Russian Woman Journal

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Point of view

Wednesday 3 October 2007

DOUG R. (England)

You need to cross the bridge

Why go anywhere?

In this article I question the motivation of both the people involved in making such an important change. Why do they do it? How do they achieve a result?

What is so bad about life for a Russian woman that she wants to change it?

Such a fundamental move is permanent. There will be no going back.

Although I do know of one woman who came to Britain, experienced reality, and went back to Ukraine. I am sure she is unusual. I know several others who are pleased they moved.

Of course my contacts are from the era following the spectacular collapse of the USSR. I was then in the food trade. I investigated the possibilities of supplying perishable foods to certain Moscow wholesalers then being formed. I helped some British businesses with transport contacts specialising in a Moscow delivery service from London.

I also visited Odessa as I wanted to explore the importation of organic fruit wine and vegetables from this fertile country.

Since those chaotic days Putin has made substantial improvements in life for ordinary and rich Russians. He seems popular. The economy has improved. Life is better now. Women still want to leave for the West.  Why?

 

Why do these women want to leave?

The natural and universal wish of women is to find a mate -not all women and not in every country, but most. This person should be compatible, someone to share and enjoy their future life together. A woman’s requirements include providing for and helping with offspring and capable of guidance during formative years.

The accepted traditional method has been to form a unit we call ‘family.’ This traditional grouping provides support, security and nourishment for all its members.

Contrary to what men believe in our society -unlike some others- it is the woman who does the choosing!

Books have been written on the subject, so I will stop my comments right here. I am not a psychologist.

Nevertheless to find a suitable mate a woman needs a reasonable selection.

For whatever reason, the population of Russia has become out of balance. The proportion of women to marriageable and eligible men is skewed so badly that women do not have a good selection of choice.  It is natural for them to enlarge their horizons, if only for that reason.

 But, as I understand it, there is another.

A very high proportion of Russian men are what we call ‘alcoholics’. This makes them unreliable both as providers of food and income and as guidance or support for children.

Of course we have many such men, and women also, let me say. But it seems the original scarcity of available and eligible Russian men is made much worse by this alcoholic addiction of so many, as far as potential mates for Russian women are concerned. So they look around……

I will add my personal opinion.  During my visits and contacts I found many Russian men with unacceptable abrupt behaviour.

Let me justify this.

One day I was in Odessa and telephoned a customs office.  I wished to speak to someone I knew who worked in that office:

Telephone  rings:

Voice; ‘Da?’

Me ‘Is Sergey there please?’

Answering Russian;  ‘Niet.’

Click

I can understand that he answered my question accurately. That is not the point.

Ok. He was a Ukrainian not strictly speaking a Russian, but that is the culture. 

After that episode I looked for other examples and found many. I formed my opinion. Many Russian men seem to have poor empathy for others. The older generation were my personal contacts. Such men were not like this. Maybe they were already more familiar and accustomed to dealing with foreigners?

I am not surprised the women want to leave!

 

How?

Initial Contacts.

The essential first step is for the woman to make her availability known to her intended audience. This may be a drastic initiative for her. She must be strongly motivated.

A man only has to connect with some of the many photographic galleries available on the internet. These galleries offers thousands- yes thousands- of photographs for interested men to look through. A man must make his choice based only on this image.

I use photography in my work as a writer. I am well aware of how these can be doctored. I know how a studio background and general atmosphere can provide a false image -just for that moment. That moment is the only information available to the viewing man. Judgements based on such flimsy obviously superficial evidence are suspect.

I also note how a crude photograph published from a holiday snap rather than studio photographs taken by a professional will have much less impact on any man.

Russian women publicising their interest in meeting foreign men can and should, remain anonymous. As with anything to do with the internet there is much that is flaky and suspect. The internet makes it so easy to tell lies.

As soon as one or other of the two decides to move beyond the photograph stage into a social meet stage the problems start.   

You may say ‘why go so far?  Why not start communicating by phone or email? Why not just see how it goes?

There are two reasons and major snags -language and costs.

Most Russian women cannot speak English. Some of them think they can, but they can’t.

If they know they can’t, they may approach an interpreter or translator to translate their correspondence.   This has to be paid for and becomes a serious cost.

Few women have their own or easy access to a personal computer. Many don’t have independent access to internet. They must go through an agency or some other organisation. These will charge for all emails plus the necessary translations in both directions. Serious costs begin to increase, increasing the woman’s commitment, but the man still has none.

Technology brings another problem we do not normally have to think about. The Russian language has more and different letters and characters. Russian keyboards have different symbols. Messages may not arrive as they were sent and -vice versa- (works both ways’).

Gallery photos may be accompanied by some standard phrases –also phoney. In my first article I did comment on the poor standard of English language teaching in the Russian education system. I can only judge by the results.

Having chosen one or some that attract him, the man considers his next step.

In our society he would expect to make contact by email or telephone.

In Russia the only practical alternative is a visit to the town where his attractions live.

 

Moments of Truth.

The gallery bureau may offer a group tour. For the man this is his first commitment of time and money.  He will need to be fairly serious about the concept, although some regard it as a way to enjoy a singles holiday with protecting supervision.

The advantages, apart from cost savings, include a much greater range of people can be introduced- on both sides- and anonymity still in place if required. 

Both the man and woman are presented with several possibilities to meet and socialise -as far as possible accepting the substantial language barrier.

The bureau will expect to provide an interpreter or female organiser or hostess to help both sides with this social occasion.

I know of one man who, after meeting the interpreter, announced she was lovely and suitable and he didn’t need to see anyone else!    Up to that moment, she had had no intention of leaving her comfortable life and required much persuading!   But she succumbed in the end. They are now happily married, living in London.

Reality often interferes with dreams at this introductory social meeting. Those carefully chosen words of her advert will be shown up for the fiction they are. The trite phrases describing ‘slim’ ‘youthful’ ‘tall’ are suddenly translated into fleshy reality.  The over-popular ‘blonde’ should be more accurately described as ‘tinted light brown.’  She may not pay attention to demeanour or behaviour. I noticed how women who sounded pleasant speaking Russian became high pitched and unpleasant in English. These things may or may not matter to the man but cannot be disguised at this group meeting. Now we will find out.

This works both ways. She may be appalled by the unkempt hairy slob who has replaced her shining knight. He may have objectionable habits of speech or boorish behaviour.

Unfortunately for her, anxiety and excitement can overcome natural inbuilt commonsense. She may discard and ignore instincts which might have saved her. Outside her ‘comfort zone’ of her own surroundings, she throws away her personal rule book.  

It is an important method of establishing that curious chemistry of people. Either the chemistry works or it doesn’t.  At least there is some reality involved now.

 

The Crunch  Meeting.

This can be a disaster or a triumph. Although almost realistic it remains artificial.  With sensible caution it can be a start.  If the first group meet did not work out, for whatever reason, the experience can be put to good use again -repeated several times if necessary and if cash allows.

It is an important moment in life, this choice of future mate. Added to the usual personal problems, are culture, bureaucracy, finance, language, general upheaval. The list of obstacles continues over the horizon.

If it works, will you be pleased? Many of your forerunners are.

This leads me neatly to my next subject; why would a man from the west be interested in a Russian woman?

 

What attracts the man?

Trends in western societies include emancipation of women and a generally open society. Women are accepted as equal participants in many activities previously denied them.

I was brought up to open doors for them, to stand up and give them your seat in crowded public transport, and so on. It is a courtesy and mark of respect for womanhood. 

These behaviour patterns are scorned and even derided now by so-called modern women.

I take no notice. I behave as I have always done. But you would be surprised how often a rude verbal rebuff is my reward for helping a woman with these simple actions. 

An early lesson for me happened a few years ago. I was travelling in a crowded bus. A woman entered.  She was smoking a cigarette and wearing trousers, itself unusual in those days. There were no empty seats. She looked around and saw a man sitting. She accosted him complaining loudly, expecting to shame him publicly into giving his seat to her.

I have always remembered his reply:

‘You are smoking a cigarette like a man, you are wearing trousers like a man, you can stand like a man.’

I was about ten years old at the time.  It made a strong impression on me and says it all.

Many western women have ‘lost the plot’ in their drive for equality and parity with men.

Their achievements have not been without cost.

On the way they have lost much of their femininity. Men have dropped the old ‘protective’ attitudes. 

Younger women take pride in drinking, behaving, copying, keeping up with, and even surpassing the public excesses of their male companions.  

Women have become openly abrasive with coarse behaviour. Maybe they always were but had calming inhibitions.  These have been left behind.

So this is one motivation for men; an appreciation of old-fashioned virtues now lost in their own culture but still alive in Russia. These men dislike the behaviour pattern of their available women. Although American women are much worse than British in my experience, I am not sure which other cultures this ‘women’s progress’ applies, apart from Britain and America.

Certainly French and Italian women retain their attractive femininity.  They take more pride in their appearance, and make more effort with it than their British equivalents.

There are men who appreciate and seek such attitudes and behaviour patterns in women.

There are kings and there are cabbages. I don’t mean literally Kings with power property and a court. I mean men with initiative, courage and even a need to ‘look over that hill.’   To see what is there?

The cabbages just sit there, absorbing the sun and water happily growing, not making any noise or causing any trouble.

This ‘king’ description may typically apply where a man has been very busy in his thirties and forties developing a career or a building a business. I note in passing that to Russians the description ‘businessman’ implies ‘crook.’ at one level or another.

What a mistake however understandable! Such men lead very enviable lives here.

Such an entrepreneurial man is clearly a ‘king.’ He is an achiever not a cabbage. Maybe he had no wish, time or need to start a family, or a relationship has disintegrated.

Now established and successful, he has changed this attitude. He is looking around. It is a simple but time consuming matter for him to look through thousands of gallery photographs……

One alternative to be aware of is a man we regard as a ‘loser.’ This man has not been a success in our society. Probably an inadequate, he is investigating contacts and possibilities at a level which would reject him here.

The warning negative signs picked up by a western woman will be disguised or just not seen by a woman from a foreign culture.

Against a background of failing marriages, divorces and the other results of unsatisfactory relationships will be many genuine seekers of good companions.  They may or may not be carrying ‘baggage’ in the form of attached children bringing their own problems.

 

DOUG R. (England)  

 

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