Publication in Russian on the Zen blog
https://dzen.ru/a/Z4TdHFP_PEbuD5XN

Oxford and Cambridge are very different from each other. Oxford is older, and the people here seem more down-to-earth and simple (as much as it is possible to imagine in such an elite university).
In my opinion, Cambridge has a slightly different atmosphere.
The people here are very pretentious, the air is full of "I'm an elite", "I speak Royal English".

The caricature of England that exists in the minds of many foreigners is a real thing.
Anything that would look ridiculous in any other country is perfectly acceptable to the British.
Rings, bowler hats (this is such a headdress), women's hats, horse racing, mannered conversation, accent, etc.
They know how to show their status in England in a way that even Russians "from the patriots" could not dream of.
After all, it's not enough for Old Money to just have money, it requires a pedigree, knowledge of literature and art, and an education from Oxbridge (like all members of your family, of course, and it's advisable to graduate from the same college, because colleges are unequal in status).
In general, the whole set of classes and conventions associated with "high class".

In the 21st century, all this high-class performance looks unusual, especially considering that some crypto-millionaire or tech guy from Silicon Valley will wear an ordinary T-shirt and shorts.
This is the difference between Old Money and New Money.
People from the high class do all the same things as ordinary mortals, but with a lot of conventions and mannerisms and dress like at a masquerade.

I have a hypothesis that aristocratic manners and small talk appeared precisely because of the desire to ease the tension between rich and poor in society.
So, instead of directly answering the question "where did you get the money from, John?", people replaced it with discussing the weather, smiling on duty, and talking about porcelain cups.
After all, if you are polite and smiling, talking about abstract topics, no one will be able to understand your real motives, find out information about you, you will not cause too much aggression in a society where great socio-economic inequality flourishes.

Notes from Oxford

I've been thoroughly hooked on books and materials on evolutionary biology and psychology, ethology, and neurophysiology, and I don't know how to stop.
Dawkins, Sapolsky, Lorenz, Chopra, Harari, Pinker, Peterson... I listen to lectures by Dubynin (I went to his special course at the Moscow State University Faculty of Biology) and Drobyshevsky.
To be honest, I haven't read fiction for 5 years (but I don't feel like it either), only popular science: biology, genetics, neurology, all kinds of naturalistic topics…

All this intellectual vinaigrette in my head is also accompanied by reading historical blogs about comparing the crisis of the Roman Republic and the transition to empire and the United States now, the Civil War in the States, as well as books about feminism.

Something like that…

Ekaterina Sveshnikova, England, London, Oxford University
https://vk.com/english.rose1

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Publication in Russian on the Zen blog
https://dzen.ru/a/Z4TdHFP_PEbuD5XN