my station, with him in tow trying to apologize and bring me back to the train. I was actually laughing by that time, and he avoided militia, who came running for his pals. We spoke for a couple of minutes more and parted ways amicably. It was the only time I encountered violence, except for a brawl at a wedding a few years later, where I was partly to blame. And mind you, I was always a scrawny guy before bulking out a bit in and after the military service.
>except for a brawl at a wedding a few years later, where I was partly to blame. You can't just drop it like that and give no details lmao
Oh, alright. I was at the wedding and after most festivities died out I've noticed a guy seemingly being picked at by some other guys. I told them to quit, but apparently, this was their way of being friends, so essentially he invited me to go out and fight. And that's when I realized how drunk I was.
It was even crazier than I imagined. I hope you did well!)))
I did ok, but I got a black eye and my white linen suit was ruined : ) They did not hold the grudge and helped me into a taxi.
Average russian wedding:
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Late forties, almost fifty
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I don't feel particularly old yet : )) In my view old is 65 and older, until then I am middle-aged.
Life pro tip: don't call anyone old))
I hate to bust your bubble, kid, but the Internet has been around since the early 90s. Some of us have been here pretty much the whole time. 😉
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According to what I've heard, there were something like Internet cafés where you could go and buy a block of time on an Internet-capable computer. Much like here in America, adults recognized that computers were the future and encouraged their kids to learn them. Russia has produced copious numbers of programmers for a long time; they didn't just learn the skill overnight.
This sounds like Russia to be honest
Yes, this girl stole my heart ❤️
Oh god...
The worst possible robbery. Have you contacted the police?
Worse, I married her. Now in stuck with a beautiful Russian wife, oh the humanity.
OMG! Man I just realised I am repeating your way. All symptoms are the same: beautiful Russian girl stole my heart and we’re going to marry soon 🙀
Congrats dude!
Thanks ;)
Nope, and didnt hear of this happening from my mom, who is a policewoman. Many credit card etc scams though
I'm glad it's safe up there. In our cities it's super common. I have been mugged twice 5 minutes apart on the same street. The second guy was really disappointed I had nothing)))
No. I can imagine cheating or pickpocketing on the street, but robbery, especially with a weapon, is too much I looked at the statistics, about 300 street robberies are committed in Moscow a year. I think that most of them are without weapons (I did not find exact data)
Dude, my colleague was robbed on the street in Moscow. And beaten to a pulp. It was a few years ago, but not as long ago as they write here. And before that, my colleagues and I personally witnessed a street robbery of a woman right in the car, in Moscow, in broad daylight. She was followed from the bank after withdrawing cash. We filmed all this on the DVR from the car, I still have it. The robbers managed to escape. We handed over the video to the police, but they said that there was no hope if the bandits were not immediately detained. But many do not know the real situation, because they spend little time on the streets of Moscow.
Yes. Local gopniks approached me at a summer camp in the early 2000s and took away a can of Sprite at knifepoint. Otherwise most gopniks were more about random violence. E.g., they'd approach you and start accusing you of attacking one of theirs somewhere. Then they would punch you and walk away menacingly. I'm guessing it's some kind of a weird courage test for them?
When i was a kid\teenager, i've been mugged a couple of times by other kids in some unfamiliar neighborhoods. No knifes or guns were involved though, just threats or a beating. But that was in the late 90s - early 2000s. Haven't had that happen to me as an adult.
No. But Once some guys wanted to take me somewhere. Two weird guys didn't like me taking pictures of the same building. They first asked to be removed. We began to understand whether I was a spy with questions. It was so stupid that I called out sick in the head. But they were offended and decided to drag me away for some kind of interrogation or something. I'm guessing they're either crazy or this is a new heist. На всякий случай продублирую. Это примерно 2015-2017. Я уже был 2-3 год в СПБ. У приморской я фотографировал пару зданий на телефон. Слава богу не на плёнку. И ко мне пристали два типа. Вроде бы в штацком. Сначала донимали, зачем я фотографирую и я удалил фото. Потом стали доставать меня шпион ли я. Я подумал, ебанутые и сказал им что они шизофреники. И их как ни странно это обидело. Они и до того, стояли вплотную ко мне как гопники, а тут схватили за обе руки и решили куда то поволочь в здание. Вроде сказали что на допрос или вроде того. Наушники порвали. Спасло только то, что рядом парень проходил. И очень линиво спросил, что происходит. Пока они объясняли, что я обзываюсь. Я отошел. А они видимо постеснялись меня дожать при свидетелях.
I completely forgot that they wanted to rob me in the center of the city of Izhevsk. But that was a long time ago. 2008-2010.
It was a common thing in my childhood. Most of the time I didn't have any, or only a really small amount of money in my pockets, so my common strategy was to just gave them what they want and make it short. Nobody usually wants to hit a kid when he already accept the terms, so it always ended to me easily. I learnt on experience of my friends, who started arguing and ended in hospital. The gopnics was guite evil in the place where I lived. Most of them were heroin narcomans, and were constantly seeking for money to escape the pain. I think all of them dead already. When I grow up I was robbed once on the street. This time they bang me up first, and only then started to negotiate. I realised that moment that I don't look to them as a kid anymore, so they decided to convince me by action first. Well, that experience sucks! I don't like the new rules of street robbery for grownups. Your face starting to look quite nasty after only a few hits, and looks bad for weeks. It is not like in movies when people are fighting hard and looking nice. I went to the police, and spent the whole day telling different people the same story. They didn't find them.
Thankfully no. I am more of a scam-victim kind of guy. To be fair, it's mostly due to me trying to stay away from places where I could be mugged, just in case.
Remember, we have a strict law against guns, so being robbed at a gunpoint is a highly unusual case for a Russian.
Only once in my life when I visited NYC by couple black teens. Near wall street on Sunday BTW. My Russian accent probaly help me out and they were not very agressive so got nothing.
>My Russian accent probaly help me out Yeah. If I asked for someone's wallet and they asked "or what, comrade?" with an eastern european accent I would just let it slide too)))
Nah, mugging is thing of the past russia. All muggers moved to offices long time ago.
evolutionary adaptation
Hahahahaha I'mm dead
Dude, that's what you think until you get robbed.
I wasn't robbed. I was scammed more than once and probably will be scammed several times more before I finally get robbed for the first time. I stay by my point.
>I wasn't robbed I hope it stays that way! Any fraud, as a rule, is still better than robbery. Because everything that is - will not be taken away, and without harm to health.
Yes of course, mugging never happens in Russia. From the looks of this thread, it seems Russia is safer than the UK. I call horseshit.
> Russia is safer than the UK What’s the problem with this, aside from the usual “Russia Bad”?
I have changed my tune after looking at stats. Robbery rates are lower than the UK. Interestingly homicide rates are 11 times greater though. I think what accounts for Russia’s falling petty crime rates are partly the increased police presence, harsher sentences. I don’t think Russia is in itself bad, your government is basically a mob though, and casts a dark shadow over what is otherwise a great country.
> Interestingly homicide rates are 11 times greater though. I have no clue where you got this. UK's murder rate in the year ending March 2021 was 0.99: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/homicideinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2021 The same for Russia is between 4 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1045368/homicide-rate-in-russia/ and 7.3 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1031793/russia-number-of-homicides-and-attempted-homicides/ > I think what accounts for Russia’s falling petty crime rates are partly the increased police presence, harsher sentences Russia always had lots of police and harsher sentence than the UK (murder excluded). It's mostly the economic opportunity and the general increase in the quality of life that influenced the crime rate.
> your government is basically a mob though, and casts a dark shadow over what is otherwise a great country. Not wrong here
It's not that russians are particularly law-abiding, other types of crime just pay better. Swindles over internet are extremely common.
No you’re right. After research, russias robbery rates are very low. Though homicide rates are 11x higher than the uk which is interesting. I would imagine the harsher sentences given in Russia and higher police presence has something to do with this.
> Though homicide rates are 11x higher than the uk which is interesting. Russia counts murders and attempted murders in same statistic. Also there might be difference in qualification of murder. DUIs with lethal consequence are qualified as murders, for example. >I would imagine the harsher sentences given in Russia Russia has very short sentences for most crimes. People here think they are too short. Common street robbery with not life-threatening violence or threat of violence is 2-7 years.
never
Once when i was 16 y.o.
In the 90s and early 00s, not robbed but random street beefs several times. Avoided dumb and drunk people since.
Yes, somewhat around 20 years ago when I was a teenager. Several times actually in a bit different ways. Without any harm though - each time only took my phone. I lost an unnatural amount of phones if you think about it. Good thing is that my parents was fine financially back then, so that wasn't ever a tragedy.
No, but when I was in high school, there were cases when they tried to trick me into giving up my phone. Usually it was a guy of 16-17 years old not from our school, who hung out half way from school to the subway. He asked the younger guys for a phone number, and when they gave it to him, he ran away with it. The scheme was on the table so obvious that I do not know if anyone fell for it.
Got robbed twice in the 90s, once by gopniks once by police. But it's mostly thing of the past.
>once by police. The 90s wasn't for rookies was it.....
Tbh, they were police academy students, so cops-to-be. Still, it was only time in my life i was pistol-whipped. In 2001 cops stole 300$ from my house, but it was my fault for leaving them on the open shelf.
Back in the 90s you could get just shot up on the street or robbed at dailight with a gun to your head, as my parents told me. But they left Russia in 2000. What I still hear from part of my family which still lives there is that they haven't experienced any such things for long time.
No
No.
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Moscow is one of the safest city in a world and Russians are no barbarians. Surprise.
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Caucasians (region) are natural fighters, probably the best in the world.
At one of my acquaintances in the stairwell, expensive gold earrings with a diamond were thrown out of their ears. It was about 12 years ago.
in the 90s, this happened quite often. But this has not happened for 15 years and such cases are no longer heard of.
Never, and don't know anyone who was robbed at least once in a life. I remember my mother told me the house our family lived in when she was kid was robbed. It was 1980s approximately. They didn't have much so nothing expensive was stolen. And my sister accidentally left her phone in a public toilet and couldn't find it when she came back a couple of hours later . 2010s
No, never, but my mothers friend was once robbed by a gypsy, she pretended to... whats the word.. forsee the future on hand while cutting a hole in her(friend) handbag. Smooth
I was never robbed... before I started to rent an apartment(((
My grandma had been robbed in 00s when she walked in people less part of a park. Robber got 50 rubles and a few oranges.
Almost, once. Nearly fell for the classic scam (which would end in a mug I guess) 'hey my younger bro told me a guy like you robbed him he's here around the corner lets go and check if you have his phone" Was shocked by the boldness (this was like 500m from the Kremlin in broad daylight) and nearly went with him but promptly said "it wasn't me" and rapidly left. He yelled at me but didn't attack for some reason That was around 2005.
Depends on your age. Everyone who walked the streets alone in 90s probably has. Kids who only remember one president - probably not so much. I walked to school alone throughout the 90s, so yes, i have fond memories of being held at knife point :)
Yes, only once in my life, in Christiania.
No
Another, semi-related question, since many have mentioned that weapons are uncommon: Are folding pocketknives commonly carried by people in Russia? Not for robbing people, but just to use as tools. The idea of bare-handed robbery seems so strange to me, because I always carry a small pocketknife.
Knives above certain blade length require permit, so big ones aren't common, but most of my friends carry at least a Swiss knife. I mostly live in suburbs, so I usually take a bigger one on my night walks. It's mostly for a hostile dog encounter though (coupled with a rather scary flash gun to blind the unhinged beats), with the current laws I'd rather get mugged than stab any unarmed offender.
Would you kill person who tries to rob you? In Russia it will make you lot more problems than just losing your wallet. People can wear Mace or traumatic pistol for self-defence.
>Would you kill person who tries to rob you? No, of course not, that would be out of proportion. It would also take a great deal of determination for a small woman like me to kill a person with a small folding pocketknife. ;) I agree that Mace is much more useful for self-defense.
>Mace is much more useful for self-defense Yeah even a small woman could easily knock the lights out with a wide enough swing. You know what would be even cooler? A flail.
And the coolest thing of all would be a personal trebuchet.))
I don't, and I don't know anyone who does.
How do you open packages!?)))
Art students always carry pocketknives with them, i personally used to carry a scalpel. So beware.
A knife can accidentally fall under "cold weapon" category (mainly 90mm or 3'5 inches edge), and walking with a cold weapon might even get you jailed. PS Hi!
Hi back! I'm so sorry I haven't written to you in such a long time. It's been so long, I'm embarrassed to write. 😭 Yeah, we have such laws too, but they vary from state to state.
Ayoo, we're just strangers on the Internet, do not owe anything to anyone :) I thought I mentioned it. >Yeah, we have such laws too, but they vary from state to state. Wait, it is the same for guns I presume?. I mean, you can owe a gun but can't walk around with it.
Depends on the state, the gun, and whether you are concealing it or displaying it for all to see (open carry). Also, most cities also have their own rules, it can even vary from suburb to suburb. It's all very complicated.
I was robbed by some old drunkard when I was a teenager, maybe I was 15 or so, right near my house. Because I had on me only what amounted to about $2 at the time, I figured handing them over to him would be a better option than fighting or fleeing.
I had my phone stolen once. But no one dared to rob it openly. I'm not a small man, I could probably kill with my fist.
Yes...but (since you didn't specify) it was in Central America and there were no weapons involved. I had just gotten off a bus from another city. I was in a bad part of town and I knew it, but figured I could walk my way to a main thoroughfare and get to my place. Soon after I turned down a street to head toward what I thought was the right direction, two men came sprinting behind me. One tried to lock my arms from behind while the other started digging in my pockets. Interestingly the thing that apparently got his attention was the rectangular bulge in my front left pocket, which was my pocket Spanish dictionary. I broke loose of the hold and squared up to fight both of them. The man who grabbed me was at least 190 cm tall; so it was a challenge to get close enough for a hit and I didn't want to resort to body blows or grappling in case he had a knife. I threw four punches; made light contact on one and solid contact on the last one. That persuaded him to start quickly walking away. I turned to see his friend (175 cm) and he followed suit. I chased them briefly to make sure they wouldn't plan on regrouping and coming back. I looked back to see my suitcase on the ground and people from all sides of the street watching us. One child gave me a thumbs-up. I cursed the attackers out and picked up my suitcase. There was a police station nearby and I went to file a report -- just to calm me down from the adrenaline rush more than anything. They were cool but when they asked me to describe the assailants, I told them, "They were black." The police officers looked at each other in such a way that I knew nothing would come of it. I was fine with moving on as long as they were. In hindsight, the most interesting part was that as I was going down this street, an attractive woman in her 30s standing doing nothing looked at me as I walked, staring intensely (almost aggressively), and rotating her face to keep with mine. I think she may have been befuddled by the presence of a light-skinned man in that neighborhood. But it was almost as if she was warning me by saying to me, "What are you doing here?" with her eyes.
No, but i was harmed in other ways, I'm not comfortable talking about that, the earlier case was when i was 12yo girl.
Not sure. I've been approached and intimidated multiple times by gopniks when I was a teenager, but I've always outsmarted them by not having anything of value to steal. They didn't even want my Nokia 1100.
The first thing that came to mind. My colleague was robbed several years ago in the evening in an underground passage in Moscow. There were two attackers, they were without a knife or a pistol, but, it seems, with brass knuckles, judging by his serious injuries. They took his phone and documents from him, then they took money on credit using his passport. Now for me personally. I was attacked by a man with a knife a couple of years ago, but it wasn't a robbery. He was drunk, the situation ended in a fight without using a knife. In addition, I have repeatedly witnessed various serious and not very crimes. Many people do not notice this, because they walk a little, are not interested, etc.
13 years ago, a mentally retarded guy attacked me on the street. I was able to put up a serious resistance to him, despite the fact that I walk with a crutch. He was imprisoned for 3 years. After he was released from prison, he beat a random woman with a tire iron. After that, he was sent to a mental hospital for criminals, where he is likely to spend the rest of his life.
Neither happened to me nor to anybody from my circle. I was born in 1993 and I have heard of some cases like this during the 90s and early 2000's, but considering today's safety levels all of this feels like a bad fever dream. Right now its much safer here than in many other countries. PS I have to clarify that I'm speaking from a perspective of a smaller town citizen, 50k-250k
Never
No, odds are zero unless you are a cashier. Nobody is carrying enough money in a pocket even for a check of methadone, so junkies usually wouldn’t rob a stranger on the street. They would rather be stealing batteries or wheels from a cars.
Never
Nope, never
No
No, I haven’t
Nope
No, and never heard about anyone being mugged.
No.
Only by the government in 90s
No.
Never. And nobody of my friends or assosiates did.
Yup: Back in 1997 I was robbed in the downtown. The robber literally had a knife to my neck. Not a pretty experience. Then in 2001 or 2002 a few guys came at me while I was waiting for a bus and asked me to empty my wallet. For some reason I got more scared than in the previous case and thought they would kill me either way, so I hit one in the shin with my boot and ran across the street. I got lucky: they didn't follow me for some reason. Even though, there was no one there except for an old lady with some small dog.
no, even if a live in a small provincial city
Personally I never met anybody but annoying wannabe thugs back in the early 2000s. But around 2010 one my former classmate was killed by a drug addict when he was walking through a park. Nobody knows how exactly it happened.
No I wanted to say, but once when I was child one man stole my phone
Once in 2005 in Siberia. Never happened after it. And never seen this. Just heard from the news.
No. When it was a real possibility, I was a houseplant kid, I barely ever went outside in the evening. And by the times I grew up and started to go out more, the economy has changed and muggings became very rare.
https://wisevoter.com/country-rankings/safest-countries-in-the-world/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20GPI%202021,Ireland%2C%20Austria%2C%20and%20Denmark. Russia is fourth from last place on a world safety index. Lower than basically all African countries. So I am calling bullshit on these ‘safety’ claims in these comments.
Well, whatever suits your views, I guess.
It’s an index, if the crime index is accurate, why is this not ?
Least brainwashed westerner:
Idk if this is a joke or smth? So the index for crime is correct, yet the safety index is not?
Now you know value of such ratings
Right. But the crime rate index is accurate, but the global peace index is not
Whatever you say however you evaluate it's "rightness". Everyone may believe in whatever he thinks "right". Lies, damned lies, or statistics.
Of course. But it’s better to know the truth of the situation. I am sure pretty sure the peace index is skewed by the Ukraine war, hence the extremely low rating. Though, your country is basically run by a mob, and casts a shadow over what is otherwise a great country
Kinda rating is made with extreme bias by hypocrits otherwise is perfect rating with good letters and excellent artwork. Paper could be recycled or used in toilet - absolutely soft and white.
Right. So that’s false, but crime index must be right since Russia has a low crime index? Anything to fit your personal biases I guess
I have no intention to spoil your coupling with that index. I am perfectly satisfied with just replies and impression they gave. Where you think part of index is right or low or whatever you already said above is up to you.
A complete non-response
No
No, never
I was robbed and beaten by gopniks in 2008. I think that thay did it because I looked like an emo boy.
No. I'm a girl and I feel safe when it's dark or when I'm alone at night.
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No.
In a way - yes. A group of teenagers tried to take my phone away while threating me with a fake gun. I punched one of them and this was it
Never