Impressions of Russia, Finals

Train 4, Ulan Ude to Ulaanbaatar

It's quite interesting what your lasting impressions are when you leave a place. Russia was the first major stop on this trip and after all these cultural, historical, linguistic, culinary experiences what is it that I take away from here?
In no particular order:
Crazy car alarms. They sound a lot like some classic 80's arcade games. And they are on hair triggers. Go off for no apparent reason (maybe a fly settled) and every time I was thinking: "Aw shit, here comes Pac Man!"
Burning dust bins. Or at least smoking, smoldering even. Throwing glowing cigarette stubs in with old newspapers is not a good idea. Adding plastic wrappers rounds off a bouquet that is breathtaking. Literally.
Beautiful girls. Yeah, we knew that one was coming. I've mentioned them before. But it was a consistent phenomenon throughout the country. A definite highlight!
Scary police. They pull over cars for little or no apparent reason. I kept being reminded of the adventuruous stories you read in some guide books and hear from other travellers about people basically being robbed by police officers. Once, in St. Petersburg I already thought they had me. When I took a photo in a Metro station and was putting my camera away a uniformed man approached waving his hand. "No photo." My heart sank. Would he ask for my passport and wallet next, as I had read. He didn't just made sure I left my camera in my bag. I got out as fast as casually possible before he changed his mind. To be fair, though, apart from this incident I was never bothered.
Crazy drivers. The bane of any Parisian. If you walk confidently into the street in Paris you can count on drivers stopping for you. Here, they accelerate.
Language. I found it more difficult to get my head around even a few sentences of Russian than Chinese. At least, I managed to remember the alphabet in the end. Still, I was happy for every anglicism.
People's reaction to foreigners who speak no Russian is mixed. Some repeat the same thing over until you smile and nod or say OK or go away. Some just refuse to talk to you. Yes, ticket office clerk in Irkutsk, I mean you. Otherwise, the cliche of the taciturn Russian only holds up until you get acquainted a bit. Then the people I met were very kind and friendly.
Toilet paper bins. You don't throw it in the toilet after using it. That really needed some getting used to. I kept thinking: "Do you really want to keep this stuff?!" It sounded like a joke but every toilet has a little bin next to it. They do seem to get emptied quite regularly. The reason, I learnt, is that the pipes in old buildings can't handle the volume of the soaked paper and clog up. It's something that would accompany me throughout Mongolia and China. That's defintely one habit to get rid of before going home!
Goodbye for now, Mother Russia. Dosvidania!