I can't remember where it was, but it was somewhere in western Europe (I don't think I'd get away with pretending to be Russian in eastern Europe and it might be a bit silly to try, given how the Russians are regarded by their former satellite states). I think it was Crete, actually - my friend and I booked into a resort which turned out to be one of those ones which get overtaken by hordes of young, drunk, shrieking Brits every year and I was so mortified that when some Greek spoke to me, I said (in Russian) 'I'm sorry, I don't speak English; I'm from Russia.' And then fled.

We lasted two days and after that collared the person from the holiday company and insisted that we be moved. We ended up in a lovely, isolated family hotel up the coast.