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 Joseph Burke |
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Impressions of Modern Day Russia Part 4Dispelling the many misconceptions about life in modern Russia |
• September 30, 2003 •
(continued from the previous segment)
In the bars, and fast food restaurants with this disco music playing at comfortable listening levels, couples and groups of young men and women sit and talk, read, eat and drink and generally strut their stuff. And much to my continual surprise, the ladies here have some serious stuff to strut! In deep contrast to American malls filled with sloppily dressed teenagers, girls and young women with frayed jeans, baggy sweatshirts, tattoos on all the exposed skin, half a dozen earrings, nose piercings, deliberately distorted hairstyles in every color of the rainbow, the girls here dress to kill! No sloppy frayed clothing here... not in the cities and in the malls anyhow... sleeping under bridges or in cardboard boxes perhaps but not in the public domain. The fashion here for the ladies is the "poured into" the slacks or jeans look. No "relaxed fit" jeans here. NONE.
Clothes are high style like in the 70's, one of my favorite eras for clothes, really. Black Gabardines are a dominant choice for the ladies, skin tight thru the hips and seat and gracefully flared legs down over the high heeled shoes. PEdal pushers or 'capri pants' were very rare and looked pretty silly against the elegant attire of most of the young women I saw. Form fitting blouses and sweaters were the norm, no exposed midriff. Long silky hair is a popular theme though all hairstyles are visible. Normal hairstyles... No spiked, moused, raggedy, tie dyed hair here for the ladies. The girls are going for the cover girl look in coiffeur and makeup and the Nordstrom's or Neiman Marcus look in the clothes, not Halloween.
Plenty of blue jeans to be seen, but not "levis" like we are led to believe. Not from what I could see... same fit as the dress slacks, the girls pour themselves into their jeans whether faded blue or dark blue, with or without the trendy bleached areas on the hips and thighs. And worn on the waist too... I saw very few women wearing hip riders and most that did were very young. The ladies mostly wore their slacks and jeans at the waist and skin tight thru the hips and seat showing off their well maintained contours. And very few tennis shoes to be seen on the ladies either... Most wore more fashionable leather shoes and boots fitting with their more elegant attire and tailored look.
What is quite extraordinary is the percentage of highly attractive young women. Perhaps it is just that these girls try harder, but more than half the girls in a public area would quality in most men's book as attractive with a striking percentage of drop dead gorgeous thrown in for good measure. It totally breaks the stereotype which portrayed the Russian women as heavyset, somberly dressed plain janes. Maybe in some small farming communities that may still be the case, but in the cities... in Moscow and St Petersburg, in the malls, railways stations, walking the main avenues and city streets, the women here are a refreshing contrast to the bleak trends which dominate US fashion or lack thereof these days.
And I have yet to see a single tattoo, whacked out hairdo or pierced body part other than fashionable earring sets. Quite amazing really. Same thing with weight control. Weight loss drugs would grow stale on the shelves here. Only a small percentage of young women could be classified as 'chubby' and gross obesity was nowhere to be seen. Not once! Perhaps the old Beachboys tune "wish they all could be California Girls" should be updated to "wish they all could be sexy Russian girls."
Yes the ladies are sexy... but not overtly... The sleazy tramp look is nowhere to be seen except perhaps at a downtown hotel where a few 'working girls' hang out. But in the malls and public places, the ladies are quite reserved and elegant in their form fitting clothing and tailored leather coats. And while I'm sure they are approachable in the right circumstances, the "come one come all" come-hither look is not in vogue at all. If I were in my late twenties and single I'll bet I could fall in love a hundred times a day walking around the city streets of Moscow and St Pete.
What about the guys? Less to say really. Pretty normal looking guys... normal for the 70's and eighties, not the late 90's and 2000's. No backward baseball caps here. None. No gangbanger look with acrylic hats pulled down over their ears when it is warm enough to have your head exposed. No wearing pants way down off the hips with the crotch at the knees, one of the absolutely most ridiculous trends in American youth dress in the last decade. No baggy jeans for the that matter. and no shorts, even though we had weather in the 60's. Teenagers are wearing baggy shorts falling off their butts in mid winter in Oregon... No shorts on young men at all here.
Comfortable reasonable attire seems to be the only theme for the men. Pants are worn at the waist or just below and straight leg slacks and jeans are predominant. Men wear their hair normal length, like the 50's I would say. Very few long haired men or boys that I could see, perhaps one in a hundred, though I understood it was common enough some years ago. And once again, no tattoos, body piercing or whacked our hairdos. Young men are generally very western looking and comfortable with themselves... not a lot of airs or machismo or attitude to be seen either.
But for all their style and appeal, the people don't seem happy. Not much laughing joking or carrying on at all. It's more than reserved...it is stern and somber in the facial expressions and demeanor. Especially in people approaching middle age and beyond. Maybe it was all those years of Communist oppression. One Russian friend suggested that is was more a cultural issue... that people are taught not to display their emotions in public, and not that they are particularly unhappy. I can't say really, it was very difficult to talk to anyone except my Russian developer friends who acted as my guides. English is not widely spoken here at all... not a bit like Western Europe. Young people may speak a few words but very halting and broken and a bit difficult to understand the mispronunciation more often than not.
I was fortunate in that my developer friends spoke English pretty well, especially Dmitry who has spent some time in England. And though Konstantin's vocabulary was perhaps a bit limited, he always tried very hard to explain things to me and always had his PDA translator at hand to look up a word. You couldn't ask for more. My Russian after 5 days is pretty much limited to two words... spasibo (thank you) and na zdorovie or "cheers"... pretty embarrassing... Spasibo when they pour you another wodka and na zdorovie when they toast you.
Oh and the word nyet which I finally learned to say when they offered me another Wodka. Oh, the mornings come much too early here, Wodka is the national obsession and they drink it like water. And not just in bars and restaurants either. Even when you walk into a higher end gift shop, a pretty young thing greets you with a tray of shots of Wodka. And this isn't watered down US vodka either... this stuff will grow hair on your chest and just about everywhere else! After one rather intense night I learned to "Just say NO to Wodka" :-/
All in all, my trip to Russia was nothing short of remarkable. The conference was very worthwhile from a business standpoint, my Russian developers were extremely gracious hosts and the people in general were friendly and helpful once you get past the stern demeanor. Russia had never been very high on my personal 'must visit' list, but now that I have seen St Petersburg, well, I definitely plan to return and take my family next time. So set aside your preconceptions and stereotyped cliches about what Russia is like. This ain't Khrushchev's Russia, Komrade, and it is well worth the trip for anyone wishing to broaden their horizons and perceptions of world cultures.
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Joseph Burke
Editor-in-Chief
InfiniSource.com
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