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LISA MULLINS: The global economic downturn has now hit the cell phone industry. The leading manufacturer in the field is Nokia, and the Finnish company today announced it's laying off 1700 people worldwide. Still, it's tough to be pessimistic about cell phone sales in Russia, at least if you spend any amount of time there. Russians seldom stray far from their favorite high-tech companions. But that's not always a good thing, as we hear in this report from Jessica Golloher in Moscow.
JESSICA GOLLOHER: Ah, yes. The pleading. The coaxing. The warning. Please dear audience, turn off your cell phones so everyone can enjoy the show. It's a reasonable request, right? But inevitably someone in the theater ignores it – and you hear something like this. And it doesn't end there. Anatoly Smeliansky is Associate Artistic Director of the Moscow Art Theater.
SMELIANSKY: It's not that they are just forgetting to switch off their phones. They are talking, sitting in the second or third row. He got the call and he started talking during the show. Unbelievable! Sometimes actors are stopping in the show, saying, “I'm waiting for you to finish your call.†After that, the idiot will switch off the phone.
GOLLOHER: Svetlana Osipova says she's seen that type of behavior many times. She works at the Shukin Theater School. But even she admits she'd answer her phone during a performance, if need be.
OSIPOVA: If I am waiting for some very extraordinarily important call, of course I try to whisper, I'll call you back.â€
GOLLOHER: But some theaters are fighting back. Smeliansky says they've invested in hi-tech equipment to block calls.
SMELIANSKY: Some of the new theater buildings have a special device to muffle the cell phones. Even if they wanted, they cannot use it. This is actually the best way, in the conservatoire, the symphony, all those spaces, just to have a special high-tech tool to suppress, to kill them.
GOLLOHER: Of course, Russians aren't alone in their annoying use of cell phones in public places. But Anatoly Smeliansky thinks because of their history, Russians take it to an extreme.
SMELIANSKY: It's an obsession. Millions of people. We were in a locked, closed country. So for us, a cell phone is a kind of symbol of freedom. But like Russian freedom, it's without any limits.
GOLLOHER: Colleen Lucey agrees about the lack of limits. She's a Texan who's lived in Moscow for the past two years.
LUCEY: People feel like they can call you any time of the day for anything, and it's always like and emergency. You have less boundaries.
GOLLOHER: But Lucey says she's grown to like it. And Smeliansky himself seems comfortable with the lack of boundaries.
SMELIANKSY: It's a connection. I'm free. I can talk to the whole world, it's a parasite, like now.
GOLLOHER: He excuses himself to take the call. For The World, I'm Jessica Golloher in Moscow.
transcript
What's your worst experience with rude cell phone users across the globe?