There are only four things one needs to know to date a Russian woman: her age, height, weight and bra cup size. Who cares about all those old-fashioned things like personality, values and sense of humor anyway?
No, this is not just a misogynist statement by an old-school chauvinist. It is what many men in Western Europe seem to believe. I got to see an interesting catalog in Germany once: a thick volume filled with photographs of Slavic (mostly blond and blue-eyed) women in the most alluring of poses. Next to each photograph, there was a reference number one would need to contact the agency and the four aforementioned essential figures. If you are a bored Western European man and tired of the picky women around you, why not flip through a catalog and order a docile Eastern European who would be so happy to live in your developed country that she would cook, clean your house, and raise your kids 24/7?
For those brave enough to deal with the bureaucracy and get a Russian tourist visa, there is an even better option: a bride fair. All one needs to do is board that flight to Russia (usually Moscow and St. Petersburg), where he would be taken to an epitome of the social gatherings. Many charming Russian women would try to charm him in hopes that he would pick her as a potential life partner.
In fact, if one is too lazy to order a catalog or leave his home, there are plenty of resources online. Try googling a “Russian woman.” The first link that comes up lures one to the joys of marrying a Russian woman: “Meet Single Russian Women for Marriage: Mail Order Brides.” There are another 2,200,000 links to websites relating to Russian women. I am too lazy to go through all of them, but the top ten results are directly related to dating. A Google search for a “Russian bride” yields 881,000 results. The search for an exact word combination provides one with a whopping number of links: 711,000.
So why this Russian women frenzy? According to Mr MacCarthy, an American owner of the Ukraine-based marriage agency Mat-rimony.com, “Ukrainian girls and Russian women are very beautiful, well educated and are renowned for their strong traditional values of maintaining a home and raising a family.” If one reads along the line, this praise would sound something like this: “Russian and Ukrainian women, mostly the ones living in the poor provincial citizens, are desperate to get out of their countries where chauvinism prevails and an insane percentage of men are alcoholics. But the desperate situation many of them find themselves in is actually great for us Western men. We can come and lure them with our foreign passports and a promise of a nicer life. It is a fair exchange: we get free household help and they get a chance to get out of their countries.”
Even though there many countries where women face poverty and violations of their rights, the post-Soviet countries are especially attractive as the source of potential wives to the single Westerners. Slavic women conform to the Western beauty standards: everyone who has been to Moscow knows there is an immensely high density of tall, thin, blonde women per square meter of malls. Most “Russian wives” come from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. The population in these countries displays a traditional Slavic look. Among the other post-Soviet countries, Latvia and Lithuania enjoy membership in the EU, so their women can live in a Western European aka civilized country without marrying a sleazy foreigner. The Central Asian countries like Azerbaijan and Tajikistan are predominantly Muslim, which makes their women less attractive on the mail order brides market.
Due to the way an education system functions, most Russian women get at least a bachelor’s degree; many speak at least one foreign language decently. A traditionally patriarchal society tells women they should know how to clean and cook. In fact, 99% of Russian schools have mandatory housekeeping classes for girls, where they are taught how to cook, clean and sew. Most women get married fairly early (usually in their very early 20’s) and they are taught by the society to obey their husbands. Even though most women work nowadays, the glass ceiling is ever-present; a woman is expected to take care of the household and make money. It is still very rare for a husband to help his wife with any household work (unless it involves opening a can of beer). No wonder the average Russian woman can be so attracted to the possibility of marrying a foreigner.
According to some of my sociologist friends, many Russian women who marry a foreigner out of material reasons end up getting divorced after they get their new foreign citizenship. In the meantime, they often manage to get an education and a job. Many of them end up finding a man who is interested in things other than their similarity to Victoria’s Secret models.
Even though I have not been living in Russia for a long time, I go back on a regular basis. Last year, I was unwillingly exposed to a family reunion. At one point, a distance relative of mine, an accomplished diplomat, asked me what I wanted to do in the future. I told him I was in the process of applying to colleges. He proceeded to ask me what my intended major was. Political science, I said. Everything went quiet. All the patriarchs of the family were looking at me as if I suddenly declared I was a lesbian (another pet peeve in the Russian culture). Then that diplomat relative of mine used the main argument against my career choice: “But you are a WOMAN.”
I was lucky because I did not have to stay in that country. But I can certainly imagine that if I had had to work amongst misogynists like him I might have contemplated going online and posting my profile on one of those online dating websites. Anything to escape a life like that of so many Russian women, so severely and tragically limited by backward perceptions of my gender.