Well, a couple days into the trip and O and I were hitting it off fine. We lolligaged around St. Peter, dined at the Idiot cafe. Russian food is great! I had this picture in my head left over from reading 1984 -- barely warm broths with a little grey meat submerged underneath pools of fat. Not at all, there were these little yummy mushroom soups that are served with all kinds of cured meats, pickles -- authentic Borscht is fabulous. I can remember having those dreadful Swanson's stroganoff dinners growing up, blech! I spent big $ for a night out at the Dvoryanskoe Gnezdo restaurant near the Mariisky theater. The food was great but not overly memorable. I have had better in my home city but the ambiance and service was truly out of this world. It was like taking a time machine back to the 19th century -- a real highlight of the trip. Some fellow was up in the balcony playing Chopin. The only patrons were from out of town, or looked to be rather shady. Anyway it was fun with O, she was a pretty girl. I was looking through some photos of US top models and, in the face O was every bit as attractive as Adriana Lima -- the sort of look similar, though O certainly did not have quite the body of Ms. Lima. And so there we were, making jolly, it was fun, and I mentioned that the MOB was not my objective, but I had to think about those GWIs and other trip reports that I have read. I've taken girls out to nice restaurants in the US and they really respond to that. But in this scenario one goes about, seeing great architecture, art, in a carefree mood, there is the allure of the exotic foreigner, on both sides. It can make one blind to a great many sins and make for appearances that are quite beyond the average reality. So I thought, yes this is fun, but my God, I would have to be an utter looser for not scoring points at this stage. Nevertheless O said I was the only one who came to her that she liked and the other fellows took her to places like Moscow, Budapest and Petersburg too. Who knows what to make of it -- I just had to wonder about those fellows, but decided not to press O for information.
I also want to know, what does MOB stand for??
I think that these are interesting stories, for the most part, even if a little bit long winded, so what--still entertaining.
Welp, after being on this forum for a few weeks now and reading several posts I have to voice a particular impression. Certainly my reading is not comprehensive but nevertheless I have not come across a post telling of a happy marriage. Most of the posts, such as my thread here, tell of dates with lovely ladies, or are of the crash and burn variety. One reads these stories and it is hard to escape the impression that this enterprise most often comes to naught. I am not entirely certain why that is, there seems to be a great deal of finger pointing going on -- mostly that lay blame on the girls. I think it is just that most of the fellows who go over to the FSU are just not too smart about cultivating and holding a woman's affection. In my experience so far, I have known a few American fellows who have Russian wives. I do not know them well, and so can not comment about the success of their marriage, but I will say that they are all well off and seem well matched, meaning that the girl was pretty, but that it would not surprise me to see that the fellow was with an attractive American woman either. Anyway, O had a crash and burn story that underscores my point. Her friend attracted the attention of some fellow. In the worldly sense his life seemed to be on the up and up. He was working in software and authored a few books on the subject, and had an international following. The lady was 36, with poor English and he was 57 at the time. Trips were made, apparently they got on well -- true romance. The works for a fiance-visa were put into play and soon enough she is on a plane bound for the promised land. Now you know the man is a smart fellow, but that is how it is with engineers often, so smart in an objective sense and yet so dumb about relationships, etc. His home is in a remote area, and he often travels for work. What is her fate, therefore? That of a prisoner. She has no one to talk to, can't drive to go to the store, can't talk to the people there anyway, can't figure out how to operate anything except for the most basic things, so she sits alone and tries to busy herself by cleaning the house and waits for his arrival at night. This lasts for, I think O said, a month and she gets back on the plane -- dismal Donetsk being preferable to a life with grandpa as a lonely stranger in a strange land. You don't have to be a Max Plank to understand that this romance was not going to pan out. But that is how it is when love-starved smart men get a whif of romance with an attractive girl, 2+2 starts adding up to much more than 4, and delusional thinking sets in.
honestly, i liked Ekagra's " chapters" of the long story. some moments were not clear for me because of the language barrier and maybe those very moments were offensive (if they have provoked such a negative reaction):)), but the overall picture, how Ek saw it, i find interesting:)))))
what I liked most of all was his view to the Russian alcoholism. I agree to the fact (and firmly believe) that it s exaggerated too much! When I was in the us (Russian students go to the us and Britain to work there in some low-paid positions –in restaurants, hotels,etc. sort of the program to get to know the countries better:)))) I was told a few times by the manager of the hotel I worked in- today no work, go home and drink Vodka! I was abt to kill that stupid American guy:))))
and why the word MOB should offend us- it s almost true and calls it as it is:))) (first, I thought MOB-was “the group of gangsters:)))) thanks for free English lessons. Now I know another meaning of it):)
It's All my fascinating life for the omniscient Ekagra -- "all minds, my mind" you know.
And so with great fanfare, now we come to the 8th installment in the tale -- Misc. observations from Piter.
So, I had been writing O about dancing and she wanted me to teach her swing and lo, the mood seems to strike whilst traversing a certain plaza near the Admiriality. Some homeless dude comes up and breaks out in song and provides a few toots for our little dance -- very cute.
Blessed darkness. So nice to be in a city without neon and advertising blasting you in the face at every turn as in US cities. A colleague is from E. Germany and he always said how colorful the west seemed as compared with the Gray soviet system. Grass is always greener -- Piter seemed like a relief to me. Not Donetsk, however.
Food? It's jolly in Piter, so long as you eat Russian. The Indian and Chinese I had there was dismal, although there was a nice Brazilian restaurant I ate at. Saw a few photos of Piter just after the soviet fall. Seems they would do anything for a $ back then, with huge Pepsi billboards defacing some of the landmark architecture along the Nevesky prospect. It had been taken down when I was there and many of the most significant buildings are in fine form. It seems restoration work is one of the things that drives the Piter economy these days. That is gratifying. Peter built the city on the bones of the Russian hoards. Did he do the wrong thing to sacrifice all those lives for an enduring artistic legacy, one that served as the spawning ground for the likes of Pushkin and Shostakovitch? The old Piter is a jaw-dropper of a city, there is a surprising architectural vista at every turn. One can walk for hours and hours. I thought about investing in Real Estate. Think if you got an apartment in St. Germain in Paris in the 50s. I think that is the deal you have in Piter these days. But you have to look through the grime still to envision the city as it might have been in the 19th century. The worst grime is, of course, the cultural sort. I liked the way the Russians seemed to hold their head up, they stroll along their streets, arm in arm in a very elegant way. On the other hand, many people are stressed there: brats begging for change, broken down people here and there, and others who just seem to look for any excuse to lash out. The worst, is that dreadful Russian club music, however. Forget Young Country, forget smooth Jazz, forget that flatulent bad-boy music from the likes of Godsmack, Russian/Ukrainian club music takes the cake as *the* worst "music" ever.
Peterhof? It was Os favorite, so I held my tongue. Seemed like she had died and gone to heaven walking around there. The fact that she was so impressed with it raised serious concerns in my little head. Oh, its impressive, with its fun little fountains and golden onion domes, throne room and such. Got your amber room, Chinese room and blah-blah. All of that so that Russia could show that it could match Europe(France really) for grandiloquent foppery. There is no authentic cultural significance to the place -- it is cutesy. All it demonstrates is how inferior Russia felt to France at the time.