Czar Putin?

[visaveteran1 33]

As I watch Vladimir Putin morph into part Stalin and part Czar Nicholas, I wonder what he might do to disrupt the exodus of Russian women to the USA and other western countries? Frankly, I am nervous about him and his unpredictable ways.

I know he has an incentive program to bring Russians home from locations in the former Soviet Union where Russians are no longer welcome. Places such as Latvia and Kyrgyzstan, etc. I don't know how many Russian women actually leave Russia each year, but I have to think the number is growing larger each year.

I only hope I can get my wife out of Russia soon but with the absurd delays and incompetence of the USCIS I am fearful.

[Kazan' Tiger 1]

I worry about this issue and Putin, sometimes. I do feel we are still safe for the moment.

I remember this was brought up in the Duma in June 2005. Vladimir Zhirinovsky mentioned that, "The most beautiful women in all the world" are leaving Russia in record numbers. Zhirinovsky also stated he did not want the foreigners coming to Russia either to marry. Bascially he called for all Russian women to find, marry, and only reproduce within their own kind. Further, he felt, the government should severely punish all Russian women that do marry foreigners.

This was from the article...

12 June 2005

SCANDALISED by the fact that some of Russia's most beautiful women are opting to consort with foreigners instead of Russians, ultra-nationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky has tabled a bill that would make them think twice before exchanging vows with a non-Russian. His party, the incongruously named Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), has drafted a draconian marriage bill that will now be considered by the Russian parliament, or Duma.

It envisages severe penalties for Russian girls or women who “unpatriotically” choose to marry a foreigner, a trend the LDPR believes is robbing the country's gene pool of its greatest resource.

Tennis star Anna Kournikova – engaged to Spanish singer Enrique Iglesias – would be amongst the Russian beauties cast out of the motherland forever should the LDPR find support for the reform.

A poll conducted by the magazine Ogonyok last year showed that one in three 17 to 25-year-old girls in Russia dreams of marrying a foreigner, and overseas the popularity of “Russian bride” websites remains undimmed, with hundreds of young women meeting men online and travelling to Western Europe, the US and South America to wed.

In rhetoric reminiscent of that used by the Nazis when they talked about an Aryan race, the party believes that the large number of Russian women choosing to marry foreigners is a threat to national security that risks undermining the purity of the Russian race and Russian identity itself.

It is proposing punishing such female “traitors” by stripping them of their Russian citizenship, deporting them to the country of their new husband and never allowing them to return to Mother Russia.

The LDPR also wants them to feel the pain in their pockets and is suggesting that their Russian assets be automatically distributed among their relatives or given to the state.

The bill has been proposed formally by an LDPR MP called Nikolai Kuryanovich, a member of the Duma's powerful National Security Committee, with the explicit backing of the fiery Zhirinovsky.

“Our wonderful women are the best in the world,” he told Ekho Moskvy radio without a hint of irony.

“Wherever I have been I have rarely seen nice beautiful girls. Only in Russia and some other Slav nations. Therefore, in order not to squander our gene pool, we are doing this.”

Kuryanovich went on to call Russia's female gene pool a “national treasure” that must not be “spoilt” by unpatriotic weddings.

He warned that the trend of marrying foreigners would help outsiders acquire worrying levels of influence and territory in Russia through their spouses and said that the offspring of such ill-advised matches would not grow up to be “genuine” Russians.

He sees the biggest threat coming from Chinese men, many of whom have settled in Russia's far east with Russian brides who appreciate the fact that their foreign husbands tend not to drink alcohol.

“If we don't react now, in 50 or 100 years, the Chinese and the other Asian nations will be masters in our house and the Russians will become service staff.”

Kuryanovich said he was anxious to legislate out of existence the notion that Russian women were more sexually available than other nationalities: “I don't like it when everyone calls Russian girls on holiday in Turkey‚ Natasha‚ [a popular slang name for a Russian prostitute]. It morally discredits our country.”

Though the bill is unlikely to become law because it does not enjoy the support of President Vladimir Putin's powerful United Russia party, the fact that it has been proposed and will be seriously considered by the Duma caused alarm in Russia, all the more so because the Kremlin often uses the LDPR as a platform to float ideas in advance so that it can gauge society's reaction to them without taking any of the flak.

Lev Ponomarev, a well-known human rights activist and a former dissident, said it reminded him of the ban on marrying foreigners introduced by Joseph Stalin in 1947.

“These are attempts to rapidly restore the Soviet Union,” he said. “This is another step towards the creation of a new Stalinist regime.”

Stalin's ban was swept away in 1956 when Nikita Khrushchev relaxed many of his former mentor's harsher edicts. However, the phenomenon of Russian women marrying foreigners only really took off after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 when travel became easier and Russia more open.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Russian women have reacted with anger towards the new bill noting that it chauvinistically only targets the “fairer sex” but not Russian men.

Svetlana Konegen, a well-known TV presenter, said the LDPR would do better to improve women's lives so that they didn't want to leave the country in the first place and suggested that Russian men had a lot to answer for.

“The same men who drink and drink without limit, who treat us badly. Some of them don't even try to look after their families. They play at their criminal games and traditionally they show no respect whatsoever to their wives,” she said.

Even if they wanted to, Zhirinovsky and his associates would struggle to dampen Russian women's desire to enjoy a “normal” life in the West with a foreign husband. (Article by Andrew Osborn)

[mox 298]

Frankly, I am nervous about him and his unpredictable ways.

Actually I think he's pretty predictable as far as Russian leaders go. This is what makes him kinda scary.

I only hope I can get my wife out of Russia soon but with the absurd delays and incompetence of the USCIS I am fearful.

I wouldn't worry. As someone else pointed out, the actual number of women leaving Russia for the west is minuscule. It's the least of their social problems, and I doubt very seriously it's even on Putin's radar.

Regarding Zhirinovsky, it seems to me that even though he's got a measure of popularity, and is (or was?) the leader of the LDPR, he's much like Tom Tancredo in that he's pretty much a joke within the inner circles of real power. Is that impression wrong?

[Satellite 1]

As I watch Vladimir Putin morph into part Stalin and part Czar Nicholas, I wonder what he might do to disrupt the exodus of Russian women to the USA and other western countries? Frankly, I am nervous about him and his unpredictable ways.

What Putin and Zhirinovsky should strive to do is raise the standard of living for all Russians and not just those in Moscow. If they accomplish that the foreigners won't be as attractive. Most Russians ladies find Russian men much more physically attractive and culturally closer to the heart then their foreign counterpart. It just the financial and political turmoil / uncertaintity standing in the way.

Of course they can always limit the amount of people who enter and leave Russia but that will slow down economic progress, so it's not worth doing.

[Kazan' Tiger 1]

While I'm with you on the first part 100%: Russian women, first and foremost, want a stable family life. If you create stable Russian men, these women will quickly return to the flock. I disgree with a point you made next. Most Russian women, I have encountered, prefer Western looks. This is especially true with the youngers. They consider we are more "beautiful". I am with you also on the cultural part. The need to share those things that only living in Russia can give you, with their mate, is highly important. I know I will never try to stifle my fiancée's need to do anything the Russian way.

What Putin and Zhirinovsky should strive to do is raise the standard of living for all Russians and not just those in Moscow. If they accomplish that the foreigners won't be as attractive. Most Russians ladies find Russian men much more physically attractive and culturally closer to the heart then their foreign counterpart. It just the financial and political turmoil / uncertaintity standing in the way.

Of course they can always limit the amount of people who enter and leave Russia but that will slow down economic progress, so it's not worth doing.

[mox 298]

I know I will never try to stifle my fiancée's need to do anything the Russian way.

If I had to take a guess, I'd say that this is the reason most foreign marriages end. Before I hit VJ I used to lurk around some of the other "Russian bride" related boards, and I was just stunned by some of the things I read. Seems like so many guys just expect that she'll cut all ties to her culture and family and morph into a cooking/cleaning trophy wife. I remember a particularly long rant where a guy went on for a couple paragraphs about how he had been mislead by his wife because she expected him to help with the dishes.

Back sort of on topic, I just read the Wikipedia entry for Zhirinovsky. I had no idea he basically endorsed Condoleezza Rice being gang-raped by a barracks full of soldiers. I'm pretty sure nobody in power is going to take this idiot seriously. (Although I suspect the difference between Zhirinovsky and Putin is that Putin would make you *wish* you'd been gang raped by a barracks full of soldiers. )

[Kazan' Tiger 1]

I agree! I've read and still read this rubbish on other RW boards. A Russian woman is not a "Stepford Wife". I already had a talk with my oldest daughter. She was saying, "Now Alla will stop this Russian 1 January gift stuff when she gets here right? I mean she would be in America. She needs to celebrate our way, on 25 December!" I replied, no, we will accommodate both. This lead to a rather long discussion. She fully understood. You can take the girl out of Russia but never try to take Russia out of the girl. Sure path to marriage doom.

I know I will never try to stifle my fiancée's need to do anything the Russian way.

If I had to take a guess, I'd say that this is the reason most foreign marriages end. Before I hit VJ I used to lurk around some of the other "Russian bride" related boards, and I was just stunned by some of the things I read. Seems like so many guys just expect that she'll cut all ties to her culture and family and morph into a cooking/cleaning trophy wife. I remember a particularly long rant where a guy went on for a couple paragraphs about how he had been mislead by his wife because she expected him to help with the dishes...

[visaveteran1 33]

It's a tricky dance with our Russian wives. They must by necessity become "Americans" and must learn English and assimilate. If they can't cut it then there will be problems and possibly divorce. I think Russian women from Siberia and the harsher areas are less likely to want to return home to sub zero weather and limited jobs, etc. So if i were looking for a motivated Russian wife, I'd look beyond Moscow and St. Petersburg to the "villages."

Concerning Russian men...well one big issue I hear about is there are not enough of them to go around. I've heard the ratio of women to men is 10:1. I've visited restaurants where I was the only man in the place but there were lots of women.

Then there are the other Russian male issues of alcohol and drugs, womanizing, and a short life span. Not exactly every woman's 'dreamboat."

[Cliff_Ksenia 0]

Vladimir Zhirinovsky is the same knucklehead that said Alaska was only leased to the USA and it was time Russia took it back.

[eekee 182]

Very interesting that this proposed law would apply only to russian women and not men. While i know that there are a lot of russian women meeting foreign men over the internet, as far as couples i know who have met the traditional way, i know tons of american/western european women with russian boyfriends and only one or two russian girls with american/western european boyfriend! Interesting discrepancy...

I'm not scared about rules for marriage per se, but just general relations for the two countries--say if it got as hard to get russian visa as it is to get american.

I saw a show today on russian tv all about how sad russians who left russia are and how they couldn't find good job and missed russia and etc and came back to russia. Good propaganda!

[Kazan' Tiger 1]

Russian men can do what ever they want!

There are a lot of shows like that. The ones I love actually have the audacity to convince Russian women, international husbands, will beat them, force them into prostituion and sell their children on the black market. I had a long talk with my future MIL convincing her that is an extreme rarity.

Very interesting that this proposed law would apply only to russian women and not men. While i know that there are a lot of russian women meeting foreign men over the internet, as far as couples i know who have met the traditional way, i know tons of american/western european women with russian boyfriends and only one or two russian girls with american/western european boyfriend! Interesting discrepancy...

I'm not scared about rules for marriage per se, but just general relations for the two countries--say if it got as hard to get russian visa as it is to get american.

I saw a show today on russian tv all about how sad russians who left russia are and how they couldn't find good job and missed russia and etc and came back to russia. Good propaganda!

[mox 298]

There are a lot of shows like that. The ones I love actually have the audacity to convince Russian women, international husbands, will beat them, force them into prostituion and sell their children on the black market. I had a long talk with my future MIL convincing her that is an extreme rarity.

Yeah, I think an argument could be made that American women, just by sheer numbers, are more likely to be forced into prostitution by their American husbands than a foreign wife.

Again, love the hats Jefferey.

[Kazan' Tiger 1]

Thanks-!!!

There are a lot of shows like that. The ones I love actually have the audacity to convince Russian women, international husbands, will beat them, force them into prostituion and sell their children on the black market. I had a long talk with my future MIL convincing her that is an extreme rarity.

Yeah, I think an argument could be made that American women, just by sheer numbers, are more likely to be forced into prostitution by their American husbands than a foreign wife.

Again, love the hats Jefferey.

[Chuckles 0]

I don't care for Putin much, but i don't think there is reason to over-react. I do not believe we are seeing the return of communism. If you look at the younger generation, you can see the seed has been planted. With increased communication abilities allowing information to be shared, I do not think they could 'get away with it' anyway.

Russians love their country, they have a pride that is different the Americans, that I think we cannot fully understand it. They want an iron-handed leader of sorts. They do not want a 'wishy-washy' government like the US. We never should have expected such a fast, dramatic turn-around there. That is really thier business, and I really do not think we have anything to fear from Russia.

[mox 298]

I don't care for Putin much, but i don't think there is reason to over-react. I do not believe we are seeing the return of communism. If you look at the younger generation, you can see the seed has been planted. With increased communication abilities allowing information to be shared, I do not think they could 'get away with it' anyway.

Russians love their country, they have a pride that is different the Americans, that I think we cannot fully understand it. They want an iron-handed leader of sorts. They do not want a 'wishy-washy' government like the US. We never should have expected such a fast, dramatic turn-around there. That is really thier business, and I really do not think we have anything to fear from Russia.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Western style democracy is not something that will work for everyone else, and it's foolish to think it should. Russia will get it figured out, and it will resemble ours in some ways, but be very different in others. In the end it be uniquely Russian.

Edited January 2, 2008 by mox