Russian wisdom from Natasha

[KGSodie 0]

I pretty much skimmed through the whole thread and found that my wife has a lot of similar traits that others described.

My wife often uses the "foo" word to show her dislike of something. I didn't realize it was a Russian idiom. I never heard my stepdaughter use it though. I have heard many Belarusian women use the term "oi, oi, oi" while shaking their head to convey their disapproval of something. Jews are famous for using the same idiom, but the Belarusian women I know that use it aren't Jewish. Large portions of Belarus were a part of the old Tsarist era Pale of Settlement where Jews were required to live, so that may explain that regionalism. My wife was born and raised in Russia, so that probablty explains why she uses "foo" instead of "oi, oi, oi".

My wife also distains colas, but her daughter loves them. Neither of them likes kvas, but I have a taste for it. My wife and many of the Russian / Belarusian women I know love their tea. My wife can't live without it and drinks it with milk or cream. She also likes her juice and it is drunk at room temperature. It sits on the counter unrefridgerated.

We are fortunate to live in an area of Houston close to our house that has two Russian stores that stock foods, medicines, books, movies, etc. from Eastern Europe and many of the former Soviet republics. I lived there even before I met my wife, so it has turned out to be a plus. She has discovered American brands that are acceptable to her, but has the Russian stores to fall back on for certain things. Most notably unrefined sunflower oil, halva, various sweets, church wine (Kagor), and buckwheat (gretchka) comes to mind.

Russians / Belarusians tend to prefer pork over beef. My wife seldom cooks beef. Pork, chicken, and fish is prefered in that order. I'm not a huge fan of pork, but have learned to live with it.

My wife also does not like the American health care system (insurance), doctors, dentists, or medicines. I had a real fun time trying to convince her that our American thyroxine was the same as the thyroxine she got in Belarus. While our system has a lot not to like, I think most of the distain comes from having to pay and pay and pay. My wife is also a huge believer in natural cures and old wives cures from the village. Some of it is OK for minor ailments, but it can also be detrimental if someone refuses competent medical care for serious medical conditions. We often butt heads when she nags me about my decision to go to "my" American doctors rather than letting her cure me.

My wife is also superstitious, but so are some Americans. My wife is probably one of the most superstitious people I ever met though. Most of the time I play along with it to indulge her, but I only go so far with it. There is a limit.

I could probably write a book on my many observations, but I'll stop here for now. One observation that I would like to make is that people are not entirely the same even when they come from the same country. People might have similar beliefs, attitudes, etc. they aquire from their upbringing and culture, but they are still individuals and are different in their own way. Russians are not monolithic. They are not all exactly the same.

Good stuff, peejay, and many thanks for sharing. Natasha eats beef here, even though back in Russia they ate it very infrequently (she also says she likes it). Natasha and Vika both do the 'oi oi oi' thing too. Sadly, Omaha has one 2 Russian stores that I have been able to find. One is down in the fru-fru section of town and is very expensive, and very selective in what they stock (It's called "Red Square"). The other is a gas station named "Terror-free Oil" and though very small, stocked every day stuff that made Natasha feel like home.

[KGSodie 0]

My wife is already stockpiling medicines to bring over...both the true medical variety and the herbal variety which Russians seem into...especially teas. I'm hoping the customs people are having a lazy day when she arrives.

Guess i better brace for the "Russian doctors are better than US doctors" comments. Only I have an ace up my sleeve...I've been to a Russian hospital and seen a Russian doctor...and I was not impressed...in fact I was shocked! In fairness, this was an emergency room setting but it was pretty bad.

I have to say you can certainly get a lot stronger stuff over the counter in Russia. I took some pills for joint aches for a trip home from Russia. I took them just before we took off and about 15 minutes later I had zero pain (couldn't feel my body in fact!) and a very comfortable flight considering i was riding those coach seats that seem designed for dwarfs.

As an aside, on my last trip over and back I got a free upgrade to United Air's "coach plus" seats. What a difference! Good leg room and bigger seat. I was shocked how comfortable they were (or maybe I was just remembering the "cozy" local flight on Aeroflot's antiques. I swear they keep those things flying with duck tape and bailing twine. Anyway, for coach plus seats, I don't think you pay much more for them and if you complain about almost anything they'll give you the upgrade for free.

Never been to a Russian hospital, but I agree that the OTC stuff there seems to be pretty good stuff. We visited many pharmacies in Russia, with the women with the little white hats dispensing medicinal (i.e. "flower") advice. Good times!

[KGSodie 0]

OK...here's my funny story about hot versus cold drinks for Russians.

When my wife talks to me on the phone, I stopped having a coke or ice tea while we talk to avoid getting a lecture on how bad it is for me to drink something with ice in it. If she hears the jiggle of ice in my glass, I'm really in for it. At least a 5 minute scolding that cold drinks will harm me and why will I not listen to her sound Russian advice.

I guess I'll have to disconnect my automatic ice maker when she arrives in the USA.

When Natasha was in Russia and we would talk on webcam and voice chat, I would get the same lecture as you, SCII, if I was drinking a pop. But, oddly enough, now that she's here she has dropped this particular objection, though she of course doesn't follow this practice herself. I only occasionally get the fact mentioned that it's not good for me, and even then only if I've already got a sniffle.

Luckily, my ice-maker doesn't work. :-)

I'm a ice drinking freak...so I'm hoping she'll "Americanize" on this one. Otherwise the summer's are going to be VERY long.

You can tell Natasha maybe she's not so far off about me being crazy! These Russian women are psychic, I swear! My wife knows stuff about me and I don't know where she gets it...but she's often right on the money.

My wife gave up trying to wean me off of cold drinks. Love those fountain cokes especially the ice which I like to crunch much to my wife's displeasure and my dentst's delight. It seems every time I go to the dentist he is rubbing his hands in anticipation of a new crown, and I swear I can see dollar signs in his eyes. When you are without huevos you will bend over for anyone, in the dentist's case it is to pick my pocket.

My wife keeps telling me I will catch a cold from using ice in my drinks, but then she wants to sleep with the windows open on cold nights and keep the ceiling fan running on high the whole time. I wake up in the morning with a scratchy throat and she immediately blames that drink with ice from a few days ago and scolds me for not listening to her about avoiding drinks with ice.

We have a ceiling fan in our room, but it hasn't gotten hot enough yet for Natasha to want to use it. I'm not certain she'll ever want to use it, since she doesn't seem to think that having air blowing directly on you is good for you in any way!

[KGSodie 0]

Kevin,

Had a new experience yesterday. The best way to describe it is that if you get an invite to try "Russian Pizza", run!!!!! We have a trip to Domino's, Pizza Hut or any other pizza joint in the area in our very near future. A Boboli wheat crust, paste, tomatoes and onions just don't do it for the die hard American palate.

From what I could gather, pizza was not on her repertoire of dishes she has made. I think she tried to imitate what she had seen in restaurant. I give her high marks for efforts but to use her own word, it was a "фиаско".

Unfortunatley we do not have the greatest pizza in our area but I think I can find something we will all enjoy. It gives me a new mission.

She has started inquiring about additional stores besides Wal-Mart and the beach shop. I was hoping that major shopping would not be necessary because I have 4 older sisters and have done all the shopping with women I ever want to do. It looks like I will have to break down and take her to the mall and other shops in Pensacola. Pray for me!

Pizza here has been hit and miss so far, though generally they like the pizza we've tried (Pizza Hut, Papa Murphy's, Little Cesear's). In Russia (Volgodonsk), we ate at the local pizzeria several times and although the pizza was FAR DIFFERENT than what you and I would call pizza, it was good in a different sort of way. As for shopping, we've hit Walmart, Target, ShopKo, 2 different malls, and several smaller stores too. Natasha loves to shop, and as Vika says, now that Natasha has me, Vika doesn't need to go shopping with her any more - that's my job!

[Kazan' Tiger 1]

One of the places I really look forward to taking Alla is a small little Greek pizzeria in my town. IMHO, pizza chains suck. I can't say any of them Alla would consider "tasty" as even I don't any more. Years ago, Little Caesar's was great, but now they serve out production line "Hot & Ready" garbage. I definitely plan on introducing Alla to Target and Meijer (I don't and won't shop at Walmart). I think they will be great places to buy her growing children their clothes. We also have a upscale mall where I already have bought several outfits for Alla at. It will be interesting to show her the stores where she has been receiving clothes from since 2004!

Pizza here has been hit and miss so far, though generally they like the pizza we've tried (Pizza Hut, Papa Murphy's, Little Cesear's). In Russia (Volgodonsk), we ate at the local pizzeria several times and although the pizza was FAR DIFFERENT than what you and I would call pizza, it was good in a different sort of way. As for shopping, we've hit Walmart, Target, ShopKo, 2 different malls, and several smaller stores too. Natasha loves to shop, and as Vika says, now that Natasha has me, Vika doesn't need to go shopping with her any more - that's my job!

[LvivLovers 39]

Hope it's ok that I post here even though my wife is Ukrainian...so many things seem very similar and unfortunately I haven't found any active Ukrainian threads as enjoyable as these. Here's one I bet most people here haven't gone through:

I'm 36 years old and although I'm not bald by any means, my hair is a little thinner than it was at age 20. My wife has fantastic hair....very long, straight, strong, and beautiful. She swears to me that she had almost no hair up until about age 12 when she started undergoing several "treatments". Needless to say...she wanted me to also undergo some of these "treatments" (she also underwent said "treatments" again with me). The first one I have done 3 times so far...she ground up a fresh onion using our Magic Bullet and smeared this all over my hair in a thick goopy mixture that was dripping down all over me. I had to wrap my head and face up in a towel. The smell was unbearable. I was not to wash this off for 30 minutes. I can't even describe the smell...washing my hair every day for a week still does not remove it. I've been informed that in actuality I'm not supposed to wash my hair afterwards with anything but water, but I just couldn't do this. Also, it's really supposed to be mixed with cognac also.

She has also informed me that another alternative is to use mustard seed or something like this (since I complained about the harsh smell of the onions). She has used these little packets of mustard a couple times when she was feeling sick. We put these packets in water and then placed them on her chest, back, and feet...they got really hot and burned red marks on her skin exactly where they were placed but she insists that this was critical towards her overcoming whatever illness she had.

It's all a little strange to me and of course I have hundreds of such stories already, but what can I say. It makes life much more interesting and entertaining. I love my wife like crazy and enjoy all these little things that make her her. I'm still waiting to see how well the whole onion-hair treatment works but I have to do this every few days for like 6 months before I should see some results. I will report back my findings....

[LvivLovers 39]

As far as pizzas go....I had a few while I was in Lviv...I'm sort of a picky eater so whenever I thought I could get away with I would request pizza. Believe it or not, I liked most of these better than I do American pizzas from the big pizza chains. My wife kept getting corn as one of the pizza toppings...she said I don't eat enough vegetables. It wasn't bad though. I don't know if it's just me but when I was younger I used to think our pizza chain pizzas tasted a whole lot better than they seem to now. I suspect that they have cheapened up the ingredients over time. My experience with Lviv pizzas made me feel like maybe this really is what happened, but of course I can't prove it.

[Okiebollweevil 0]

As far as pizzas go....I had a few while I was in Lviv...I'm sort of a picky eater so whenever I thought I could get away with I would request pizza. Believe it or not, I liked most of these better than I do American pizzas from the big pizza chains. My wife kept getting corn as one of the pizza toppings...she said I don't eat enough vegetables. It wasn't bad though. I don't know if it's just me but when I was younger I used to think our pizza chain pizzas tasted a whole lot better than they seem to now. I suspect that they have cheapened up the ingredients over time. My experience with Lviv pizzas made me feel like maybe this really is what happened, but of course I can't prove it.

My wife loves papa john's pizza but only one variant the rest, foo! She shops at Walmart to send clothes for infant nephews, recently hit the mall for a clearance sale at Dillard's (regional equivalent of larger chains) bought a bunch of items for herself, sent cousin a cashmere sweater that she bought for $5 original cost $225. Stocked up on a lot of Antonio Melani and Ralph Lauren. I got a few chapters read in a book I keep in her car for that very purpose. She hates "wind" in the house so running a fan or opening a window is a nono, unless it is in "my" room, then the fan goes of and the window down when she visits me in my den. Our gas bill runs 1/2 of a 9 unit apt. bldg. we own. Took her and another Russian lady to see Russian pianists performing in the home of some wealthy person. She brought flowers, the 1st pianist was shocked, probably having never received flowers at a performance here in the US, the second performer who she idolizes loved the flowers and gave her a buss on the cheek and a warm smile. My wife came back to her seat with rosy cheeks and tears. Then the home hostess announced that the flowers were an indication of how much the community at large appreciates Valery. My wife was incensed, and kept asking me why this woman did this. I advised that rich Americans always try to turn something to their advantage, that Valery knew who and why the flowers were given no matter what the woman said.

[visaveteran1 33]

Like most good Americans, I like pizza. But due to cholesterol issues i have to give up (mostly) junk food style eating which I consider most pizzas, especially the ones from the chains. I can actually make my own and it's reasonably healthy but my wife does not seem to like pizza.

On my very first trip to Moscow years ago, I do remember a pretty well know pizza place in the city near the Pushkin Museum that was quite good...but not cheap. Can't remember the name but it was good. Anyone know about it?

[visaveteran1 33]

Speaking about fans, I don't have a ceiling fan but I have a room air cleaner that's got like 5 speeds and is fairly loud at the higher speeds. I actually like the noise to sleep as it's like white noise.

I'm hoping my wife is not one of those folks who can't sleep with any noise like fans. I've really gotten to like that white noise.

[eekee 182]

papa johns and pizza hut are much better in russia than they are here. i would never eat at these places in the us, but in russia the ingredients seem to be much fresher.

i also buy frozen pizzas from germany under the dr. oetker brand... they have a really good four cheese variety. i did not like the pizza made by russian pizza places at all. too many things like corn and dill that should never ever be on a pizza.

[KGSodie 0]

As far as pizzas go....I had a few while I was in Lviv...I'm sort of a picky eater so whenever I thought I could get away with I would request pizza. Believe it or not, I liked most of these better than I do American pizzas from the big pizza chains. My wife kept getting corn as one of the pizza toppings...she said I don't eat enough vegetables. It wasn't bad though. I don't know if it's just me but when I was younger I used to think our pizza chain pizzas tasted a whole lot better than they seem to now. I suspect that they have cheapened up the ingredients over time. My experience with Lviv pizzas made me feel like maybe this really is what happened, but of course I can't prove it.

Vika's favorite pizza in Volgodonsk also featured corn, and though I was skeptical I agree with you - not bad at all!

[KGSodie 0]

Speaking about fans, I don't have a ceiling fan but I have a room air cleaner that's got like 5 speeds and is fairly loud at the higher speeds. I actually like the noise to sleep as it's like white noise.

I'm hoping my wife is not one of those folks who can't sleep with any noise like fans. I've really gotten to like that white noise.

I have a fan that I use for white noise to help me sleep, but Natasha likes it quiet (not to mention the evils of air movement) so they're now both in the closet. Perhaps I can sell the idea of an air 'purifier' though.......

[NavarreMan 10]

Hope it's ok that I post here even though my wife is Ukrainian...so many things seem very similar and unfortunately I haven't found any active Ukrainian threads as enjoyable as these. Here's one I bet most people here haven't gone through:

I'm 36 years old and although I'm not bald by any means, my hair is a little thinner than it was at age 20. My wife has fantastic hair....very long, straight, strong, and beautiful. She swears to me that she had almost no hair up until about age 12 when she started undergoing several "treatments". Needless to say...she wanted me to also undergo some of these "treatments" (she also underwent said "treatments" again with me). The first one I have done 3 times so far...she ground up a fresh onion using our Magic Bullet and smeared this all over my hair in a thick goopy mixture that was dripping down all over me. I had to wrap my head and face up in a towel. The smell was unbearable. I was not to wash this off for 30 minutes. I can't even describe the smell...washing my hair every day for a week still does not remove it. I've been informed that in actuality I'm not supposed to wash my hair afterwards with anything but water, but I just couldn't do this. Also, it's really supposed to be mixed with cognac also.

She has also informed me that another alternative is to use mustard seed or something like this (since I complained about the harsh smell of the onions). She has used these little packets of mustard a couple times when she was feeling sick. We put these packets in water and then placed them on her chest, back, and feet...they got really hot and burned red marks on her skin exactly where they were placed but she insists that this was critical towards her overcoming whatever illness she had.

It's all a little strange to me and of course I have hundreds of such stories already, but what can I say. It makes life much more interesting and entertaining. I love my wife like crazy and enjoy all these little things that make her her. I'm still waiting to see how well the whole onion-hair treatment works but I have to do this every few days for like 6 months before I should see some results. I will report back my findings....

Lviv Lovers,

Welcome to the dark side!

Of course you are welcome to join in. Good advice and stories are always welcome. Your story reminds me of the Bugs Bunny Hansel & Gretel story with the witch with all the bobby pins in her hair. My mind works that way sometimes...

Tanya has dicovered Neosporin and think it is a miracle drug. We are sending several tubes of it in a care package to home. Good luck with the hair.

[NavarreMan 10]

Awesome pizza can be had at Bison Creek Pizza in West Seattle or at SeaTac Airport. Unfortunaely for me this is 2500 miles away and they do not deliver. Best pizza I have ever had. Locally it is good only if you delight at grease dripping, soggy pieces. I usually have Canadian bacon & pineapple. Personal preference. Less grease and I think it tastes great.