The Women of Russia

Odler · #1 (**permalink**) 06-24-03, 01:13 AM

That is a few months ago, George Bush said: "I looked in Putin's eyes, I

saw his soul."

I had a different experience: When I look in the clear blue crystal of the

eyes of the women of Russia, what I see is the infinity of the polar

ocean, the insondability of the universe. I am lost.

On Wednesday night, I sat at the Plaza Club in Saint Petersburg, I

observed these women kissing women and gropping guys. I saw some hitting

on everyone, some behaving shy, or snob. I walked out unable to guess who

was for real, who was for show. Women of Russia remain for me a mystery.

I went to the school of the Cold War. I saw what the State Department and

Hollywood wanted me to see. I learned the cliche of Russian women as

armoire-comrades: rude, massive, rocky, unsophisticated, peasant.

Indeed this week, I saw some of these fat-smoking-yelling-unfunny matrons,

manning the booths at Pulkovo airport, until (I assume) their deportation

to a gulag in Siberia.

But, most of the women I interacted with were intelligent, pleasant, sexy,

adventurous, even daring. Attracted by the foreign and the exotic.

Liberated by the pro-feminist ideology of Marxism-Leninism, they project

an attitude of unhindered self confidence. They are not afraid of taking

the lead, they don't say no when they mean yes.

They look great. and look at you straight in the eyes. Obviously, Russia

is in need of modelists and couturiers; but dresses, jeans, and skirts are

worn with elegance.

In every woman of Russia, I smell the femme fatale. Under her diaphane

white, over an incandescent mixture of innocence and cynical

intellectuality, I feel its potential. It is Fatal Attraction.

(The Traveller, Thursday, June 2003)