Russian Girls

2009 07 25 – Day 29 – Moscow

3 short stories on Russian girls:

1. Eating dinner in a Ukrainian restaurant the night before, I overheard a South African businessman, who had worked in Dubai for some time, explaining to a female local guide that she shouldn't try to go to Dubai without a partner. In Dubai, 'Russian Girl' is another word for prostitute. Apparently this came from an event a few years ago, where a business man was pushed from his hotel balcony by an angry Russian prostitute who he'd refused to pay, claiming he hadn't known that she was one. He died. Dubai's rulers decided the appropriate reaction was to expel all single Russian girls.

2. From my observation in St Petersburg and Moscow, Russian girls all seem to be amateur models. That is to say, modeling is one of their favourite things to do, not that they've all got classic 'model' looks. I've never before seen so many people who are theoretically 'sight-seeing', when in reality they're taking pictures for their (homebrew) modeling portfolio. Their collection of photos must be 'there's me in this dress and there's me in that top etc etc blah blah... oh, and they were taken outside the Kremlin by the way'. There was so much energy expended striking their chosen stereotypical modeling-type pouting poses – adjusting hair, hips, shoulders, lips etc and jostling for position or queue jumping other young girls with the same idea... The amateur photographers of these amateur models were most often mothers, who applied makeup like the quantity they applied was proportional to the years it knocked off, or it was friends holding the lens or occasionally younger brothers, but I don't remember seeing any 'photoshoot' really working a shot in a way that would get a great image. The strange thing for me was that they clearly saw historic locations such as the Kremlin or St Basil's as exciting photographic locations, but the location to them would just be different decoration to a photo of them! I'm just glad I didn't get asked to look through any of their albums, which I imagine would be extremely tedious.

3. Following on from story 2 above, they seem oblivious to other people taking photos and whether they are encroaching on someone else's shot or indeed the opposite – not seeming to care whether others are spoiling their own shot (other than if it blocks the line between the camera and subject/amateur model). As a result, when this young English gent (me) pauses to wait for them to take their photo(shoot), trying to not intrude or ruin their photo, they notice... as these three girls did, waving me on like it didn't matter that I would wandering aimlessly in the background of their photo when they could have had one without anyone (a real rarity).

Shortly after, as we were all independently ambling accross the (never used) road, a jobs-worthy Kremlin military guy blew his whistle at us and indicated that we should use the crossing provided... so we backtracked to cross near enough to the zebra crossing and as I reached the other side, they introduced themselves. They were three friends from Volgograd, two visiting one who lived & worked in Moscow. One had enough English to ask me all the questions she and her friends could think of and was clearly delighted that I understood her and that she understood my answers. They asked : where was I from; why am I in Moscow; what have I seen/done; how long am I in Moscow; why am I travelling alone; am I married; do I have a girlfriend; why I don't have a girlfriend; would I like to marry one of them - not a pick-and-mix or take your pick, but a particular one who didn't speak English and clearly saw herself as 'the pretty one'.... I tactfully replied that I was just beginning a big solo adventure and now would not be an appropriate time to get married, but thanks for the offer! We'd walked out of the Kremlin by this point and were clearly approaching the vocabularaic boundaries of the English speaking girl. Fortunately I needed to retreive my day bag from the cloakroom which was not the direction that they were going so it was easy enough to say friendly goodbyes and go our separate ways... each of us chuckling to ourselves for different reasons!