I'm Dutch and my girlfriend is Russian, and she was absolutely amazed at how often and easily we make a little smalltalk with complete strangers here in the Netherlands. It may not seem to be a popular thing to do here, but compared to Russia we're very chatty and friendly with strangers.
I had a colleague who did the Trans-Siberian line once, she shared a cabin with some Russians who broke out the vodka and shared - they had a blast, :p
