Anyone who has found themselves turning on their television on an aimless Saturday afternoon in Moscow has probably seen these movies: They involve a small collective of strung-out, emotional women and a lot of sitting around the kitchen table, eating bleak meals and having conversations that are alternately morose and frantic. It's not just all women, of course -- there's always a man or two stirring things up and making a hasty departure the minute things get tense. Then the women cry or argue or recite some long, depressing monologue, after which they get up from the table and the movie ends.


These movies are great! You never get to watch women moan and groan this much in movies at home. And just as Arnold Schwarzenegger represents all that is fantasy for Americans, these women, as far as I can tell, have nothing to do with real Russian life. Arnold bends a crowbar with his teeth and saves the world; these women wax maudlin and nobody tells them to get over it. Two equally reality-defying moments, captured on film for all to enjoy.


In the West, issues of male sensitivity have reached such a sophisticated degree that men not only accept that women get angry and occasionally cry, but also anticipate when and why it happens, and even how to react correctly and supportively. You don't get up and head over to Vanya's house -- you listen to the story and offer sympathy. She might make a lot of noise before she calms down, but she's just getting it out of her system.


In Russia, where life is bound to make even the most complacent foreigner cranky from time to time, arguments aren't the same. And those movies would lead you to think that the only thing a man can do in the presence of an angry woman is hang his head and admit that he is guilty of everything before skulking off to Vanya's and forgetting his troubles over a few hundred grams. But reality is even crueller, as those of us who have ever had an argument with a Russian man know. There's just no way you're going to win this fight.


You start with a calm, rational argument. He'll say he doesn't know what you're talking about. You start to get a little heated. "Calm down," he'll say, "you're getting hysterical." At which point you're essentially at a dead end. If you get any madder you'll give him the satisfaction of thinking he is the master of diagnosis. You give up and resort to behind-the-scenes scheming and deceit, which in the long run is just as effective in getting what you want.


This is of course all in defiance of the Law of Russian Neighbors, which guarantees that at least one of the walls in your apartment will be shared with a couple whose capacity for high-volume arguing is unparalleled. At least when you get really fed up with being told to be quiet, you can just move next door.