I heard from many people, it does... But for me it does not. In my opinion Russian sounds very nice. Sometimes melodic, or even Poetic :D. Some people say they dont like the "sibilant sounds" (like ш,щ,ч,ж) but i think that they are just a problem while learning, if you are not used to such sounds. in general speaking they are not so significant... at least I more often hear the "soft" sounds like е,ё,я,ю,ы... Well, i don't really know what type of problem some people have with Russian - I like it very much!

Well, it kind of does. Russian language sounds harsh, I mean I like the sound of it but it definitely doesn't sound like a romantic language. It sounds a bit like you're ALWAYS giving orders :)

well,It hards not beautiful,,,,,and there is a very very bad,,,,maybe very rude opinion about Russian kanguage,,,,,In china,,,little people think it is just like pig's language,,,,this is very wrong and stupid.

I think it has a bad reputation for sound "hard" or "harsh" because of the several connected consonants. The fact that stress plays an important part of a words meaning doesn't help that reputation much either. But I love Russian. It's a beautiful language.