From babushkas catering to transit trains, to modern marts mushrooming over the Former Soviet Union, every vendor has his individual assortment, price and service. Welcome on a tour from extreme to cosmopolitan.
Omission & presumption of “default” routine procedures wreck more international marriages than cultural barriers do. Honest well-wishing care does not inoculate us from screwing up. “She’s a novice – you’re the boss” is but an illusion of control.
Ask Joseph. ) With experience like his in Russian / Ukrainian travels, relationships and business, you won’t need a Buddhist course in tranquility.
Your native Consumer’s Paradise and your woman’s native Consumer’s Purgatory impose different gravity. Former Soviet people may need time to accommodate physical effort they are used to applying to mechanisms, to quit “household tips” on inventive use of handy means, and sometimes to unlearn pushing on people (though unobtrusive politeness is recommended to foreigners in Eurasia, too). Plus they have to master the “space technology” of Western legal regulations and forms where every word, action, or omission has consequences.
2006, printed sources: Ella Libanova, Vice-Director, Institute of Demography under the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine; Victor Smirnov, journalist
Note: Ukrainian nationals, not ethnic Ukrainians, are discussed.
May not different social realities, giving different meanings to similar words, prevent a viable international relationship or create tensions on the way to one.
“Working girl”, for starters, is “what you’ve thought” only in the Western reading. In Russian, emphasizing work means serious attitude to life (yet not obsession with career - the very word given some negative connotation since the Russian Empire, and much stronger in the Soviet Union).
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On comment 42 to this post at GL’s. More on scam schemes here
Hi Rob, I can imagine your confusion. This letter appears controversial as well as authentic. Here are some thoughts I got…
First, considerations natural from a woman’s viewpoint, that usually scare men. Read the rest of this entry »
West vs. East is the clash of Rules vs. Context. Who overdares? Eurasia.
A link to send Russian & Western online friends ;)
Joseph calls it “Girfriend Rule #1”, I call it “Disclaimer”. Always mind the cultural and linguistic differences, added to individual styles!
The most complained-on problem is “visitor-non-friendly” environment. There IS state-of-the-art “civilization”. And many Russian people DO strive to lend a hand, for the sense of patriotism and dignity. Yet they also see more compatriots of less culture (in terms of language skills, helpfulness regardless of them, order, abuse, and racism) than their foreign counterparts have (the brighter is the well-bred visible minority, highly praised by sophisticated travelers from Europe.)
The rule is: the deeper backwards, the harder (insulation in deterioration, deterioration in insulation). But there are capital exceptions worth a contrary rule! No ounce of justification is given to the woodwork habits of numerous hoards of “centers” dwellers or barbaric newly-rich parvenus moving to capital cities or traveling abroad.
Same is true for Ukraine and other Former Soviet countries, maybe in a way more hospitable and internationally disposed… and less accurately organized.
So, here follow the major bummers. Brought to your attention from a Russian website on tourism (a discussed poll “What irritates foreigners in Russia“) as vaccination against possible cultural shocks.
Let not the surrounding dirt mar the human diamonds you are going to meet, nor upset your plans for a Nice Time on a Comfortable Extreme Tour.
“Needless for those who’ve understood, useless for those who won’t”…
As the faith, so the reward… World is Mirror, life is what we make & let done with it… He who thinks prostitutes, gets prostitutes. He who thinks noble, gets the noble.
People seem to savor new recipes of food for thought: self-toothed out of mineral tablets, or squeezed, extracted and served with a straw in an occasion-specific glass. So may I entertain you with one more cocktail of playful spirits.
Chefs promise trouble if the vessel is not cleaned. Right. Enroll to this school of international dating, get blacklisted from heaven with virgin angels, and keep spitting into decent people’s borscht. Or listen to Aunt Natalia and take a chance… )
Guys’ eyes are valuable mirrors. But a Russian Girl ™ can bewitch any guy… not another Russian Girl ™. What may let - and make - the latter help, and whom? Read the rest of this entry »
Rich, Poor, Who, Where, What For… HOW MUCH?
What attributes define the middle class?
Amounts to earn and spend in capital cities?
Official reports, public polls, press surveys since 2006 to the latest comment.
Dollar amounts rounded, course contemporary to the publication.
Russian and Ukrainian snapshots appear interchangeably.
Moscow sampling. For the rest of Russian population, divide into 3.
Jingle Bells! Time for making dreams & pleasant wishes come true for all good boys and girls. A special gift from Father Frost & Snow Maiden: a Place to Meet and Match, made Honest, Safe and Smart for you by Natalia and Joseph!
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This is the overall picture that a local person can observe. A foreigner should keep in mind that “potential international brides” (women he would likely meet or notice) are a specific sampling, with their peculiarities and differences I’m trying to describe.
Now you can finally outline and explain the paradoxes of this land, so astonishing to strangers! Watch the symbol of the Orthodox religion, fundamental to the Russian, Ukrainian, Belarus and largely Soviet culture that reaches from private desires to the order of government. A cross is like a reference frame stretched between the extremes, - contrasts at the ends of axes, varieties between, and balance in the intersection.
So whatever you wanted to know… Yes, every tiny peculiarity. Did you notice that the Orthodox Cross has buds on ends that make each branch crossed once more? ;) The posts below would show how major conditions of the region’s geography, economy and history have shaped the daily life of “Russian” people and their way of thinking. Read the rest of this entry »
Above natural beauty, Slavic women are in world’s demand for their upbringing as Good Wives and Mothers, - a unique blend of distinctive qualities based on traditions and flexible upgrades: Read the rest of this entry »
Here he comes, passionate, intelligent and confident. We chat hours away, and then I see his inner boy. His shining armour is like chocolate’s foil to the teeth of some “bunny girl”. He’s about swording down princesses he takes for witches. Starving for human connection, orphaned from feminine care… And once again I turn Aunt AskNatalia.Ru to help one more soul rather than seek for the soul mate for myself. )
Thus began my e-counseling practice in psychology. Many times I felt blessed with friendship to a missioned professional analyst / therapist / coach lady I mention here and there as Dr. Tamara… as well as with my Ukrainian / Russian origin.
These Men have learnt stabbing their male rivals, juggling with big money, playing chess with the world, - yet feel lost at managing their personal lives. Yes, business and relationships are different disciplines, though not as incomparable as we are taught to think. But indeed, how should one operate in the world where definitions have fused?
“Manly” and “womanly” - “Western” and “Eastern” - “traditional” and “modern” - we are just too much alike… even though so different.
Luckily, Russian Women are seasoned soul-divers. ) Moreover, today’s generation of brides has been learning Men largely by foreign examples of. Which means, checking themselves through the eyes of foreign men - prevalently Western European and American.
How could it be? Read the rest of this entry »
Should I parenthesize “Russian” everywhere on this blog? Any Russian-bride-savvy knows this indication concerns several, mostly Eastern European, countries of the Former Soviet Union (FSU): Belarus, Russia, Ukraine (kin Slavonic / Slavic nations), to some extent the Baltic region (West-wise), Georgia and Kazakhstan (East-wise). What stands behind the “brand name” then? Read the rest of this entry »
