A simple Russian woman, or not.

[viking]

Many of you seem to have visited Russia or the FSU many times ( can I have your job and time off? LOL) and have met with more than your share of ladies.

question (s)

Is the ability to speak english really a barrier in developing a relationship before hand and then when she is here?

Do you find that a relationship is developed before you go over there, she knows you are bringing a ring and if everything works out its a deal, and the proposal is more or less the anticlimatic?

Are the women who live in smaller towns (in the middle of siberia just as an example) different than the ones from an urban city like Moscow? Culturally speaking?

Is the cosmo girl more likely to be a bit on the materialistic (maybe more high maintenance?) side and more knowledgeable than the country girl of outside events and sorta what to expect when she is here?? (Seems like every woman I have ever spoken to from a larger city has a friend over here already).

Yes I know. American women from different parts of the country are a bit different also, but it seems over there the differences are greater.

 

Thoughts? 

[ronin308]

Language is going to be one of your biggest problems, I've learned this and she isn't even here yet.  Don't be surpised to have her start crying on you because she can't tell you something.  Also we now laugh at how we didn't get the full communications between us due to the interpreter not translating all of it or summarizing things.   I also think that the interpreter made the process seem really odd and unnatural so things you might pick up on dates 1&2 you might not find out until much later.

From my experience there's no way to develop a relationship without meeting.  For example in my case the woman I felt I would be proposing to after 4 months of writing dropped to number 3 after we met and I met 2 other women.  I had a lot of chemistry on paper with the first one, but when we met I found it lacking compared to the woman I'm now with.  Once you've met it's a different story.  Now that I gone through this once, I don't think I would have proposed as quickly as I did, I feel lucky and maybe fated that things have worked out well so far for me, but it didn't have to be the case. 

Yes a small town girl is going to be a bit different than one from the big city.  Remember though that many small town girls have moved to the city for either better education or employment.  So it's possible to find someone with the right values in the city, but chances will be she will also be better educated.

 

[groovlstk]

Many of you seem to have visited Russia or the FSU many times ( can I have your job and time off? LOL) and have met with more than your share of ladies.

question (s)

Is the ability to speak english really a barrier in developing a relationship before hand and then when she is here?

I hope that's a rhetorical question... It's a barrier as solid as the Iron Curtain, and anyone who tells you otherwise is blowing smoke up your keyster.

Do you find that a relationship is developed before you go over there, she knows you are bringing a ring and if everything works out its a deal, and the proposal is more or less the anticlimatic?

A relationship is not developed until you've spent time with her, regardless of how many emails and phone calls you've made. Any girl expecting an engagement ring before she's met you is not the kind of girl you want to bring home, and any guy who brings a ring along on his first trip should be commited to Creedmore Psychiatric Facility, where he can shuffle up and down the corriders in slippers and drool all over his pajamas, but at least he's no longer a menace to himself.

Are the women who live in smaller towns (in the middle of siberia just as an example) different than the ones from an urban city like Moscow? Culturally speaking?

Is the cosmo girl more likely to be a bit on the materialistic (maybe more high maintenance?) side and more knowledgeable than the country girl of outside events and sorta what to expect when she is here?? (Seems like every woman I have ever spoken to from a larger city has a friend over here already).

A lot of FSU city girl vs. country girl arguments are laughably naive, but here's my 2 pesos: City girls are more sophisticated, less desperate, have a higher standard of living, and have met Western men before. The upside is that if you find a decent girl, she will not throw herself at your feet for the opportunity for a new life; she won't commit to you unless she has strong feelings for you. The downside is that less principled city girls know Westerners are often gullible and easily played, and will leap at the opportunity to get as many expensive dinners and gifts from you before telling you to flake off.

Girls from the provinces are less sophisticated, probably more trusting, yet exponentially more desperate to escape a dreary future. Life in the provinces of Ukraine and Russia is pretty hellish and opportunities are nil.

There is no magic formula for determing a girl's sincerity or character based on her location.

Yes I know. American women from different parts of the country are a bit different also, but it seems over there the differences are greater.

 

Thoughts? 

[Rvrwind]

Many of you seem to have visited Russia or the FSU many times ( can I have your job and time off? LOL) and have met with more than your share of ladies.

question (s)

Is the ability to speak english really a barrier in developing a relationship before hand and then when she is here?

I hope that's a rhetorical question... It's a barrier as solid as the Iron Curtain, and anyone who tells you otherwise is blowing smoke up your keyster.

Bullpucky!!! My wife knew like 4 words in English when we met & after the third date we didn't even use a terp. If the chemistry is there its there & language ain't got nothing to do with it. She started taking English lessons almost imediately after we decided to make it exclusive & within' three months she was talking English 3 on a scale of 1-5. If you let a simple thing such as language hinder you, you could pass up some real gems. Its only a barrier if you lack the fundamental smarts to engage in universal conversation of sign & body language. Other than that it ain't a problem.

Do you find that a relationship is developed before you go over there, she knows you are bringing a ring and if everything works out its a deal, and the proposal is more or less the anticlimatic?

A relationship is not developed until you've spent time with her, regardless of how many emails and phone calls you've made. Any girl expecting an engagement ring before she's met you is not the kind of girl you want to bring home, and any guy who brings a ring along on his first trip should be commited to Creedmore Psychiatric Facility, where he can shuffle up and down the corriders in slippers and drool all over his pajamas, but at least he's no longer a menace to himself.

Agreed!!! Until you meet face to face you are nothing more than penpals, period.

Are the women who live in smaller towns (in the middle of siberia just as an example) different than the ones from an urban city like Moscow? Culturally speaking?

Is the cosmo girl more likely to be a bit on the materialistic (maybe more high maintenance?) side and more knowledgeable than the country girl of outside events and sorta what to expect when she is here?? (Seems like every woman I have ever spoken to from a larger city has a friend over here already).

A lot of FSU city girl vs. country girl arguments are laughably naive, but here's my 2 pesos: City girls are more sophisticated, less desperate, have a higher standard of living, and have met Western men before. The upside is that if you find a decent girl, she will not throw herself at your feet for the opportunity for a new life; she won't commit to you unless she has strong feelings for you. The downside is that less principled city girls know Westerners are often gullible and easily played, and will leap at the opportunity to get as many expensive dinners and gifts from you before telling you to flake off.

Girls from the provinces are less sophisticated, probably more trusting, yet exponentially more desperate to escape a dreary future. Life in the provinces of Ukraine and Russia is pretty hellish and opportunities are nil.

There is no magic formula for determing a girl's sincerity or character based on her location.

Agree to an extent, but what you really need to understand is that women are women and it doesn't matter what culture, what town or what language they speak, they are still & always will be women & no different than their western counterparts in many ways.

Yes I know. American women from different parts of the country are a bit different also, but it seems over there the differences are greater.

Only because of the large cultural extremes of the regions. They are much poorer than the bigger cities due to lack of employment etc. If they were not the differences would not be so great. However that being said don't expect a lady from the regions to be uneducated. She may not be as sophisticated as one from the city but I can almost guarrantee she is just as intelligent & as educated for if there is one thing they do have in the regions it is an educational system.

RVR

 

Thoughts? 

[Moonlight]

Language is a great barrier for relationship. If your gf has poor English, you are lucky if you have future together. Love doesnt exist without communicating, chemistry is nothing if your fiancee cannot speak a word  in English. In Russia  English is generally taught at schools, and only some girls keep learning it after high school graduation. They do if they enter the Uni for any type of Linguistics Dept., which requires a lot of English, French, German.  Women are more educated in big cities, thats true. Their values are very very different from girls who are raised in smaller towns or villages.

Just imagine - romantic evening with your gf, and you dont know what she wants to tell you and you dont understand her Russian.... As for me, this relation will go to nowhere...:?

[swindoom]

Just imagine - romantic evening with your gf, and you dont know what she wants to tell you and you dont understand her Russian.... As for me, this relation will go to nowhere...:?

 

Interesting opinion but not true, limiting your selection to only English speaking FSU women means you rule out the vast majority of FSU women looking for a foreign husband.

The first time I met my wife, she spoke almost no English I spoke less Russian but we overcome this problem, without an interpreter, and we had a great time together. There many problems/difficulties that need to be overcome in order to find the right person but language is a very minor one, in my opinion/experience.

[Rvrwind]

Its unfortunate that you yourself put such limits on your search. Had I been so blind I would not have met my wife & would not have enjoyed her companionship for the past three years. Language is only a barrier if you allow it to be, communication is universal.

RVR-Canadian Cowboy/Agency Owner

 

[BC]

RVR,

We had enough problem with misunderstandings and share a common language.  My wifes' English was 4 on a 5 scale when we met.

I guess it might be kind of a two edge sword.. If you can't communicate you it's difficult to miscommunicate hmm.. interesting relationship concept..

In any case I assume a LOT more time would(should) be involved pre-marriage, maybe too much time for the 2 week vacation a year working stiff... but again maybe they should not get on the plane in the first place.

I'm sure your self-employed status and lifestyle/quality time flexibility were quite beneficial to your relationship, helping to overcome the language hurdle.

I guess the level of common language communication at the time you get married is important.. 'da' sounds awful like 'duh..'

[Leslie]

There are good arguments on both sides.

It is MUCH easier if she speaks some English (say 3 on a 5 scale).  If you have limited vacation time and want to proceed through the process quickly then this is the way to go.

At first I insisted on some English.  I would not date women who needed an interpretor.  I also started to learn Russian.  Later I changed this stipulation.  I would meet women with poor English for the a first date with a interpretor.  Second date and beyond we would have to get by with my poor Russian and limited English.  No interpretors on dates.

When I met my wife my Russian was much better than her English.  We had LOTS of communication problems but we survived them.  I think the guy has to be prepared to learn some Russian in this case and honestly the sooner you start the better  

[Moonlight]

We had LOTS of communication problems but we survived them.  I think the guy has to be prepared to learn some Russian in this case and honestly the sooner you start the better  

Good if you overcame it But believe me, Russian language is something what you wont learn for 2-3 months... : )) I am certificated in teaching Russian as a foreign Language, be honest - my deepest respect for people who starts learning Russian. Difficult, very difficult language:?

 

 

[catzenmouse]

When I met Elena she could understand English fairly well but had not spoken it since high school so was very hesitant to try to speak much. I had been doing online and CD learning of Russian by most of what I could say was pretty much centered on travel (getting around, eating, hotel stuff etc.) She started taking lessons again and we practiced A LOT on the phone while we were waiting on the K1 (her with English and my with Russian). If I had limited myself to only those who could speak English I would have passed up a true treasure.

Ken

[andrewfi]

The language issue has no single answer. There are some people who simply do not communicate to a great degree in ther ordinary lives and thus need less from communications than others.

But - it seems that everyone regards themself as a master communicator, having conversations of great depth on topics of great emotional and intellectual content. It is also true that some people are able to get by with relatively poor shared language command, but those are people who are genuinely good communicators, lucky enough to meet another good communicator. IMHO there are two groups of people who can, with some justification suggest that language is not a significant barrier to the process of building a relationship:

1) The very dim, those whose normal communication is pretty basic and can be served by grunts, limited shared vocabulary and ignored misunderstanding.

2) Those bright people who are already skilled communicators and who are used to 'filling in the blanks' in other people's communication attempts through astute observation and intuitive imagination.

The group with the greatest difficulty is the large mass of 'ordinary' people. People who manage their normal communication but who never learned another language, who are normal in their conversation, who seek depth in communications but have no particularly outstanding intuitive skills to enable them to plumb the depths through unusual vocabulary use, voice tone or body language .

In my experience, there are enough women who learned English at school, or who because of their motivation, or career had the opportunity to add to their taught skills, that one does not have to deal with the ones too dim to have been awake in the class at school. Simply put, if you do not speak Russian, there is no need to put up with a woman who does not/cannot speak English with a degree of facilty that enables communication, even if difficult, to take place.

I note from previous posts in this thread that there are some who would see a decent education, in his prospective mate, as being a disadvantage to the wife hunter. IMHO the very opposite is true, but, it is also true that marriages, in the long term, tend to be the most sucessful when the partners are relatively close in intellectual capacity, so as in all things, horses for courses! Some men seek in their wives fully rounded people who have had the stimulation of interaction that is often found only in an urban environment, some do not. If you want a 'country girl' go the countryside; of course for most Russians, the countryside is a palce to escape from and is, apart from the truly rural areas, is actually an urban landscape. Just remember that, for the most part, there is a reason why a woman is where she is and why she is seeking the escape that a foreign man (or a guy from elsewhere in Russia) can offer and it has nothing to do with 'love'.

 

[swindoom]

I always thought 'filling in the blanks' comunication was a basic human skill as there are many situations when you cannot or do not here the whole sentence, for example a noisy pub or night club or any environment with alot of background noise.

I definitely agree that the intelligence level is very important to the long term life of a relationship, I always become quickly bored with women of less intelligence who cannot intellectually stimulate me.

[golden25]

Hello Viking

you asked --> Are the women who live in smaller towns (in the middle of siberia just as an example) different than the ones from an urban city like Moscow? Culturally speaking?


  Yes the ones from the city are different from the rual ones, My own soon to be ex RW after she p_ssed me off 150 times because she so fricken lazy flat out told me -  and i  quote her - [ YOU SHOULD HAVE MARRIED A MORE MODEST RUSSIAN WOMAN FROM A SMALL VILLAGE ]  do you know why she said this,  because she worked a little bit off and on for a russian marriage agency [ both in russia and in america] and she knew exactly how the mind set of the city girls were compared to the ones from the smaller villiages.

YOU DON'T WANT ONE FROM A BIG CITY!!!!!!! 

 they have seen to much american TV and think life here will be exactly like that, my wifes favorite program was sex and the city,  my what a moral pillar of a program to base you new life in america on.  the  problem is you never see people in sitcoms working for 10 hours days like you and i have to, it just a big fairytail where all the things needed to live are beamed down by the star ship enterprise.

sorry hate to put such a negative spin on it,  its just my opinion and i am sure theres allot of good  Russian ladies out there.

golden25

[viking]

Golden 25

 

Yikes!! I just finished reading the threads of your situation. I can understand. I was modestly involved with a woman from Moscow. She could not understand why I did not/could not/would not send her $3K for a car that 'she needed' because the public transportation was getting too much for her. I think sometmes RW think we are all rich and don't work for a living. And we say we are divorced with children in our profiles, they do not relize that there is alimony, child support, etc.. that goes with our baggage. Sure we might be able to provide them with a nice cozy house, some nice clothes, and love and attention (which I hope is the main thing) but the bmer is a long way off.

[Zhena]

My opinion,if you are from a small city or village-look for same girl. If you are from LA or NYC-then a girl from Moscow or Kiev might be ok for you.For sure,a Moscow girl wont feel good in a small city,it will be boring for her. Maybe there are some exceptions,but usually it is so.

[BC]

a fiancee,

Only fallacy is that towns and villages in RU seem to be quite larger than those in USA or elsewhere.

My wife considers her home in RU with 100,000+ population 'a small town'.

Here our 'small town' has about 15,000  population and a 'small town' where I used to live in Germany was only 3000.

[catzenmouse]

For most FSUW unless it is New York, LA, or DC then it is a village.

Ken

[Zhena]

a fiancee,

Only fallacy is that towns and villages in RU seem to be quite larger than those in USA or elsewhere.

My wife considers her home in RU with 100,000+ population 'a small town'.

Here our 'small town' has about 15,000  population and a 'small town' where I used to live in Germany was only 3000.

Both with 15,000 either 100,000 are small towns. I consider to be a large city only if it has 1 billion of population and more. And yes,3000 is a village,not town.

[Albert]

Don't think any city in world has 1 billion in population.  Billionaires maybe . . . but not people.

[Zhena]

Don't think any city in world has 1 billion in population.  Billionaires maybe . . . but not people.

Ok say it correctly and calm down:( I think everyone got what i wanted to say.

[viking]

a fiancee

I did. I understood you perfectly. Besides, what is a few hundred million between friends.

[Jet]

I do think it's much easier to go up in population surroundings than down. My wife is from a small town (80,000) outside of Nizhniy Novgorod (1.5mil) and moving to the city of Ft Lauderdale, she loved it. We've met a few people from Moscow who absolutely hate it "it's a village!" but find Miami just barely tolerable due to its larger size.