More thread rescuing:

When visiting my gal, I made the almost-punishable-by-death-faux-pas of sitting my shoes on the hotel bed for just a moment. I think it was at that point I learned there is a very, very scary lady lurking within my otherwise beautiful woman. I will not be making that mistake again.

We have a similar plastic bag "collection" here, and since I work in a plastic bag factory, it really gets to me. I've probably handled more plastic bags in the last few days than most people their entire lives. Made over 40,000 today, and that's only because I was working on one of the slower machines. Some days I make over a quarter-million.

I'm not sure if American women would improve the gene pool or not. But, if you ask them, I'm sure you could guess their answer!



50,000+ FSU women looking for "Western" husbands. Can anyone show me even 50 FSU men looking for "Western" wives? I'm no mathematician, but seems to me the numbers are completely one-sided.



My step-mom reuses sandwich bags all the time to "save money" because I guess at 100 baggies for $1.98, they're breaking her financially. Come on, at least say it's for the environment or something.



There are a stream of Russian curse words coming out of my mouth right now. I have had a few close calls with death, and sitting shoes on the bed was one in my house as well. I didn't know...... I sure know now! (Amazing what your sweet, innocent, darling little fiancee is capable of in a fit of rage, isn't it? Dr. Jekyl and Mrs. Hyde doesn't even come close to describing the alter-ego.)

Wow Slim you actually have an American Manufacturing job! Now that is funny story in itself, since I was under the impression we sent all of those jobs oversees.

haha...... are you and Slim willing to share what your Sweeties said..... or how they looked? I have not made this mistake yet but now I am little bit apprehensive about it.

We were getting ready to go out to dinner or something, and while she was combing her hair and doing some last minute make-upping, I sat down on the bed to put my shoes on. Not sure why I did it this way, usually I just slipped them on by the door. So I sat the shoes on the bed, and I remember her watching this through the mirror. She stopped what she was doing, her eyes grew wide, and she spun around and walked over to me. I got the pointer-finger of death aimed right at me and then the shoes. It's a little hazy after that...she yelled a bunch of stuff in Russian. I picked 'em up real quick, and she calmed down enough to finish chewing my ### in English. Something about how everything that was on the street now being on the bed, do I know how filthy the bottoms of my shoes are, and just generally being incredulous about how I could possibly have thought putting my shoes on the bed was a good idea. You'd have thought I'd just taken a dump right in the middle of the bed, which I suppose was the next worse thing as far as she was concerned. 30 seconds later it was over. She stopped and just went back to getting ready, leaving me completely bewildered. I spent a long time waiting for the (no pun intended) other shoe to drop, but she was back to sweet little Nadya. We had housekeeping replace the bedspread while we were out.

The only other time I've seen her explode like that was when an inebriated ex-patient of hers (she's a nurse) recognized her, and started yelling her name and stumbling towards her, arms outstretched. She verbally unloaded on him, and the dude just tucked tail and slunk away. Hell, I wasn't even on the receiving end of it and I felt my testicles shrivel up into my throat. She later said he's a meth addict and he'd promised her that he would stop using. Clearly he'd broken his promise, thus incurring her wrath. That one only lasted about 10 seconds, and then she was fine. It's pretty surreal.

Yeah...gonna be good times ahead...

Well......... we like them that way........ exactly because they have that sort of potential. RRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrr .......

Well, I must admit, I do the same thing.
What makes me wonder is why would you ever put your shoes on the bed? why?
Yeah, and please tell me why don't people take their shoes off when they come in? this is disgusting!

Well.......it sorta seemed like a good idea at the time. I guarantee I'll never do it again though.

I guess that's just one of those American things. I'm not sure why we do it. A good friend of mine married a Canadian woman, and they remove their shoes in the house now. I've gotten in the habit of removing mine in my apartment as well, just because I know it'll be expected when she gets here. But I grew up never having removed my shoes in the house, and I remember that as a kid I thought it was so strange when I visited friends who did remove their shoes. We always thought it was Japanese or something.

I've gotta know, Katya, how on earth do you Russian ladies turn your anger on and off so quick? It's freaking scary!!

Ok...first off...my grandfather (who went through the Depression) used to wash, dry and re-use paper towels....

Secondly...don't get me started on the shoes...all I know is take them off BEFORE entering the home....as I was reading that story to Elena she started in before I could say what happend about why would you put your shoes on the bed....lol...my sweet innocent thing has a fire hiding inside her as well...trust me....I've seen it...

Thirdly as I am here in Russia....it drives me crazy that you have to PAY for the plastic bags at MOST if not all of the stores and the markets here....granted they are very inexpensive...(1-5 rubles)...but still...you have a basket full of stuff and they ask you if you want a "packet"....duh....and then they charge you for it....so depending on where in Russia and how much the average wage is in that part (here I think it's about $250-$350 per month) it is just a logical and economical thing for them to save their bags. I will tell you though that most of the bags that you buy here are incredibly strong...I couldn't believe how much weight one of them could hold without breaking...we had a ton of potatos plus other stuff in one and no sign of tearing...only the blood being cutoff to my fingers as I carried the damn thing around....I really should get one of those plastic handles that has a claw to hold the bags in....lol

Lastly...I'll give you one of my funny stories.....one of the first times I was over here with my then girlfriend...we had been away at a quiet hotel in the country for a few days and after being home a few more there was a bit of laundry to do....and as no one in this city has a clothes dryer....everyone puts there clothes on some sort of clothes line to hang dry...which afterwards requires IRONing of almost every item.....anyhow....as my wife was ironing maybe my fifth button-down Polo or oxford style shirt and still with a few more to do...she put down the iron and said if I have to iron like this for a man all my life I will NEVER marry...or something to that effect....and then I said, "Don't worry in the US I takes all of these shirts to the dry cleaners and they wash and press (iron) them all for $0.99 each." Suddenly her mood perked up and she resumed ironing and said, "Ok, then I will marry." I know I'm not capturing the whole effect, as I'm an awful stroy teller, but I was crying I was laughing so hard.

Anyone try using a washing machine in Russia or Ukraine and notice how long the cycle lasts?

On my very first trip I rented a small studio that had the western amenities I wanted, including a washing machine. One night I returned to my apt. around midnight and decided to do a quick wash before I went to bed. At 1AM I was too sleepy so I crashed, only to be woken periodically by the washer as it cycled and spun and rinsed. I couldn't figure out which controls stopped or paused the cycle, so I had no choice but to let it finish.

The last time I was awakened, about 3AM, I remember thinking "please God, when will it end!?!?!"

One thing I found interesting was that most Russian people I know who have washing machines have no set place to situate them. Some were in bathrooms, some in kitchens, others in living rooms

They've done what they can to ship jobs overseas. High tariffs and import taxes have ensured a lot of the simple plastics jobs have stayed here. However, since they can't ship the jobs overseas, more and more of the employees are becoming foreigners. Just in my company alone, they've started two new production facilities overseas and a significant number of our new-hires are non-USCs with green cards. (It's not so much that the company is looking for them, it's just that they're willing to work long hours in hot, dirty conditions whereas their American counterparts are increasingly not.)

I honestly believe the only thing keeping my job alive here in the U.S. is the very thing threatening to ship it overseas... the shipping! It costs so much to ship a pallet full of bags that it's cheaper to produce it locally (at a significantly higher cost) than to produce it overseas and ship it in. Cars, TVs, etc., relatively complex and expensive things to manufacture will always be worth shipping in. However, plastic bags that are 20 for a penny (but weigh a pound) are going to be significantly cheaper the closer to home they can be produced.

I actually make pretty complex (I say that loosely... these are plastic bags, afterall) security bags for use by banks and other money-related industries. As of now, they can't be produced overseas to the same quality standard that we have here. That, and they weigh a ton! (Literally, a pallet full of these bags weighs over a ton!)

If it all goes well, maybe someday I'll be living the easy life as plant manager in China.



Google "baba yaga" and that'll give you a pretty good idea of what I saw. What I heard was something to the effect of a shriek followed by quite a few blats and a pizdets or two.... or 30. (For those not in the know..... although those words are quite common in Russian language, they're not exactly good.) There were some other words in there, but for the most part, those two were the stars of the show! I think the grand finale was a "tooie, tooie, tooie" spitting imitation.

I would like to say that was a long time ago.... but it was this morning.



I was just kidding about this morning, that was several years ago although there have been similar "atrocities commited" on my part with similar results on hers. My "shoes on the bed" story was pretty close to the above story except I just plopped down on the bed, ready to go, waiting for her to finish make-up and the ten million other things she does to get ready. Since I hadn't been "trained" yet, of course I had my shoes on.... I was ready to go!



It's just dirt! Years and years of conditioning have de-sensitized us to keeping things "clean." Most people have rules in their home like "no feet on the coffee table" or something to that effect. But, in the average American home, shoes are just as much for inside as they are for outside. Funny, when I was younger, I used to wear my shoes EVERYWHERE, I felt naked without them. Now, I feel funny when I go to someone else's house and don't take my shoes off. I actually caught myself tip-toeing around my buddies house when I helped him move his T.V. one day. This is just a cultural difference but we all know who's going to win!

Better to slip the shoes off than to face the wrath!



My wife had a similar expectation, and then she showed up to a home with no washer/dryer. She still does some of the laundry by hand and hangs it up (then irons the important stuff) but most of it is done by me when I take my mountain of dirty clothes to the laundromat on the weekends.

She has plans of hiring someone to do the laundry for us (by hand, I guess) after we win that Mega Millions jackpot. I support her on that one.

LOL! I completely forgot that. And now I remember why. Because when I pointed out that spitting was probably just as unsanitary......you know what, I don't think that's a memory I particularly want to remember. Forget I said anything.

hahaha........ I love the "tooie, tooie, tooie" spitting imitation. Want a laugh? Ask them what noise a pig makes. From my fiancee I get this very cute "haarrrruuuu haarrruuu haaruuuuu" sound.

This is true, the so-called "Khrushchovkas" (panelled or brick 3-5-storied apartment buildings without elevators, introduced in Nikita Khrushchev's time) were very poorly designed. Combined bathrooms and tiny kitchens... no space for washing machines and dish-washers

Let's just say it's a "Russian Thing" lol

Yeah....ask them what sound a frog makes too....I have another story on that one later....oh yeah and a horse...and many other animals too...

There are two onomatopoeia's my other half does that are pretty cute. One was when it started raining a little bit, and she was trying to remember the English word for rain. So she made a little "raining" motion with her hands and said "what is...cop-cop-cop?" She emphasized each "cop" like a raindrop hitting the ground. It was cute.

The other was when we were in a restaurant with an aquarium right next to us. She discovered that if she tapped her straw against the glass, the fish would follow it. By the end of dinner she had 'em trained pretty well. Whenever she tapped the straw she would say "took took took." I think it must be the equivalent of the little kissing sounds we make when interacting with a pet or something.

"Took took took" is like "knock knock knock."

I get that a lot with the - "Durak. Primitivny muzh" (starts to knock against the wall, or my head) "took took took."

Actually she wasn't being cute with you. The word for water drop or rain drop is капля. And "кап", "кап", "кап" is how someone would emphasize what the rain drops are doing, i.e, falling.

Again you are wrong. тук-тук is an actual word for knock-knock or rat-tat (a series of short sharp taps (as made by strokes on a drum or knocks on a door).

LOL You guys are so funny

LOL!


Yeah, she says that a lot too.

Cool info on the "took took"'s and the "cop cop"'s. One of the cool side-effects of having a Russian SO is that I'm learning all kinds of new stuff.

LOL...... you were right. I asked her to make the frog sound.......... absolutely hilarious...... "kvaaaaaaaaaaaaa...aaaa...aaaaa." She was a real good sport about it too. I totally adore her. Now tell us your frog story.........

You will learn a lot of new stuff, and you'll see that the language you speak at home is not exactly the language you learn through the book and tape sets. It is important to try to learn some Russian language, but remember, the vast majority of conversational Russian you will use will be in "familiar" settings. So, don't be too hard on yourself if you can't learn 100% of your book and tape sets or whatever you're using.

Like the "took took took" and other things, you'll learn what you need to know through interaction with her.

However, you still shoud get going on the book and tape set or whatever else you can use to try to learn as much Russian as possible. "Took took took" does you no good when you're at the deli and she wants something that you have no idea what it is. Not that I really know anyway, but at least I can read it and try to remember what it is for next time.

I picked up some books and tapes, but the one that seems to have helped me the most is Rosetta Stone. I know some people like it and some don't, but for me the connection between reading the word, hearing it, and seeing a visual to go with it really help for the word to stick. I figure I've built a 100 word vocabulary over the last month using Rosetta almost exclusively. I'm not quite at the point where I could order a *specific* sandwich from a deli (unless you happen to serve kushka, loshad, or sabaka sandwiches... ), but I could point to one and say "buterbrod" and then smile like an idiot. And by golly if you ever need me to tell you what color your bicycle is, I'm there for you. As long as it's white, black, blue, green, or yellow. Otherwise I got not nothin.

Since you guys can read Russian so well, check out these pics of Nasha Russia (Our Russia)
May be looking at these pictures will make you remember some more funny stories

http://trinixy.ru/2007/10/04/nasha_rasha_c..._169_shtuk.html

my personal favorite is the escalator that goes straight into the ceiling

My favorite's got to be the "Russian bride" riding side-saddle on the motorcycle. Just proves my theory that there's nowhere a Russian woman can't look dignified and classy.

I like the 3 female russian soldiers showing "leg" in their winter coats and combat boots. It goes to what you say and shows my theory that there's nowhere a Russian woman can't look feminine. It is in their attitude.

These photos showed Russians are just as happy taking snapshots of crude images and drunk peoples' misfortunes as we are here. That says a lot about the similarities in our cultures.

Best photo for me: The sleeping escalator-attending babushka inside that little shack. She was knocked out! Homer Simpson has nothing on that old lady. Talk about not giving a hoot about your job.... awesome!

As far as Russian women looking feminine, dignified and classy..... I thought the group of girls in the pink shorts was pretty nice. The way they all wore their socks up like that, now that's classy!

Oh...were they wearing socks? Sorry, I didn't quite make it that far down the picture...

Ditto

You guys must've stopped at their nice pink jackets like I did the first time I saw the picture. They're very fashionable the way they're cut. Yeah, I bet I looked at that photo five or six times before I realized they had those classy ribbons on their socks. The jackets just kept catching my eye.

Oh...were they wearing jackets? Sorry, I didn't quite make it that far up the picture...

(yeah I know, you can take a horse to water... )

Hahahaha..... does your fiancee read your posts? Remember that female russian anger thing we talked about? You must like your life spicy.

Heh, no she doesn't have very consistent access to the internet. You'd know if she did have access because I'd be all like "There were sexy women in that picture? Funny, I could have sworn it was just a bunch of babushkas!"

Of course Google remembers all, and I'm sure there will be a day when this comes back to bite me in the ###. So for the record...MY ACCOUNT WAS H4XOR3D!!! It wasn't me honey, I swear!!!

She's been here a year now and I think she's almost given up on reading my posts. I get in trouble regardless, so I might as well post what I want. The really messed up part is I get in trouble for the stuff that's not so bad, the stuff that's a light-hearted "wow, she's attractive" or something like that, but the serious stuff like "my wife will be at work all day, would you like to come over?" just seems to slide right by. (Not that I've done that, but just for the sake of example.)

I don't know if it's lost in translation or what, but the things that I think should piss her off seem to go unnoticed and the things that are not even serious seem to cause huge, wild and crazy drama.

There is a separation of sorts for us when it comes to stuff like VJ. This is "my" thing. She checks my posts from time-to-time, but for the most part, she leaves it alone because she doesn't like it and doesn't want to waste her time with it. And it seems to cause a whole bunch of unnecessary drama whenever she does check it out. I can post "I'm definitely on the receiving end of the better deal in our marriage." and she'll come back with "What are you saying in this post? You want to tell everyone that you best of the best and your wife is nothing?"

One thing that I've realized about my wife, and maybe your girls are like this too, is being 100% honest to her is not appreciated. She doesn't need to know what's on my mind all the time. She doesn't need to know exactly what's going on or what I'm into. And more importantly... she doesn't want to know. I thought I was going to earn points by being 100% honest about everything and in reality, turns out, she'd rather have the false sense of security that her perception of what's going on inside my head and in my world is reality. It's not, but at least she can think it is, and better for her to think what she wants than have to deal with reality.

It's just easier that way. And things like posting whatever I want on an internet board seem be "out of sight...... out of mind." (For now, anyway.)

Hmmmmm.... what you wrote is consistent with what I have read in different cross-cultural books regarding American-Russian marriages..... i.e. that Russian women are a bit puzzled why American men feel the need all the time to be "sensitive" by constantly verbalizing their thoughts and feelings. The gist seems to be, "Tell me that you love me. Tell me what I need to know......... but keep your American psycho-babble to yourself." On the other hand, my experience is just the opposite. My fiancee wants to feel a deep connection with me all the time and feels a bit left out if I do not give her sufficient details about what happened that day at work, the extent of my daily feelings and emotions about her, and all the other things that are happening in my life. However, I would be curious where the other russian fiancees/spouses fall in this spectrum.

Mine loves the "about her" part, it's the rest of the stuff that she doesn't care for. Especially when the "about her" is referring to "her over there, the one with the big knockers."

I guess if I kept my American psycho-babble (that's an awesome term!) to myself, which I've been doing with increasing frequency now, I'd be just fine.