Whether you are lucky to deal with a girl who speaks any English, or misfortunate to use a machine translator, these 5 rules would save you and your dates or correspondents a bazillion of nerve cells. The difference in grammars and lexicons may not only prevent understanding, but create quite offensive effects in interpretation.
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.
So different by styles, habits and characters, so alike by dreaming of love’s bliss… Here’s a gallery of most vivid female types – and their potential husbands. Call it a set of caricatures that street artists have been fudging anyplace and anytime, changing only markers, - but so far as this article is published in urban reading, let its author refrain from remorse.
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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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Responding to discussion on this must-read by Master GL, here’s an overview of, errm, “Russian Woman (TM) Communicator”, from home production to foreign handling.
Beg your tolerance to my debris of radioelectronics )
The first thing that little children are taught here, is to speak truth. Read the rest of this entry »
Even if your could-be-bride is a fan of Mr. Bean, - mimicking his manners won’t make you her hero. In the basics of Russian cultivation, grimaces and physiological manifestations fall under certain censorship.
Which makes this post important beyond romantic contacts. However polished the stranger may be…
Slavic norms of public / interpersonal conduct allow much less natural motions than accustomed abroad (especially in America). Some may be judged as, without much exaggeration, crime against civility! And civility’s one of the first virtues which Foreign Men are given credit for.
(Life stories and professional advice)
More than two people have to get along! A fact is easy to adopt; real Little Others take more time to love. When they feel it – are hostilities inevitable? How can the new stepfather or stepmother cope with a life-long challenge sooner?
…barely awarely. Just with routine American vocabulary. I mean vulgarisms. Words stemming from the pelvic area or loo, such fu(n)kin‘ crap not worth a rat’s ass. Ain’t “anatomy discrimination”: the rest of the body is subject to non-verbal control (see the following post).
Oscar Wilde said, “A gentleman is never unintentionally rude”. A Russian joke extends: “A gentleman would always call a cat a cat, even if he’s stumbled against it and fell down.” And one more: “Surprisingly, researches have proven that blondes prefer gentlemen, too.”
West vs. East is the clash of Rules vs. Context. Who overdares? Eurasia.
Discussion initiated here at GL’s
Well, in terms of Monty Python-esque samples, “Russians” and especially women are humorless.
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!
“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… )
Scar Clan Charter reads:The most fierce revenge you can take is turning away and building your own happiness.The most ruthless penalty God has is letting enjoy one’s choice.I dedicate this post to Systemic at “A Prostitute’s Game and a Path to Hell“.
Silicon Jungle, Vacland, 2008
As a Real Russian Man, he didn’t want to go to court. He’d better walk away with a valise, leaving his would-be-ex-wife with “everything”. Namely, their house (”only” three bedrooms, but all paid out), his “parade” Lexus (added to her latest sports Toyota; NOT his dear old Mitsubeast), and the family deposit in the bank. Luckily, they have been childless. She renounced having kids, to his own half-realized relief.
- And the firm, - she demanded naughtily. Despite the Russian name he’s bought into so long ago, Sonya was a true-blue American woman. A beautiful one, whatsoever.
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 »
Pick the role of “Poor Thing’s Prize” or poke into that shallow “Silver Platter To Females”, and you’ll miss a host of differences behind the axiom that
“to Western men, we are all Cinderellas by default; to Russian women, you are all Princes by default.”
It’s high time to anatomize the totem of Russian women. Read the rest of this entry »
orks pointed, pans poised! What the matter cooking is, that it provokes so much rattle-battle?
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.
Do Russian Women Cheat? It depends. Female adulteries need a special post, as deflections from norm. Now let’s discuss Russian cultural norms. Before an encouraging conclusion, I must address the part that some Western men interdict as treason (discrediting their reason).
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“Beauty will Save the World!” To Russian (Ukrainian) women, it’s a slogan for high personal standards, as well as demands. Beauty is a valuable asset, precious to sustain as well. Read the rest of this entry »
Behold in Awe you noble Stranger, for you’ve got the luck to be admitted to the heart of the Mystique of Russian Women! Read the rest of this entry »
Russian women are famous as resourceful, enduring, energetic and dependable. In the Soviet and early transition economies, they carried their families (and the society) on their shoulders, homemaking AND breadwinning, while most their men lay mazed with Communist limits and market challenges. New opportunities didn’t add accountability to Russian men… to women, they did.
Actually, the youngest generation of Russian (Ukrainian) Brides, entering the marriageable age of 17 next year, would be the Fourth Generation of Children Raised by Working Mothers.
Why, how, with what results and feelings have Russian Women been carrying out double responsibilities, - here are the facts from our social history and breathing stories of the women I immediately know.
“No matter what the feminist-wits do, they cannot alter NATURE. And if they try, primary selection will exert its force and suppress and exterminate these aberrations. Feminism is a societal aberration against NATURE.” (kzarz)
To agree with the general message, and dare on details…;)
“Princess-in-Tower” way is a ponderable issue with Russian Women’s dating roles & love manners. It is timeless passive poise awaiting genuine courtship, arousing romantic instincts, and bashing hasteful lovermen. Also it may be concealing feelings like a prisoner under examination, with resistance and evasion ranging from movie-style joky grace to queer hostility.
You may be facing it for quite a long time, because there are no gaming games here. All our impersonal friendliness or protective skittishness evolve from the famous axiom that we Russian Women are a relationship-serious clan. What are the implications then?
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 »
3 Key Rules of Russian Girls: Be Nice. Be Nice to Men. Be Nice to Strangers. No hypocrisy, - an attitude. Still more care and caution you should take, dealing with these beautiful Eastern women who smile so peacefully.
“There are no mistakes in life, just feedback”. Let us better feed by our gains! Here’s a time-saving and all-round efficient algorithm to manage the “Embarrass of Abundance“ (or “Paralysis of Choice”) in 5 steps and a single universal test.