Other first times...

Opening a Russian bank account...

Walking the streets in Moscow the first thing you notice is the relatively large range of banks: there are banks everywhere. A Muscovite friend having studied finance at university told me that thanks to the relatively flexible conditions regulating the opening and running of a bank, it was way easier for banks to settle in Moscow. So when the time came to open a bank account, I was very confused about which one to choose. Furthermore, not being familiar with neither the Russian financial system nor the vocabulary you need to be able to check the validity of the contract you are signing, it was going to be a totally new experience for me! Thanks God I have a Russian friend working for a bank, and she offered to take care of everything: comparing the different options for each bank account, prices of international transfers... When the D-day came, she came with me to check each sheet of paper I was to sign and THE moment came, you know the moment when you should keep your mouth shut because you are not sure about the translation of the word you are going to say, but what you should never forget is that your accent combined with the self-confidence you try to show are just going to make it worse. Although you can always pretend to be exhausted and that of course you knew it, still, you are going to sound pretentious, ridiculous, at best just crazy. This is how I shouted out in front of everyone at the reception (as we were filling in the papers just behind the reception desk) without hidding my surprise and dissatisfaction: "What?! I can just put 50 000 rubles on my account?!"
And when both the receptionist and my friend turned to look at me with a very confused face, I understood I had said something very wrong, but I did not know what which made me repeat it more quietly (still, I was not satisfied with this and I was ready to argue!). Later, they showed me I could actually put not 50 000 but 50 000 million rubles (more than 1 million euros), and that it was, indeed, very unlikely that I would reach this amount unless I won the lottery. That was the last time I tried to understand what was going on, too ashamed.

PS: For your information (if you ever plan to open a bank account in Russia) opening a bank account here is very quick and easy, only buying things on the internet with your credit card is quite complicated and remains obscure to me; it requires so many different codes leading to other complex codes that I actually gave up this part. As for the interest rates of deposit accounts, they are all much more interesting than in the countries I have been leaving before Russia (the aftermath of the global financial crisis seems to have been nice to the ruble).