Etiquette Norms and Communicative Practices of Using Greeting Cards in Contemporary Russian Culture

The article is devoted to the transformations of the etiquette rules and communicative practices of using greeting cards in a visual age. The authors propose a hypothesis that the practice of written congratulations experiences a shift from the writing of congratulatory text to the choice of an image. This hypothesis is tested by a pilot sociological survey using distributed questionnaire and based on a multistage sampling. The results show that in contemporary Russian culture greeting cards the parity between image and text remains, while the main idea is transmitted via the latter. The greeting card is still regarded as an important element of greeting accompanying a gift. Greeting cards are used mainly for maintaining informal relations. However, the emotional intention of the greeting card is maintained throughout shorter period than before being realized only in the situation of gift­giving and congratulation.