First Phone Conversation!

[Bruno]

JB write :
[line]
Don't get me wrong,,, there are lots of really qualified graduates in the FSU who would make excellent wives. But there are also a ton of women who have meaningless degrees which will never get a job in the US as anything. Sorry, that's just the honesty of it.
[line]
A woman with a work like beautician have more chance to find a work in our country that these high school doctor and lawyer... High school give only theoristic who apply to her own country... the method of work for "low" job are the same in each country...

The standart of education are more high in Russia that us... they have 6 full days school in the week, not so much holliday that us... A western student is more at home that at school...
[line]
Based upon what I personally know, beauticians do not go out of town much. There just isn't a two week convention of beauticians anywhere in the FSU. If she told you that, she was pulling your chain.

[line]
Why you thing so... !!! In January, Galina was at a convention for business women... these convention was 3 week long... in these three week, it was two week course in University for learn the economic theorie from America ( she know now very good the industrial theory from Henry Ford )... Convention from beautician are possible... see

http://www.eventseye.com/fairs/event_tc183_35_1.html

http://www.eventseye.com/fairs/event_tc183_21_1.html
[line]


The shop girl devuska who holds a degree like this is often not qualified to be anything but a housewife.


[line]
All dressed up and no where to go! That's the situation regarding Russian education where a high percentage of the population has college or university degrees, but there aren't enough good jobs. Not only are the educational standards high, but most Russian ladies have also trained, often for many years, in some form of art or talent. Many Russian ladies have studied literature or play instruments, or they have studied dance, painting, poetry, or have some sort of athletic background.

Galina is a shop girls and i have ask her why she was only shop girl :

"You ask me about my work. It's so boring for me. I work not for the specialty. It's not rare in our country. My real occupation is an artist-designer. I'm fond of sewing clothes for me and I decided to be a professional. But when I began to work I didn't feel job satisfaction. I decided to get another education. At this work education was a luxury for me because I had neither time nor money. Later I found a job when I work now it's a small shop. I get more money selling the clothes then when I sewed it myself. Sewing is my hobby but probably in future it'll be my occupation. Now I study at the university as a manager."

I have write a lot with her about our future and she know that she cannot use her diploma in Belgium... but we have already plan a professional formation in Belgium... she have two interest : inside house architect ( decoration ) of children garden ( take care of your children when you work )... She wish work fulltime... but when baby will be present, work half-time...

Doug, don't take care of other... but maybe you have not write the good question to your girlfriend... speak about your future with her, ask her about what she wish, she dream, she can... build a love relation is one step but build a life together is a other one that you need not forget... it will be your future life...

The Russian woman's expectations are usually way off base. They expect life to be very easy after moving to America. They assume their financial worries will just disappear. They don't think that westerners, especially Americans, must work hard for what they have. The big shock is when they realize how many hours most Americans work just to make ends meet.

[jb]

Bruno,

I was speaking from personal knowledge and experience, during the late 70's and 80's I had dozens of Russian engineers in my classroom.  I was teaching applied geophysics, post graduate.  Almost to a man, my Russian students were educated in the "institute", and held degrees in geology and seismology.  We teach the same subjects in our system, but in Russia, in those days, it was taught more as a trade than a science, if you can understand the difference.

These people were simply educated to fill anticipated job openings in the soviet state oil industry.  Some big person in Moscow decided they would need future oil explorationist, and issued orders to schools to begin educating enough people to accomplish the goal.  Like a military draft, these men were trained to become fodder for the Siberian oil fields.  They didn't have much choice in the subjects they could study.

The Soviet style institute education was, and is, a far cry from the University education that has always existed in many major cities in Russia and Ukraine.  I think it's important for men to know the difference.  Also important for the western man to understand, under the Soviet mindset, women were always considered to be a valuable source of "light" labor, thus many women were given educations suitable to the needs of some State run industry.  So things are not always what they appear on the surface. Such was the system under the Sov's.   That was then, this is now, but you have to remember that it's only been 16 years since the collapse of the CCCP.  The education system that was in place was generally a good one, and it has continued to run under it's own inertia for these years since.

When a newbie goes shopping on the internet MOB profiles, he will see lots of girls listing "higher" education credentials, but under employment she will list something like our little beautician being discussed here.  Usually a woman doesn't need a University education to work in a beauty salon.  This should put a question mark (a flag?) in the mind of the western man, he should not automatically think he's dealing with a degreed woman and she will be able to find fulfillment in our employment fields at home.  It may happen, but it probably won't.

The other side of the coin is that there are many high school educated men here in the USA earning good livings in some tradecraft or other.  Some of these men are also searching for a suitable mate. Should he concentrate his efforts on a woman who holds a doctorate in science or medicine from Moscow State University?  Prolly not, it wouldn't be a good match from her point of view, they'd have very little in common to discuss over the dinner table.

So when you speak of asking some woman about her wishes and dreams about her possible new life in the west, it might be a good idea to have a good dose of reality in your pocket to help make the right choices.  

The rule of thumb is, "All that glitters is not gold".

[Frank]

jb,

You cannot judge a RW or UW based on her current job.  I am a health care provider.  One of my classmates in college was from the USSR.  He was a neurologist there.  Unfortunately, his credentials kept him from practicing in the USA.  No matter what he has to do for work here, that does not make him a shady character.  My fiancee' has the equivalence of a masters degree in music and a second masters in accounting.  Since she can only find work at a fabric shop, does her taking business trips to Kiev to buy fabric make her a hooker also????  

It is not fare to judge these women by their job.  Any guy wanting to develop a relationship with a women from one of these countries needs to go see her face to face.  Talk to her friends and family.  That is what I did.  It cleared up allot of my fears.  If your criteria are used to judge these women, many good women will be overlooked. 

Frank

[jb]

Frank,

you wrote:

You cannot judge a RW or UW based on her current job.

I am not a judge.

One of my classmates in college was from the USSR.*snip* does not make him a shady character.

Read my post a little more carefully, I never said anything of the sort.  If he had the education level you suggest, I'm sure he truly had a "higher" education.  Although the US health care field is a tough one to get into for a Russian.

My fiancee' has the equivalence of a masters degree in music and a second masters in accounting.  Since she can only find work at a fabric shop, does her taking business trips to Kiev to buy fabric make her a hooker also????  

She sounds nice, I'm happy for you. However, unless she wants to be a musician she will not have a useful degree here, and FSU companies count money and keep books far differently than USA firms, so her accounting degree is probably also useless here.

What I tried to do was shed some light into a dark corner, to give the AM some background about how the Russian education system worked under the bad old days.

 

I am a health care provider.

Does that mean you're a doctor?  If that's the case you shouldn't have to worry about her ever needing a job anyway.  MD's and lawyers have all the money in the world as it is, why should I worry if your new wife ever works or not?  As long as she fills the requirements as arm candy, you're good to go.

[Photo Guy]

Okay, I'm back. I've chilled-out.

Larisa's credentials:
Education:  Medical school
Career: Nursing
Her actual profession is doing fingernail art. She does nails.
That seems to be a thriving business here in Phoenix,
as is nursing. We both want to have kids. She'll be a housewife.
I need to find out more about whether or not she wants to
study nursing again. We've spent the last ten weeks discovering
each other and there is still a lot more to discover. Sure, I do
need to question her about a possible career, even if it's
just a part time job. Based on her emails, I already know she's
an intelligent woman and not some hairstylin' bimbo. I do not
need her to be a physicist, a doctor, or a lawyer, for me to be
happy,  ..although I do have a thing for physicists.  -doug

[jb]

..although I do have a thing for physicists

Being married to an astro-physicist, I can understand that.

Never a dull moment around here.

[Frank]

jb,

People in Ukraine may have excellent degree's, but they may not be able to get work in their chosen fields.  That does not make women hookers as you stated. So what if they aren't educated in our system.  I don't expect them to be.  That was not the issue.  The issue was your assumption that a business trip to Kiev equates with working as a hooker. 

Don't degrade an entelligent woman for having to work at a not so intellectual job.  As for "eye candy", you have missed the boat.  Yes, most of the guys on this board are into the eye candy thing, including you, but I am not. That is offensive.  As for doctors and lawyers, most of them don't make what you think.  The average medical doctor makes $90,00.00 per year.  In real life, that doesn't go very far.  The average attorney makes $40,000.00-$45,000.00.  Big bucks, right???  The md's and atty's you hear about are the exception.

Some people like to work because it gives them more purpose.  If my gal wishes to work, she can.  That is her choice.

Please don't give jaded advice to others.  If you have a problem with trusting women, don't pass that fear on to other guys.   Assume the best in these women unless you have certifiable evidence otherwise.  They deserve better than that.

 

Frank

[jb]

Frank

Doctors and lawyers don't make good money???  Give me a break!!  Maybe it's different in Oregon but,,,,

Last time I visited Gerry Spence, at his office in Jackson, WY, he was doing pretty good.  He's even now running a small school up there on his ranch teaching other lawyers how to do even better.  I realize Gerald Spence may not be a household name, but O.J Simpson knows who he is.
The dozen or so other lawyers I know personally are all millionaires, many of them several times over.

Medical doctors in this area start at $100,000+ per annum right out of UT Med school and Baylor school of medicine if accepted by a decent hospital. Degreed engineers from Texas A&M go to work for $50 - 60K.  This ain't too bad for entry level wages.  These are degrees which are job specific and are in demand, a liberal arts degree will get you a job flippin' burgers at Wendy's asking, "Would you like fries with that?"

Now I'm desperately seaching to find a post where I stated a woman not working in her field is a prostitute, please refresh my memory on that score.  What I did do, and say, is that the educational system, as it existed under the Soviets, is a far cry from what we think of.  A woman over 30 would have been, at least partly, educated under that system, many of those so-called degrees do not correlate well with whatever an American employer might be looking for.

I also said:

Based upon what I personally know, beauticians do not go out of town much. There just isn't a two week convention of beauticians anywhere in the FSU. If she told you that, she was pulling your chain.

And I still think that's a reasonable assumption, the conclusions you may draw are your own, but when a g/f dissappears for two weeks, I'd get suspicious.  But that's just me.  I have a mean and suspicious nature.

[Bruno]

Frank,

JB have right this time... he have not write something about hooker... it was Albert : "Most certainly the business trip is BS.  Beauticians do not go on these sort of trips.  This is most likely a trip to be a hooker at a business convention."

[Vaughn]

jb wrote:

What I tried to do was shed some light into a dark corner, to give the AM some background about how the Russian education system worked under the bad old days.

And shed light jb did - many FSU degreed lawyers and doctors who've come here via K-1 or otherwise are working other jobs. A few are studying their way back into their field, but that takes (usually) a regimen of re-training, not a refresher course. My own wife was a schoolteacher, Home Economics, with a degree in Russian literature. Without strong English skills and local certification, she cannot teach literature here, and Home Ec - is that even OFFERED in high schools anymore? I recall it existed in the 60's. So she works evenings for a bank in check processing, a type of work completely foreign to her, while continuing to study our language.

Photo Guy Doug wrote:

Based on her emails, I already know she's an intelligent woman and not some hairstylin' bimbo.

Careful, Doug. There's a fabulous partner in your future, and she just might turn out to be a hairstylist, who's gorgeous, loving, already speaks fair English, and will knock your socks off in every way, except one: she's a hairstylist. (Come to think of it, a hairstylist in the FSU just might be better qualified in her trade than her average counterpart here.) I guess the fact that my Elvira was listed as a schoolteacher never fazed me - occupation was rather low on my list of criteria, coming in a distant second to character, resolve, attractiveness and compassion. Yet her area of specialty - teaching young ladies how to be good wives and homemakers - ultimately made her the best choice for me.

A Russian Women's Concern of How I am Perceived: When I bought my first ticket to Russia, I called the issuing agency (a Russian firm in New York) and told a woman I needed a "letter from the travel agency" outlining my itinerary, to fulfill what then, at least, was a requirement by the Russian Consulate in DC. She asked me, "What do you do for a living?" I answered, "just put down "salesman." But the Russian word for salesman, "pro-dah-VYETS" implies a clerk at a counter - "What will people THINK? - I think we better put down 'engineer'". She was overtly concerned that some FSU bureaucrat or passport control clerk might pass judgment on me, a lowly counter clerk traipsing through Russia - heaven forbid. Yet, I see this judgmental attitude in many Russians, where in my wife's hometown, a waitress is considered the absolute lowest rung on the ladder. Interestingly, perceptions change when the arrival finally happens - my wife's daughter, a K-2, is now a hostess at a Lone Star Steakhouse, suggesting the fried Texas Rose and greeting diners. Her Mom and I are proud that at 16, she's saving every penny for her Russian summer vacation this year. I guess I've never fully bought into the status of occupation - when I worked offshore in the Gulf of Mexico I was the sole rep from my company, and had to deal with engineers, geologists, roughnecks and roustabouts - and there was always an unspoken respect for each person's expertise regardless of station.  

[Michelangelo]

Yes, she is probably meeting someone else and not going to a "convention."   But that is ok.  The girl I pursued for a year and a half made a half dozen trips, and I knew she was meeting other guys.  We just clung to 'don't ask, don't tell."  I just always felt that I would be the best man for her if it was meant to be.  And as it turned out, it was me who actually moved on at the end of the relationship.  But until you are engaged, both of you know deep inside that the race is going and both of you have other options.

[Elen]

She works as a beautician/manicurist.....
 

Yes, I replied that I liked long fingernails. Let the fantasies
continue...

Don't want to tell where I work but wonder what would be an answer if I ask "Do you like Russian intercontinental missiles? :?"

 

Let the fantasies continue...:D:D

[Photo Guy]

Vaughn,
Yes, we're on the same page. -doug

[Photo Guy]

She works as a beautician/manicurist.....
 

Yes, I replied that I liked long fingernails. Let the fantasies
continue...

Don't want to tell where I work but wonder what would be an answer if I ask "Do you like Russian intercontinental missiles? :?"
Let the fantasies continue...:D:D
[/quote]

Ummm. If you mean that as a phallic symbol, then 'No, I'm not gay.'
I didn't realize you still had those missiles. Can we be friends?
 
If you work in the missle department, it could explain your
nostalgia for a totalitarian society. But, I do not like 'fear'.
 ...I like the fingernail fantasy better. I'd like to say 'I'm a lover, not a fighter', but who wants to think about Michael Jackson now? :?
Elen, can you give me something more enticing, like describe
what you are wearing?      -doug

[jb]

Elen

Just curious, since you seem to know these things, there was a rumor that there was built/buried underground, a huge  missile defense control center, and several ballistic missile silos in and around Moscow.  Notably, in the neighborhood of the 1980 Olympic Games park, and the surrounding woodlands.  I have personally seen several old, above ground, concrete doorways leading down into something, but they are all chained and locked shut.  I just chaulked it up to underground city utilities.

Is there any truth to these rumors?

[Photo Guy]

jb,
Let me get this straight. You're asking a Russian about
their missle control defense system? On the surface of things
it looks bizarre, but maybe that's just me.     -doug

[Elen]

didn't realize you still had those missiles.  

I told you you're naive guy:D:D:D

Can we be friends?

 Only at "personal" level But on "state" level America CAN't  be on friendly terms with anybody. It can only dominate. So it's better to still have those missiles.

If you work in the missle department, it could explain your nostalgia for a totalitarian society

Actually my nostalgia is about NORMAL life i had under so called totalitarism. So called Democracy brought nothing "useful" in common life rights but only took away benefits of so called totalitarism (as free-of- pay edication, healthcare, habitation and such priceless thing like - "confidence in tomorrow day" How many of you who live under democracy do know what's it? 

Elen, can you give me something more enticing, like describe what you are wearing? -doug

Military uiform with big stars at epaulets :P Exciting??:D (kidding)

 

[Elen]

Just curious, since you seem to know these things, there was a rumor that there was built/buried underground, a huge missile defense control center, and several ballistic missile silos in and around Moscow.  

Curiousity may kill a cat:P:P Of course I can tell you a lot but after I'll satisfy your curiousity I 'm obliged to shoot you, my dear fellow:D Still want to know??

If ceriously I did see a real  missle shaft (and it was in a very good condition) but it was not in Moscow. And don't fool yourself about millisle's defend of Moscow:P. It's protected VERY well so just don't try to test:D:D

I have personally seen several old, above ground, concrete doorways leading down into something, but they are all chained and locked shut. I just chaulked it up to underground city utilities.

Most probably you saw old air-raid shelter. In Stalins' times there were such shelters almost under each block of flats and in each school. I do remeber till now that "dressing down" I got from my parents after a "trip" in one of those shelter I've done with my friends .:?

 



 

 

[Frank]

Military uiform with big stars at epaulets :P Exciting??:D (kidding)

 

[Elen]

Elen, Who is the naive one here?  For us it is not a question of domination.  With power comes responsibility to others.  It is that simple. 

Well then tell me please who do you cosider as your friends, because I'm informed better about your list you called  "evil axis". I guess the list of friends will be close to that one with names of countries supported you in Iraq avanture:P

And the words With power comes responsibility to others. :? tell for themselves.

Yeah, resposibility. You are so sure others need in that responsibility of yours.

 Didn't your free press (or whatever you read there) inform you there're enough resource (fuel, water, good land, energy.. jobs at least  and etc you need for normal life ) only for 1 milliard people(so called "Golden Milliard")  on the Earth.  Pity there are 6 milliards of us here.

America try to keep their citizens inside that "elite" group by all means - including bombing or crushing in other way "totaliarian" states with taking  responsibility over thier resource. It 's easy to do that under "democracy" than under "tirany".

So it's you who's naive thinking you can be all you want as long as you wish to work. Just step away from your golden milliard and we will see what you can do with that "wish to work" of yours.

Having everything given to someone takes away their incentive to work, think, create, be happy and be all they were meant to be. 

[/color]
Are you speaking from your own experience or that 's what you read in your free newspapers? Just curiouse where do such 'deep" thoughts come from:D

In history, each time we tried to ignore the world and be isolationists, the world attacked us.  We have been forced to respond.  We learned from the past.

[/color][/color][/color][/color]
How many times have the world attack you and how many times your soldiers did cross the borders of others contries , taking "responsibility of others"?? And whom exactly do you "respond" in Iraq now 

 

[ConnerVT]

Elen, can you give me something more enticing, like describe what you are wearing? -doug

Military uiform with big stars at epaulets :P Exciting??:D (kidding)

 [/quote]
Is it just me, or do you guys sometimes find a RW in uniform hot?

[Bruce]

I hate getting into the politicial fray.  However, over time what I believe most of you who have extensively been to / lived in both countries will find is that Russian definitions of words, especially communist, socialist and democracy mean different things to the average Russian than the same words do to the average American.  Even extremely educated Russians and Americans have problems communicating and expressing their real ideas concerning those words because of basic meaning differences.  The Russian experience with communism is often far different than what American's think, believe and hold true, especially guys who grew up during the wave of "communist" witch hunts and propaganda here in the USA.  So, my advice is get your experiences and definitions in line and then start the conversation again - chances are you all already agree!!!

[jb]

Is it just me, or do you guys sometimes find a RW in uniform hot?

Have you looked closely at the women in uniform in those Passport Control booths at SVO?  It sure looks like someone decided to put Russia's best foot forward 'cause those gals are babes~!

Of course you can't get a smile out of them, but every one I've seen is a looker.

[Bruce]

Yes, there are alot of lookers in passport control.

To Elena:

I'm sorry to burst your bubble but Russia is far from a democracy and it doesn't take much to test you venerable air defense surrounding Moscow. Remember that English chap that landed his Cessna on the bridge less than a block from Red Square?