ABSTRACT
Frank was a big blond guy in his late 40s. At the time that I met him, he looked like a typical American to me: there was something in him that reminded me of the baseball games that were shown on Soviet television. Many Russians saw Americans that way because it was the only image available. After all, we create stereotypes out of the information we have. For that reason, I noticed later how those images were failing with more information appearing. Russian immigrants often express their surprise meeting a nontypical American: “You don't look American to me!” WASP was the only image created in the isolation of Soviet life, therefore, Russians always found that the typical American is a bit like a Siberian: He comes from the land with a lot of space, and his culture is eclectic, as opposed to the European one.
