... in response to Took a little ride..., posted by ChrisNJ on Jul 5, 2003There and elsewhere. Alot of former Russians I have met who have been here a couple years definitely put on the poundage. even the pencil-thin twiggys. The reasons are simple too. Food here is both abundant and relatively cheap. And available. And they do adopt our mode of getting around...the car. if they can afford a car---they buy one...or 2. More food and less walking= extra weight. Another factor---our big double wide refrigerators. One can buy and store more food and consume it, without the daily walk to the market to buy the days meal. This is a big change to their former way of life.
The availability of food has alot to do with it, I think. This is inline with other European immigrant groups who arrived here during the migrations. Irish, Italians, Polish etc, all put on the poundage after a few years of abundant food.
In Russia, food has always been a struggle. Once I sent a photo to a few girls of a deer that was eating up my garden. These were country girls. The photo of the deer was very exciting to them...more than I ever imagined. They had never seen such an animal, although had heard of them and knew they pulled Santa's sleigh. Every single girl thought that I must have had a very tasty meal. They assumed I killed it and ate it. That initially, I found very strange. One girl told me about the vast forests which surround her city and that she had never seen or heard of any deer there. She also said that there were very few animals of any kind in these vast forests...just some birds. Food, I realized was the reason.
