Theories on Societies

[krimster2]

"She can get that with local men, who aren't cheap when they date."

ohhhh yes they are!!!
incredibly so!!!
local dating is pretty tough for Ukrainian women
I've heard ALL the stories
I laugh when you accuse us of making a making a misogynistic mole hill
but ignore the Russian mountain
 

[Boethius]

My experience with FSUM is that they are rather gallant, far more so than WM.  Of course, I never traveled in gopnik circles, just as I don't in Canada (see Boomstick as an example thereof).

[krimster2]

"My experience with FSUM is that they are rather gallant, far more so than WM."


I'd say about 90% Krim population is textbook gopnick
and gopnick women are 2nd class citizens expected to serve men and not complain about it

in my wife's family domestic violence against women is pretty common and accepted
please don't tell me how gallant this is when I see my wife's younger sister with a black eye
this is why my daughters will NEVER live there
if I ever see one of my daughters with a black eye, some son of a bitch will die




 

[Boethius]

None of the women in my family were beaten by their husbands.  None of the women in my husband's family were beaten either.  None of the neighbours in our apartment block beat their wives, nor in the two adjacent apartment buildings.  In those times, you knew these things.  I don't think the level of violence against women is higher in the Slavic parts of the FSU than it is in North America.  However, the attitude toward it is different. 

I do have a distant cousin whose husband beat her when he was drinking.  My Grandmother's reaction was, "What did she expect, marrying a (surname)?

[krimster2]

I must say BO that I wish I had your glasses instead of mine
my glasses cause me to see too many unpleasant things
any chance I could trade mine for your rose colored ones

post soviet collapse
the thin veneer of civilization left town in a hurry
and there's no sheriff anymore
the FSU became a nation of vampires
that survives by сосать кровь кого-то другого
classic "dog eat dog"
good luck "dating" in this environment!




 

[krimster2]

"I get the impression it's a bit of a game out there then. The woman pushing for what she can get and the guy pushing back to give as little as possible. Though I guess the best girls getting more than the not so good ones perhaps?"

you got it!
in FSU dating is like a "survivor island" reality show

other big factor is that in FSU men are the focus and put on a pedestal and not women like in the west
any guy in Ukraine who has a good enough income to support a family can behave however he chooses to behave with women

[Boethius]

I'm not certain there has been a big change since Soviet times.  The rot has just became more open.

I have the experience of seeing both.  You do not.

As for dating, our nephew dated in the post Soviet world.  He had no issues doing so, despite the fact he had no wealth.  He always had a girlfriend.

My husband's cousins' children all dated, and married, in the post Soviet world.  One is now divorced (the only one to marry a foreigner!)

When I look at the children of my cousins in Ukraine, they all married Ukrainians as well, usually from the same village they grew up in.

[Boethius]

"I get the impression it's a bit of a game out there then. The woman pushing for what she can get and the guy pushing back to give as little as possible. Though I guess the best girls getting more than the not so good ones perhaps?"

you got it!
in FSU dating is like a "survivor island" reality show

other big factor is that in FSU men are the focus and put on a pedestal and not women like in the west
any guy in Ukraine who has a good enough income to support a family can behave however he chooses to behave with women

Again, a gopnik attitude.  Didn't you interact with any normal Ukrainians?

[krimster2]

"Again, a gopnik attitude.  Didn't you interact with any normal Ukrainians?"

to me a gopnick Ukrainian IS a normal Ukrainian!
I never met any other kind!
and I know people from every social strata
from being quite poor to minor oligarchs

[Boethius]

"gopnik" has little to do with wealth, or lack thereof.


You hung around in different circles than did I.  None of my relatives are gopniks, not one.  My husband didn't have friends, but I met many of his acquaintances, people who were put around him to inform on him.  Even though they were informants, they weren't gopniks. 


I get the feeling you never really "met" the real Ukraine.  I think you "met" the former Soviet Ukraine.  I believe this is actually very prevalent for foreigners.

[krimster2]

"I get the feeling you never really "met" the real Ukraine"

or paradoxically maybe I did!!!
and YOUR "noble Ukrainian" perspective is the Soviet perspective

you really are an enigma
how could someone who lived there as long as you
have any kind of illusion about "human decency" in Ukraine
you know perfectly well there isn't any...
in a a dog eat dog world, all ya really are is dog meat
no noble savages please

[Boethius]

Given that most of the Ukrainians I interacted with daily had either been persecuted by the Soviets for being of the wrong "class" (nobility and/or vast wealth), or were Western Ukrainian peasants ("bourgeois nationalists"), and most had either been in gulags or later, jailed for political crimes, I would submit that no, you are mistaken in your assumption about who I interacted with.

I also have the benefit of living in the Ukrainian diaspora, among Ukrainians who never lived under Soviet rule.

I don't think life there is any more "dog eat dog" than it is in the West.  I think life there is more of a struggle on a daily basis, but most people there have lived through things that Westerners have not, so their perspectives on what is important in life is different.

Is Martin Shkreli any less "dog eat dog" than the average Ukrainian?  How about Harold Simmons?  Or Donald Trump? 


Yes, we had Soviets do terrible things to us when I lived there, but I have no illusions in believing had my country fallen into the grips of totalitarian dictators, it would have been different here.

[krimster2]

"I don't think life there is any more "dog eat dog" than it is in the West."

really, despite there being a 20 or 30 times increase in income, the west is just as bad?
nooooooooo it isn't...
haven't had any of my neighbors in USA steal my cherry trees like they did in Ukraine
they even stole my goddamn chickens one time
dirty rat bastards
people would try and scam you for 5 UAH
even borjomi water is counterfeit in Ukraine
there were so many people there who were wanting to "borrow" money from me
which obviously would never be repaid
when relatives came over to my home and then "things went missing"
no, glad to leave all that behind

[msmob]

Funny thing about Russia

No-one wants to live in a ground floor apartment

If you live in a house, they often put a high fence around it

Yet, I have found any neighbour to be caring- trustworthy and they pay bills for us and we them if away

[Boethius]

really, despite there being a 20 or 30 times increase in income, the west is just as bad?
nooooooooo it isn't...
haven't had any of my neighbors in USA steal my cherry trees like they did in Ukraine
they even stole my goddamn chickens one time
dirty rat bastards
people would try and scam you for 5 UAH
even borjomi water is counterfeit in Ukraine
there were so many people there who were wanting to "borrow" money from me
which obviously would never be repaid
when relatives came over to my home and then "things went missing"
no, glad to leave all that behind

No, I didn't say it is just as bad, just that the same archetypes exist in every society.


In the USSR, there was a culling of those who did not fit into the mold of the "working class".  They were eliminated, and later, jailed.  Independent thought was discouraged, even persecuted, and that was right to the collapse of the system.  It is akin to taking a beehive and killing the queen and drones, leaving only the workers to maintain the entire hive. 


I can't fault the workers left behind, indeed, created, for their actions because in my understanding, they are incapable of truly understanding what they are doing.  Everything that made them who they were intended to be was killed. 

[krimster2]

"No-one wants to live in a ground floor apartment"

that's "for sure"!!!
I had a 2nd floor apartment in Sevastopol, so I needed steel bars over all my windows and a bank vault front door
I couldn't park my car overnight in front of my apartment, or it would be burgled for tires/battery/etc

my new house in America has no steel in it
when I went away for 3 weeks had no stress about leaving my house

BIG DIFFERENCE!!

[Boethius]

That would depend on where one lives.


Years ago, a friend of my sister's was living in New York.  She came home to find a drug addict robbing her third floor apartment.  She was held at gunpoint, with a demand for money.  She didn't have any money, but she did have some jewelry, which she handed over. 


She considers herself lucky to be alive.

[krimster2]

I had two people in my extended family in the USA killed by gun violence, both were woman with children
one was killed in a supermarket robbery back in the 70s
based just on a firearm murder rate of about 1,000 people per month in the USA
your actual chance of catching some lead on a particular day is pretty small
but 100% of what you cannot escape from is the paranoia you feel in America
this fear underlies everything here
when you live in a country that doesn't have this fear
it feels liberating and beautiful

I mean seriously, my two blond Russian-American American teenage girls could be out with their friends at 2 AM in the heart of Amsterdam and be perfectly safe,
took me a whole week to believe it though
but this is what it feels like to live without that fear
that your fellow man is going to try and kill you

the world just feels a little brighter
and then you take a self driving boat down through the canals while smoking a spliff, listening to some tunes and slowly drinking an expresso
while admiring the beautiful architecture and pretty blondes on bicycles

[krimster2]

""WM are far better fathers than FSUM""

because if it was true,  it would mean that you kinda got a "bum deal"
ergo, it can't be true...

I am still kinda blown away with you getting married at 18
what on earth were you running away from?
don't deny it or use faux sophistry
on behalf of other young girls
you owe it to them to be honest
about why you made such a choice at age 18
so be honest

[Boethius]

""WM are far better fathers than FSUM""

because if it was true,  it would mean that you kinda got a "bum deal"
ergo, it can't be true...

I am still kinda blown away with you getting married at 18
what on earth were you running away from?
don't deny it or use faux sophistry
on behalf of other young girls
you owe it to them to be honest
about why you made such a choice at age 18
so be honest

No, I disagree that this has anything to do with me.  Both my sisters married Canadians, and their husbands are excellent fathers as well.  I just think these generalizations are not useful.  It's akin to "All WW are ball busting feminists".  Some are, most aren't.

I wasn't running away from anything.  I met someone.  I loved him.  I knew I wanted to be with him for the rest of my life.  I knew it would take a long time for us to be reunited.  In fact, I dreamt exactly how long it would take before I met him. 

Had my better half been Canadian, we probably still would have married, just later than we did.

[krimster2]

" In fact, I dreamt exactly how long it would take before I met him. "

please explain
did you have this dream before you knew you were going to the USSR or after you knew

your answer could either mean you are a prophetess
or wish fulfillment
and maybe the reason why you wanted to go in the first place

the local farm boys not interesting?
that's what my 17 yr old is telling me
i'll have to get used to the fact that when she's 18
she'll be dating guys older and more "interesting" to her
I have to get over my hyper-dad sometimes

[Boethius]

Before I went.  Before I even considered going.  I was 15 when I had the dream.


I didn't grow up on a farm.

[krimster2]

a romantic dream
to repel unhappiness
and the tenacity
to not let go

so what was the cause of your unhappiness
to pursue your fairy tale with such devotion
something more than just puberty
or something wrong with your life in Canada
that getting married would fix

color me skeptical
your denial only increases it
I KNOW there's a story there
I can feel its presence
and it leaks out a little once in a while
but you ALWAYS make the choice to hold back its telling

let the dam burst
and the words spill forth

tell us a story

Once upon a time in Canada there was a teenage girl who awoke from a dream
In the dream she had feelings of a deep emotional attraction towards an older Ukrainian intellectual man she just met there
As a pubescent girl the dream created feelings that she never experienced before
and she became addicted to the illicit pleasure it created for her

ok, here's what I think about that story
ya shoulda tried more items on the menu
before ya decide to have that one dish the rest of your life

the rest of you looking at the menu should think about this

i mean hello, logic...
would you just pick meatloaf and say, "ok, I'm going with that forever from now on"
without even trying pizza first

that's why this story is imbalanced
there's a piece missing
that you're reluctant to tell
it does not follow logic without the missing piece
so give us the missing piece
and finish the story

[DaveNY]

None of the women in my family were beaten by their husbands.  None of the women in my husband's family were beaten either.  None of the neighbours in our apartment block beat their wives, nor in the two adjacent apartment buildings.  In those times, you knew these things.  I don't think the level of violence against women is higher in the Slavic parts of the FSU than it is in North America.  However, the attitude toward it is different. 

I do have a distant cousin whose husband beat her when he was drinking.  My Grandmother's reaction was, "What did she expect, marrying a (surname)?

Boethius the women in your family were lucky if none of them experienced DV. I was in Russia 6 years and heard of DV from a number of women. IMO the reason it isn't more well known, in Russia at least, is because it doesn't make the news to the same degree it does in the US.

My understanding is that there are far fewer stats keep on DV in Russia than on DV in the US, Canada, UK, etc. Don't know about Ukraine. From what I've read from foreign sources DV kills thousands of women each year in Russia. A Wikipedia source confirms this.

Another myth about Russia is that because Putin rules with an iron fist Russia has a low crime rate. After all stories about murder and other criminal activity don't make the news to nearly to the same degree as in the US.

This is total BS. Russia has a murder rate far higher than in the US. There are almost as many murders in Russia, population 140 million, as in the US, population 330 million. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime the homicide rate in Russia was 10.82 per 100,000 inhabitants (2016) while in the US the homicide rate was 5.35 per 100,000 inhabitants (2016). Big difference. 

Yet guns laws are far stricter in Russia and gun availability more limited than in the US. This is a vast improvement for Russia. 14 years earlier there were 30 thousand more murders in Russia than in the US yet they rarely made the news. That means Russia had about 44,000 murders (2002). Did a better economy lower the murder rate or did Putin's iron fist?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_in_Russia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Russia#Murder

[msmob]

DaveNY,

It's already post evening meal cocktails - but even after imbibing 1 Cider, I note your very own stats demonstrate that the US is FAR more dangerous than Russia ? !