Durak: Why do you dislike 20-something FSU women so much? If I followed your "advice" I would distrust my lovely fiancee and would waste a wonderful opportunity.
Yes! I am 40+ and she's in her very early 20s, but I think that she's the most wonderful and less materialistic FSU woman I have ever met ... and I have met a lot of them.
Probably in terms of percentages what you say is right, because in every culture more mature people are usually that: more mature! But you cannot dismiss everybody as a bad apple just because she did not live (or remember) the times of the soviet regime.
I did not live those times either and I never was a materialistic and excessive capitalist. Why? Because my parents taught me well. Is it your theory that in FSU there are no parents that teach their children well? If so, I would be more concern about my girl even if she were over 30+.
I will have to put up forever with the naysayers who will be convinced that she's only marrying me for a passport, but I could care less. What is important for me is to build a long and happy life with her, regardless of what everybody else says.
FSULover, I try to be careful when making generalizations about people, but perhaps not careful enough. I have a deep respect for personal individuality. How often we make big mistakes about people, supposing that one thing or another is true of them, because they belong to some group or category!
I don't dislike 20-something FSU women... really, I have never gotten to know anyone in this category very well. It happens that the two I have spent the most time with, impressed me as cold-hearted and self-centered, but two is hardly a statistical sample! I like young people very much, and have dear friends in their 20s here in America, and have made some pleasant acquaintances of young adults in Russia and Ukraine.
My strong impression (which of course can be wrong!) is that the majority of FSU young adults, see the world through a very different lens, from the majority of those who are 30+. Every culture has "generation gaps," which I suppose are greatly magnified in their case, by the history of the end of the Soviet Union, and its aftermath.
Probably most Western men who set out to marry a woman from any poor country, get a lot of static from those at home: criticism, suspicion, etc. In your case, this is probably tenfold because of her young age. You are confident that you are right for each other, so other people's opinions are so much noise ... and probably, after you are married 10 years, even the naysayers will shut up ;)
As a completely personal matter, it is my judgment that in order to turn my dream into reality, my best option is to look for a good match among women in their 30s. At this stage in my journey, I think this best for me. Each man will determine, what he thinks is best for him!