The "Russian disease".

[johnE]

After following the posts by steveo, KenC and others regarding your RW having Russian friends, well, I couldn't agree more with many of the guys here. My wife lived in San Francisco for three years in the mid to late 90's. Her husband was Russian and they had many, many friends. Both Russian and American. And boy, does she ever have some stories!!!!! Some of them are very sad. Russian women using American men. American men being cruel to their Russian wife. And sometimes children as well. Anyway, according to my wife, the competition between Russians living in America is GREAT. BIGTIME ego's. A child in the candy store so to speak. Who has the most money. The biggest and best house. The most expensive car. The most beautiful wife. And so on. Many of the women my wife knew loved to "talk". Loved to spread gossip. Be it true or false. And, the men, once again, were always "competing". From what I've seen here in Boulder, it is true here as well. My wife calls it the "Russian disease"!! Man, when I first heard this I just HOWLED!!! Anyway, I just thought I would pass this along to the group!! The "Russian disease" that is.

[Charles]

... in response to The "Russian disease"., posted by johnE on Sep 23, 2002

John, I really have to disagree as to the prevalence of the "competition" among RW set forth in your post.  I agree with your points that there are definitely instances of RW using AM and AM abusing RW.  I have observed some jealousy towards RW/AM marriages among Russians who have come to the U.S. for other reasons - there is a feeling that the RW already "has it made" with the AM while a Russian family immigrating to the U.S. must start from scratch.  But I don't see the women "competing" as you suggest.  If anything, they are always trying to help each other.

[Pordzhik]

... in response to The "Russian disease"., posted by johnE on Sep 23, 2002

After all the negative posts I've been reading lately on this subject, I felt I had to jump in.

Am I missing something about RW? Hardly seen anything like this here and my wife has gathered about her an extended network of 25 plus R/women in Kent and SE England. Some of these marriages go back more than ten years, about half come about through the MOB thing and the others when English guys were working in FSU countries.

These women are always visiting and phoning each other. One or another will come to the house maybe once a week.

Haven't seen any excess of these big time ego's or keeping up with the Jones attitude, no abusive marriages, no visa abusers, no witches coming to the house trying to ruin our relationship.

In fact the only bit of gossip was when one guy ran off with his RWs friend who was here on a visitors visa and later married her.

Does England/Englishmen have a diferent effect on these women than America/Americans?

This is the strangest thing.

[Apk1]

... in response to Not where I am!, posted by Pordzhik on Sep 24, 2002

I have seen this first hand where I live...
....the poor young 19.y.o. girl comes here and marries a 45 y.o. AM who buys her everything in site to make her happy...then the jelousy begins when she goes strutting around with her new shiny trinkets around the "older" less materialistic ladies that are family or goal oriented. The words are not kind..
The gossip is never ending...coming from both directions.
 The RM/RW marriages I have seen are not into the one-upmanship...their struggle to make it is tough enough.

I can say that the phone at our house rings daily with FSU women calling to distribute gossip, my wife listens to be polite...but does realize FSU women need to vent from time to time with those who speak thier own language.

[Oscar]

... in response to Not where I am!, posted by Pordzhik on Sep 24, 2002

there might be a much greater number of RW coming to the USA than to England, thus much more potential for scammers and undesirables??  I don't know if this is the case but I would think there may be a lot more RW coming to the States than to England..
Anyone have any idea how many RW come to the States each year compared to the UK??

[Pordzhik]

... in response to I wonder if it could be that-, posted by Oscar on Sep 24, 2002

Well I imagine that thier would be more RW going to the US than Britain, don't you have something like 6X our population? But spread thinly over a much bigger area.

[Cold Warrior]

... in response to Not where I am!, posted by Pordzhik on Sep 24, 2002

I plan to settle in London since my mom in English. Maybe there is more likelyhood of scammers wanting to immigrate to the US because they have friends and family there, hence the higher rate of insincere women. Or is it true that any women willing to endure English weather must be marrying for love (good joke). BTW if your wife has not seen the Hermitage collection at Somerset house a good time to do so will be after 28 Sept. when there will be an Exhibition of the Walpole collection on loan from ST.Petersburg.Most the 200 odd painting were collected by Robert Walpole,first prime minister of the UK but unfortunately were sold by his grandson to Catherine the Great

[Pordzhik]

... in response to glad to hear, posted by Cold Warrior on Sep 24, 2002


It's my guess that there is a greater likelyhood of scammers wanting to immigrate to the US because of thier perception of greater riches to be had in USA? Who knows!

Curiously my wife likes the English weather!!!! as we don't have the extremes of temperature they do in Kiev. BTW it's been about five years since I last saw any fog here.

Might just visit the Hermitage collection I'll ask the missus.

When do you plan on settling in London?

[thesearch]

... in response to Not where I am!, posted by Pordzhik on Sep 24, 2002

That is interesting. Since I do not have a FSU wife, I can not comment on such. Either these posts are not totally representative of marriages and attitudes among AM/FSU women here in the USA or ----- if they are, maybe it is something about the USA versus England? I have never been to England so, I do not know how things are different there as compared to here in the first place.