From Russia With Love

And Not Much Clothing

Well, those Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave The West behind
Those Moscow girls make me sing and shout
And Georgia's always on my-my-my-my-my-my mind
- The Beatles, "Back in the U.S.S.R."

We in the West were lied to during the Cold War. No, not about the Russians' superpower ambitions and nefarious plans for world dominination. But about their women. The West always promoted the stereotype that it was gamine French filles, zaftig German frauleins and fiery dark-eyed Iberian senioritas that were the definition of feminity and beauty, while Eastern European women - especially Russians - were depicted as hairy-legged peasants, with babushka headscarves covering their unwashed hair and knee-high Army boots covering their bovine legs like Loweezy the cartoon hillbilly wife of Snuffy Smith (pictured below).



No doubt this Western disinformation campaign was waged to insure that our military men and spies didn't succumb to their feminine charms - like James Bond with Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi, Miss Universe 1960) in 1963's From Russia with Love - and trade state secrets in exchange for some slavic nookie.

In fact, the West has had a virtual epiphany since The Fall of the Russian Empire -the revelation that Russian women are perhaps the hottest in the world, and Russia's greatest national export. This fact has been hammered home to me over the last few summers as an endless wave of young nubiles from the former U.S.S.R. cross the pond as part of a summer jobs program with Baltimore's hotels and restaurants trade.


"Da, we from Omsk! How you tell?"

I see it firsthand because I work at a downtown public library where these women flock to check their e-mail on our free-access computers. You know they're different right away because of their attire - very stylish (jeans are always name-brand or vintage) and at the same time very minimal. (It is not uncommon to see a 20-something Russian gal wearing Daisy Dukes so short that half her ass cheeks are hanging out. A distraction, needless to say.) The hair is often colored, with henna highlights not uncommon. And they are all, without exception, drop-dead beautiful like runway models. There seems to be no Coyote Ugly factor in the gene pool.

The beauty of Russian women and their exodus to The West as mail-order brides (an industry that continues to thrive on the Internet with over 500 sites) so concerns the Russian government that in 2005 Russian nationalist (i.e., "fascist") Vladimir Zhirinovsky suggested imposing huge penalties on any woman who choose a foreign husband over a Russian one. A member of his party explained their bid for the loser male vote:

"Our wonderful women are the best in the world...Wherever I have been, I have rarely seen beautiful girls, only in Russia and some other Slav nations." (Going by Eli Roth's gorno - or, gore porno - horror feature Hostel, I believe he's referring to the babes of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.) By the way, Zhironovsky thinks the beauty of Russian women is matched only by the virility of Russian men - he famously was caught drunk on video commenting that Condolezza Rice was a slut who needed to come to his country and receive oral sex from Russian men!


Russian men toasting their virility

Of course, it has been suggested by those same women that if more Russian men took showers, held jobs, and stop being a bunch of Vodka-soaked drunks (e.g., Vladimir Zhironovsky), they might be more willing to stick around and not marry any man they meet on the Internet who promises to get them out of Russia.

Until that time, let us enjoy the domestic bliss that comes from this exotic import. And let Russian men continue to drown their sorrows about the ones that got away.

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