How prevalent are glasses in Russia?

[YoungBuck]

I don't know if I am stereotyping, but from my experience, a lot of Asians wear glasses or contacts. Similarly, I see few Blacks or Hispanics with glasses, and Whites fall in the middle. This could be cultural and genetic: typically, poor vision is highly expressed in college populations; at least this is my experience and doesn't represent any study or poll.


So, how is it in Russia? Are there significant numbers of young women wearing glasses, do they usually opt for contacts, or do Russians have hawk genes?
The reason why I ask is that I have yet to see an agency picture with a woman wearing glasses.

[GQBlues]

...The reason why I ask is that I have yet to see an agency picture with a woman wearing glasses.

Why are you even surfing agency profiles to begin with? I thought you have a girlfriend you haven't yet met?
 
Anyway, you won't see them smoking either. Matter of fact, they'll mostly state in their profiles they do not smoke cigarettes.
 
The fact is, all RWs have very bad eyesight. It isn't until they arrive to the US and get prescription glasses is when they realize that what appeared to be a knight in shining armor they eventually decided to marry, is in fact an old fart. Falling, once again, as victims of very poor eyesights. Some learned the art of squinting upon reaching the airport and would immediately notice the obvious ghastly presence in front of them and hurries back home...
 
Hence, the majority of them get tagged wih the acronym 'GCG's shortly after arrival. That's fyi - 'Getting Contacts or Glasses'.

[YoungBuck]

Why are you even surfing agency profiles to begin with? I thought you have a girlfriend you haven't yet met?
 
Anyway, you won't see them smoking either. Matter of fact, they'll mostly state in their profiles they do not smoke cigarettes.
 
The fact is, all RWs have very bad eyesight. It isn't until they arrive to the US and get prescription glasses is when they realize that what appeared to be a knight in shining armor they eventually decided to marry, is in fact an old fart. Falling, once again, victims of very poor eyesights.
 
Hence, the majority of them get tagged wih the acronym 'GCG's shortly after arrival. That's fyi - 'Getting Contacts or Glasses'.

I didn't think such a thing was possible, to have a girlfriend that one has never met...

Anyway, I was actually thinking about this while visiting my Russian's friend Facebook page, and I couldn't help but do a quick search. Yeah, I figured that lack of a vision plan or money to buy glasses/contacts might have more to do with it. Still holding out on those hawk genes though...because my kids are going to be seriously fuck-ed otherwise.

[GQBlues]

In all seriousness though...
 
It seems everytime we visit a FSUW at home here in the US, the gals are wearing glasses.
 
I would speculate the reason is not only money, or maybe vanity, but the fact not many of them drive and have little need to have perfect vision. They also like wearing those HUGE sunglasses ( making them look like dragonflies), which won't work wearing eyeglasses. At least that is what it was like back in the early to mid 2000. Things may have chnaged now...
 
Prescription glasses come in chic styles these days so likely you might see more of them now in FSU than before.

[mendeleyev]

Russian eye care begins in a local polyclinic and if needed is assigned to an Ophthalmologist. A report in the St. Petersburg Times (June 2012) said that only 33% of Russians have an annual eye exam.

One of the most famous figures internationally in the development of laser eye care was the late Svyatoslav Fyodorov, a prominent ophthalmic surgeon. Today there are over 300 branches of the The S.N. Fyodorov Federal State “Eye Microsurgery Complex” clinics, modeled after his original clinic.

Your question was intriguing so I had in mind to do an unscientific poll by scrolling thru the lead profile photos of all my vk friends. Unfortunately the photos were so fuzzy and my eyes tired quickly of squinting, however at the end it looked as if about 10% wore eyeglasses.

My wife watched me conduct the research and thought it to be quite the spectacle.

     

[Larry1]

My wife watched me conduct the research and thought it to be quite the spectacle.
 

  I love a good pun.

Radial Keratotomy was invented in the Soviet Union.  When I searched to make sure I was spelling it correctly I see it was invented by  Dr. Fyodorov Mendy mentioned above.  I think it was the first eye surgery to correct vision. 

[ML]

My wife watched me conduct the research and thought it to be quite the spectacle.
 

Nice pun 

Now I see Larry beat me to it by less than 3 minutes.
 

[Faux Pas]

Why are you even surfing agency profiles to begin with? I thought you have a girlfriend you haven't yet met?
 
Anyway, you won't see them smoking either. Matter of fact, they'll mostly state in their profiles they do not smoke cigarettes.
 
The fact is, all RWs have very bad eyesight. It isn't until they arrive to the US and get prescription glasses is when they realize that what appeared to be a knight in shining armor they eventually decided to marry, is in fact an old fart. Falling, once again, as victims of very poor eyesights. Some learned the art of squinting upon reaching the airport and would immediately notice the obvious ghastly presence in front of them and hurries back home...
 
Hence, the majority of them get tagged wih the acronym 'GCG's shortly after arrival. That's fyi - 'Getting Contacts or Glasses'.

TFF

 

[Lily]

So, how is it in Russia? Are there significant numbers of young women wearing glasses, do they usually opt for contacts, or do Russians have hawk genes?
The reason why I ask is that I have yet to see an agency picture with a woman wearing glasses.

First, they likely take off glasses when posing for pictures. Glasses would mostly be used for reading.
 
Other than that, my personal observation is that I saw relatively few Russians who wear glasses all the time. Right now, I look at my old school class group photo where we all are 8 years old. I only know one girl out of 31 who wore glasses most of time, and perhaps two or three more wore glasses during the lessons but I am not sure about it. She took them off for the photo, however.
 
At the same time I recall that a glass wearer in high school was something out of ordinary. I changed a few high schools but the overall picture was still the same. There were very few people with bad eye sight. At school, we had mandatory eye exams twice a year, and most of us came with the 1, which in Russia means, full capacity of vision. Deviations were defined as plus or minus something, but as we went through the exam all together, we knew the results of each other, even more, we willingly shared it ourselves. Prevalently, most of us showed this 1. Privacy sucked at that time! 
 
When I was an university student, I recall that there were slightly more glass wearers in the groups, but they were still in minority. No contact lenses at that time in Russia, at least extremely few of us could use that opportunity. Glasses were mostly an attribute for people of a certain age, and used basically for reading or crafts.
 
I ask myself why there is so many people with impaired vision here in Northern America. Perhaps, this is partly due to the local health standards or the medical training? A Russian doctor would rarely prescribe glasses to someone who can function without them.

[ML]

Glasses would mostly be used for reading.

Lily, you probably know more than you indicated but . . .

Children who use glasses for reading are 'far sighted.'
The eyeball is too flat.
The glasses they wear will be thicker in center than on edges, and often give the children a 'bug eyed' look.
In USA, this is not the norm for children who need glasses.

More  often is the prevalance of 'near sighted' meaning they cannot see well enough items in the distance.  The eyeball is too elongated.  The glasses in this case are thinner in the center than on  the edges.

Often children find out about their 'near sightedness' when  they cannot read things written on the boards at school, and for sure when they cannot pass the vision test for a drivers license.

Another completely different situation is when we age, the eye muscles are not able to work as well as when younger and we cannot focus well.  This occurs even in the cases where the eyeball is the perfect shape.  In this case glasses are needed for reading.

[Anotherkiwi]

...Another completely different situation is when we age, the eye muscles are not able to work as well as when younger and we cannot focus well.  This occurs even in the cases where the eyeball is the perfect shape.  In this case glasses are needed for reading.

Yup, that's me!