For those of you who have been reading the women's forum as I have, I can't help but wonder if you are struck as I am ?
There is a substantial amount of commentary about some of the negative aspects of some of the gentlemen who have contacted some of the Russian women. Complaints about no-shows, two-timers, the fat, the ugly, fraud, etc. abound.
For purposes of this thread, I'm prepared to stipulate that all of those complaints have merit, even though I have no way of knowing one way or the other. I just don't want to drag that issue into this thread.
I have noticed though, that there does seem to be a lack of gratitude. There are plenty of complaints about "greedy," meaning "cheap," men. However there seems to be a fundamental lack of recognition about exactly how expensive a trip to that part of the world is ... all to visit THEM. There seems to be a lack of recognition that people actually have to work hard to have $3,000 or $4,000 after tax dollars to blow on a trip, that the streets in the west are not paved with gold, that you actually have to work hard. Not that these women don't work hard, but the reality of the matter is that $5,000 is more than many of these women make in three or four years.
I just can't seem to find even one thread where a women articulates, "The guy was a real jerk, but I sure am flattered and appreciative of the fact that he humped his butt half way around the planet to meet me."
Perhaps others have noticed. Perhaps someone could elaborate on the topic. What is the "expectation" of FSU women ?
I had a situation once whereas she said 'USD5,000.00, that's only a month's salary in UK' I had to explain to her the difference between an annual salary and 'disposable income'!
Are you saying that there is a lack of appreciation for how much things cost generally speaking ?
I have to laugh ..... as a business owner when someone says "only $5,000." There is a clear failure to appreciate how much work you have to do to have $5,000 actual dollars in your hand. My business has to gross about $40,000 in order to write me a $10,000 check, half of which goes to pay taxes. Then I have $5,000 in my hands. Do they have any sort of a clue how hard you have to work for your business to gross $40,000 ? .... or are we talking a group of people who just couldn't possibly appreciate ? ..... sort of like most people having not appreciation for the cost of a Ferrari ?
They have no income tax as we do, over there. So in Moldova, if you have an income of $60,000 - that means $5,000 is spendable - as Martin points out above.
My exfiance told me straight out at all Americans are rich. She simply knew that to be the case. That was one of the suprises that she had when she came here.
The governments gets its revenue from a VAT - a value added tax I noticed was on big ticket items. The really nice thing was that the price posted for those large ticket items already HAS the VAT figured in. Not like in America where if you bought a refrigerator costing $1,000 - the final bill would be $1,050 ($50 in sales tax ON TOP OF the $28% + state sales tax + FICA + etc. you've already paid on that $1,000 in income tax).
Good point Harantis. My first trip was in 2001 to Ekaterinburg. This trip was my first time flying on a plane! Imagine how I felt when the woman I went to visit did NOT want to go back to the airport with me when it was time to leave because she was tired. You know how I tired I was just to fly there??? I almost had to make an appointment to see her. After all the money I spent just to go visit her AND bring gifts for her AND her family...does anyone think I deserved that? Some of those FSU women apparently lack common sense and/or are very insensitive. You just don't blow off (figuratively, of course!) someone who traveled thousands of miles to see you. A prime example why I blew off the International Women's Day. You know what? The women who I thought had disappeared on me before IWD...have written back to me. You see? I saved money and STILL have the women for correspondence. I can have my cake and eat it too! :-)))
You raise a helluva question here and it is one I have mused over much during the last decade. I'll say at the outset that my other half claims to be "Very Economic" :-) In fact she is simply a woman with all the same money weaknesses as all the others. I would say this and she admits it now, she is very clever with small amounts of money, $200 or less, she can stretch that beyond the distance I can stretch a $1000, but she really has not much idea with larger sums of money.
Give a Russian woman a dollar and she'll feed you for a week, give here 5k and it'll be gone in 5 minutes. Bit extreme, but I think you understand what I am saying.
In this question, you are touching on one of the keys to the whole deal. No Russian woman will go into hysterics thanking you for your expenditure and effort to travel to meet her, because guess what? YOU chose to do so. BUT, what you won't see is that she will be very very excited and she WILL talk with her family and friends about your effort to come halfway round the world. Russians can be quite expressionless in this way and it is something you need to get used to.
Jet & Martin touched on another part of the issue. Russians (In General) have little or no idea of how our economies work and what it takes to create the "Perceived" wealth we have. My other half will blast the Russian guys who say to us, it's ok for you, you have money, she launches into them about the hours I work and the effort I put into home maintenance etc which in turn helps to create our living standard. She cuts pretty deep into them when they comment about this with a few lines about getting their lazy arses outside the apartment building hallway and instead of drinking with their mates, finding a second job, even if it only pays a few roubles. Nevertheless, she has seen both sides, most havn't.
The summary could be put this way, one, they have no real idea of our actual disposable income and two, they are not interested too much in what it costs you to visit, because that is YOUR choice. However, on the flip side, when you are there, if she is a decent and genuine Russian woman, she WILL dig and dig to find the best deals for you. Most western women wouldn't bother. You have gotten, IMO right into one of the major cultural differences which you will come up against.
This is one of the things I suspect which brings the "Joe Smucks" undone. YOU decided to go to visit, she owes you NOTHING including grattitude, but if you play it smart, you'll get much more than all of that, AND she will be delighted and talk to her friends about it, just don't expect her to display the Wow thing about it. Russian women don't do that.
I didn't see your post before I responded, yet another shortcoming of this forum, BUT if a Russian woman did that to me, she'd get the short end of the shaft pronto...!! She ain't a decent Russian woman if she does something like that. Mine and her family would be just horrified to read that story.
What you have outlined in your experience is about as UNRussian as it gets. I am not doubting you for a moment, I simply can't beleive what I am reading if you get my point. That is a first class user/bitch of the worst kind.
Good Lord, mine can leave here only 3 weeks in front of me and fly in through Novosibirsk, then take the train 500kms to here family's home city and I can find my own way very easily, BUT there IS NO WAY they will let that happen. Always, ALWAYS one of them is in the greeting hall at the airport when I arrive, ALWAYS. Yes one of them will travel the 500kms (300 miles) to meet me, that IS the Russian way.
I am stunned by your story. This MOB scene is a very dirty pool in which to swim.
There is something goofy going on with the way that posts are entered in this forum. They are not exactly chronological as they were before.
For example - when I posted above, I immediately followed Martin. Having entered my post, which refered to Martin's post, I looked and mine was immediately posted after his. No, a few hours later harantis's is inserted between. That would appear to make sense since the time stamp on his post is nearly thirty minutes before mine. But why wasn't it there when I entered my post?
This just makes for a bit of a disjointed forum as you can look back and see that what you said has now suddenly been said before you!
What accounts for the time delay? Are some of us reveiwed before our entry is posted?
I/O, in general I agree with your comments and certainly re that it is beyond the understanding of a women from the FSU who has never been outside to comprehend the notion of REAL disposal income.
But things are changing...Last year I met a young Muscovite couple in Montenegro looking at buying a second property (holiday and investment) with a 250,000 USD (or 80%) mortgage granted from a Moscow bank on the basis of their 20,000 USD per month combined income of which one was from self employment. It will obviously cost them 5 or more thousand dollars a month in monthly repayments over 20 years or more. Possible for them, andnot for EU citizens, but I don't know whether they actually signed the mortgage.
My present understanding, and my way of life, is that being a man, breadwinner for FSU women, I must at the very least have a house and a vehicle paid without any credit attached and have a few thousand dollars to spend in addition to ongoing living expenses.
This is not because of golddiggers. It is just that debt repayments, or 300,0000 USD mortgages as is common in EU, never existed in the FSU and, for the most part, still dont).
Economically things are changing in SOME parts of the FSU. Some areas of southern Ukraine are doing ok for example. With regard to Russia, I have been and continue to be surprised from time to time by various individual cities which are doing ok, but you should remember historically and it is still the case IMO, when it comes to economics, there is Moscow and there is everywhere else.
Russia has as it always had, SOME extreme wealth, but it has always been and IHO is likely to continue to be held very tightly in the hands of a few people. Nevertheless, there is an emerging middle class and these people certainly have financial resources to use and invest.
Regarding your own situation, yes, I think most girls from Russia would be rather afraid of mortgages and such. Not only are they not used to living with personal credit, but they have seen a few people, as the banking system has freed up a little there, get themselves into awful trouble borrowing money which is quite freely available now and not being able to repay.
Most women in my experience are afraid of debt and the Russian girls much more so for a whole host of reasons.
Back on topic, what does she expect? I'd suggest someone who is finacially stable. You ain't gunna get a red carpet rolled out just because you travel to meet her the first time, but again, I am totally stunned by David's story. That just AIN'T the Rusian way. FWIW, it is worth remembering that when you get your lovely home, the real expenses are just beginning. :-) Over the next years the expense bill growth curve will turn vertical. Think about this before you start. This is no cheap exercise.
jetma,
Even if one receives USD5,000.00 per month one does not have USD5,000.00 per month, one may need to:
pay the mortgage
pay other property expenses
pay electricity
pay gas
pay water
pay car expenses
put fuel in the car
put food on the table
other day to day living expenses
etc. etc. etc.
And thereafter one if left with their disposable income to spend as they decide and, in the normal world, it will be a damn sight less than the USD5,000.00 they started out with.
Martin:
I specifically said DISPOSABLE income, not DISCRETIONARY income which is what you are talking about.
The difference is this.
"Disposable income is the amount of an individual's total income left after taxes, plus any transfer payments (grants) received from the government or elsewhere. This income is available to be "disposed of" as either spending or saving.
Another concept that is often confused with disposable income is discretionary income. This is equal to disposable income minus the cost of the fixed expenses of life (such as rent/mortgage, food, car payments, insurance, etc.). It is income that can be saved or spent on goods and services wanted, not needed."
These are well defined economic terms and not my own.
You know, this was one of the biggest problems I had with my Ukrainian girlfriend, when she was in America. She was in no way a gold digger. She was a good young woman. But she was fundamentally unable to appreciate the financial component of being in this relationship.
To her, the man just should provide things financial. There was never a matter of appreciation. She just expected her man to provide, very much like a parent would provide for their child.
There is no question that a parent should provide for their 10 year old-- my girlfriend from Dnepropetrovsk just felt the exact same way as a 10 year old does, even though she was in fact a young woman in a romantic relationship. She did not view a relationship as a ‘partnership’ where both parties worked to provide lives, homes, and futures for one another.
Rather, she wanted equality in treatment, but for the man to take care of all things financial.
My girlfriend considered herself ‘economical,’ and commented to that effect. “I’m not too expensive! You are lucky!” She was not asking for shopping sprees, or splurges. That is true. To her, that was being economical. She simply couldn’t see that this is not the same as contributing.
She was unable to appreciate what a monthly mortgage payment meant. In her life, she never had the specter of an upcoming rent payment due. She never had to deal with that, and when living with me, she never would.
Of course she couldn’t work when arriving in the USA. In no-way did I expect her to get some menial job when she arrived. I expected her to study at university (which I expected to pay for.) I expected to pay the bills and everything for our lives together.
I just didn’t expect that she wouldn’t see these things. I didn’t expect that she would have no way to appreciate them. I didn’t expect that she would not see that I was trying to contribute to her future, to build her future, through her university, etc.
She just saw this as normal. She did not expect to work to achieve these things. To her, studying at university was the equivalent to my working. She would go to school, I would go to work. In her mind, that was equal.
It did not register that my working provided her university. She couldn’t see that attending University was a privilege that so many people work very hard for, and take out loans for, and struggle to accomplish. To her, we both went and did work-- and she was a good student-- and that made our contributions equal.
Of course, I wouldn’t expect her to get a menial job-- bagging groceries, or working at fast-food, or anything like that. She never would come to know what it meant to have to find a way to pay next month’s rent. She never would know anything different than having everything paid for her. Either that, or she goes to work at McDonald’s and comes to realize the value of money. But, is that realistic? Her going to work at McDonald’s? Really, that kind of makes me a penny-pinching jerk-- and the truth is I would still be paying for 90% of our financial lives together.
In the end, she would never be able to grow into the young woman I wanted as a partner. There is no way it would be reasonable to send her to a menial job to earn little income. There is no way that she would be able to appreciate what it meant to have the mortgage paid.
When together with me, she would never have the opportunity to grow into the partner I wanted.
I discuss this here because I keep seeing it. It is one of the things I am really struggling with when considering if this whole thing is worthwhile. I have met so many women from Ukraine that simply expect things financial to be taken care of. Of course this is cultural, and it is in-line with archetypal gender roles.
However, the trick is, they don’t want the flipside of ‘archetypal gender roles.’ (Despite the nonsense that marriage agencies advertise.) That is, the young women want to live the lives of equality with their partners that many western men subscribe to. I also subscribe to these ideas! I abhor the idea of ‘traditional’ gender roles! But these young women still fundamentally expect the financial component from that so called ‘traditional model.’
That is, they want equality, but still want you pay for everything.
I’m very open to ideas about how to overcome this. I don’t believe it is purely in the personality of the woman you choose in the FSU. I have seen it so often that I believe it to be cultural. But, I don’t know how to surmount it, and move towards building a lasting partnership.
Hey Jonny,
Interesting story, something I never really thought much about. I wonder if it is different if the girl already has been working in Ukraine. Is her thoughts about equality
the same? If she is here does she go back to school? What if she was a teacher? Can she do that in US or have to take classes again and consider this to be working??
I think your comments are extremely insightful. They're very useful and provide a great deal of food for thought.
I'm wondering though, if as an interim step, some .... for lack of a better word .... menial ..... employment (like McDonalds) isn't a useful step from the perspective of improving language skills. Honestly, money is not the issue. The few lousy dollars would be more an incovenience than they'd be worth. But employment, irrespective of where it is, I'm thinking would be a useful step in the right direction.
I started working in crappy jobs that nobody else wanted when I was young. I never saw them as menial. I had another word for it, I called it opportunity. I learned something from each lousy job. Each succcessive job was better than the last. Today, my career looks nothing like lifting 100 lb sacks of flour in that bakery some 33 years ago.
In your opinion, is there the absense of this thought pattern in the culture ?
Guys,
These are matters, subjects, that should have been discussed and clearly understood before applying for her visa.
OK, appreciation may only be considered common courtesy but you are from two totally different cultures, he can say that in USA, or wherever, we do it like this and she can say, well in Russia, or wherever, we do it like this, why don't guys clear these matters up whilst the lady remains in FSU rather than he be turned on by pretty eyes and a pretty smile allowing him to think only with his penis and not with his brain when making that visa application.
I have a very good understanding of the way they think, not only through discussing such subjects with my wife but with many of her friends also, friends that are, in the main, looking for western guys.
I've had the same, or similar, conversations with them and their general reply is that didn't the guy understand their culture and their ways before he decided to look for a lady in FSU? I've found myself, to a large degree, agreeing with them, too many guys jump on the bandwagon thinking it is so easy to 'pull' an FSU lady, one or two trips, ladies swooning at his feet, K1 visa, wham bam thank you mam.
Oh it is all so very different, it takes more than one or two trips to get to learn, not know, but learn each other and to detect a personality whereas subsequent problems may arise as have been highlighted here. The mentality of a guy who agrees to marry a lady he barely knows in person, well it's quite beyond belief.
Hi Johnny, seems as if I/O understands the situation very well so look at what he has to say.
I met an ex-girlfriend from tajikistan in Paris in November, she was there giving presentations on Tuberculosis for World Health Organisation - and I so happenened(!) to be there. Well, she is no golddigger (we worked together in Northern Tajikistan for a year) and she was happy I was doing well, had a car (a Jaguar) and was concentarting on what she said was the main thing for a woman: doing up a home where she, a woman, can live. This meant, as is my case for this property, without a mortgage!
Another, now, ex-girlfriend (Romanian) had many opportunities with men but she ran away when they said they had a mortgage. She was at the time living in the USA, earning a mear 4500 USD (yes that's right) in rental income from her own property in Bicharest so she didn't need a man to support her financially (in the obscure Western way that men mean).
She worked, lived a life of reilly and then met me which unfortunately didn't work out (for emotional reasons). The point is... forget having a wife when u still have a mortagage. Mind u there are always possibilities in other investments, renting properties etc
Hi Beanstrobe. Um, what country are you in? You’re not referring to the USA, are you?
Almost nobody in America has their house paid off until they are old. We typically get 30 year mortgages, often in our late 20's. Then, we tend to sell our houses and buy larger ones a couple of times-- each time getting a new 30-year mortgage.
So, most people do have mortgages until they are in their 50's. Nobody pays $210,000 cash for a house—the median average home price for the US. We buy a house, have a mortgage for a long time, and deduct the mortgage interest from our taxable income. It can actually be disadvantageous to have a house paid off.
(As it turns out, I'm 33, and I paid cash for my house. After selling the 5 rental properties I had, I bought the home I live in now.)
But, my point was not that I was dealing with a mortgage-- but rather that the young woman I was with did not know what it mean to work in order to earn money for the basics of living, such as housing, food, utilities. Because of this, she was unable to appreciate what it meant to have these things provided for her.