Dating in Moscow

Looking for love in Moscow is a serious undertaking. Be prepared for a city with a very hectic lifestyle - crowded streets, overloaded transport, everybody rushing to and fro... and everything is expensive!

Don't let that put you off. Muscovites are a hardy people with a tough outer facade, but this is reserved for strangers. When you get to know them, the facade is dropped to reveal some of the warmest people imaginable. Here's a hint - the facade stays up until a person is comfortable with you.

Travelling to Moscow requires some forethought and planning. Uncle Pasha's webpages and his services are very useful for planning trips to Moscow, but bear in mind that he is wary of the typical Western 'bride hunter'. But since you're on this site, you're not like that, are you?!

Moscow's vast urban sprawl almost takes in Kolomenskaya, a beautiful estate largely untouched from the time of the Czars. An ideal place for a romantic afternoon, and only a few minutes out of the centre by metro (the metro leaves its underground warren outside the city centre and comes to the surface to act as an ordinary elektrichka).

Romance in Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is Russia's cultural capital. Awash with museums, theatres and cathedrals, it's the perfect place for a blossoming romance. The white nights are truly stunning, and watching the bridges opening is said to be one of the city's most romantic sights (unless of course you need to be on the other side of them at that point).

People in Saint Petersburg are generally calmer than their Muscovite comrades, hardly surprising since they have less traffic, terrorism and pollution to deal with. A romantic evening in Saint Petersburg could be a stroll down the Fontanka embankment followed by a drink in an outdoor cafe, then off to see the Palace Bridge opening to let ships navigate the Neva.

Meeting singles in Saint Petersburg is possibly easier than anywhere else. Most young Petersburgers have a fair grasp of English, some also know German or French. If you're interested in art or literature, this is the place for you. Home to Pushkin, Gogol and other great Russian writers, Saint Petersburg's literary tradition still flows in the veins of its people.

Visiting Russia - Where to stay

For your first trip to meet your girlfriend, don't expect her to invite you to stay with her. There is a good chance that she lives with her family and, hospitable though Russians are, it may become a little awkward in a small Russian apartment.

If you're on a budget, there are many small hotels and hostels that are perfectly adequate. If money's not a problem, then the Grand Hotel Europe or the Astoria will certainly create an impression on your lady friend.

Think: what impression do you want to create? Do you want her to think you're made of money? If you're staying in a flash hotel, she'll expect you to spend lots of money on her during your visit. It's not greed, it's simple Russian culture - you share what you have with your closest ones. If you make it seem that you have bags of cash, she'll be offended if you count what you spend on her.

If you explain that you have no money becuase you chose an expensive hotel, she might think you're selfish, that you spent a lot of money on your own comfort without thinking of her. Again, this is not greed and it's not unique to Russian character.

If you are invited to stay at a family flat, remember to bring gifts. This is a Russian tradition - Russians do it when they go visiting friends. Suitable gifts might be flowers for her mother, chocolates or a nice cake, a bottle of wine (if you know there are no alcoholics in the family) and maybe some small presents if there are children in the household.

Bring some pictures from home if you like, but don't bore people to death with them. Avoid making references to money, avoid comparing standards of living, and whatever you can smell in the apartment block stairway, don't talk about it!

The Reality of Relationships

As someone who's lived in Russia since 2002, and been in relationships with Russian women since the age of 19 (don't ask, it just happened that way), I believe I'm in a position to dispel a few myths.

The idea that a Russian woman holds the key to your happiness is pretty flawed. She holds the key to a lot of things, including your sanity. She can drive you out of your mind without trying particularly hard. She can wrap you round her finger without you knowing it. She will love you like there's no tomorrow, and expect you to feel the same.

For men who seek romance with Russian ladies because they feel that they can't deal with spoiled Western girls (for whatever reason - I doubt whether I could go back supposing I had to) - Russians are not the cure. A relationship with a Russian is ten times more intense than with, say, a Scottish girl. Ten times more demanding. Ten times more passionate.

Now that may sound great, but think about it; ten times more of everything, day in, day out. It's tiring. It's draining. You'll want to get some time to yourself. But you'll be so used to the constant closeness that you'll soon be pining just as much as she is. God forbid you should be out of her sight for more than a few hours and not call at least once to say you miss her.

Myth #1: Russian women all want to marry foreigners and get out of the country fast. Not true - a far greater number would rather stay in their own country with people who understand them and share their culture and beliefs. Moving abroad is stressful. Leaving behind family and friends to start a new life in a faraway country is generally harder for a woman than for a man. Most Russian women now know of at least one other woman who left the country and was sorry.

Myth #2: Russian women all love foreign men. Nonsense. A lot of them can't stand foreigners. You see, we have a reputation for disrespecting them. The Russian bride phenomenon means many Russians now see Western men as bidders at auction, shopping for a cheap wife. For a minority of Russian women, Africans, Italians and South Americans represent something exotic and interesting in the same way that a tall Spanish woman would stun a barful of rowdy Irishmen into awed silence.

Myth #3: Relationships with Russians are easy. See above.

Myth #4: You can buy a Russian bride on the internet. Wrong. You can send a lot of money to God-knows-who and become another one of a long list of scam victims. The number of Russian women who are a) desperate to get married to a foreigner and b) desperate enough to suffer the humiliation of being 'bought' is very low. If you know Russian women, you'll know that something would have to be very wrong for them to stoop to such depths.

Myth #5: All Russian women are gold-digging scammers. Hell no. Well, not all. Many modern Russian women are independent and proud of it. Those who can't be independent generally hope to fit into the social patterns they were raised in. Soviet family values placed the woman at the heart of the home and family, with the man as the primary breadwinner. Times are changing, and mothers need to work to support a family. If mothers in America and Europe find it a challenge, then in Russia it's like climbing a sanddune with a storm blowing in your face.

Real Russian Relationships

Had it not been for a few chance decisions in my teenage years, I would never have fallen in love with a Russian woman and I would never have moved to Russia.

While in my home country, I gamely tolerated the tasteless jokes such as, 'did you buy her on russianbride.com' and 'how much did she cost', dismissing it as ignorant, small-minded envy.

There is a preconception in the West that Russian women exist only in online catalogues, waiting to be added to shopping carts and taken to virtual checkouts. The idea seems to be that they are disposable, one-size-fits all commodities.

The fact is that the women marketed for export by the Russian bride phenomenon are not Real Russian Women.

Western men who subscribe to the myths largely seem to be disillusioned with the women of their own country, whether it be that they are not wanted by them or that they cannot deal with the changing roles and characters of women in Western society.

Those who believe that a Russian woman is the willing, obedient answer to their woes may have a massive surprise in store. Real Russian women are not downtrodden waifs in need of balding sponsors. They are proud, strong, passionate and temperamental individuals.

Western men never quite comprehend the importance that culture and tradition have for Russians. Those who import their brides from Moscow or Donetsk are often people who have never lived outside the realm of their own kingdoms. They do not understand culture shock and alienation.

Even those who do venture out into Russia will find their own exports waiting for them - McDonald's, KFC, Pizza hut and others. But Russian women moving abroad don't have their favourite Teremoks or Ёлки Палки.

Moreover, women have to adapt to cultures where they are not treated as 'women'. Where men don't hold doors open or give up seats on buses. Even worse, they are expected to live up to ignorant stereotypes of being called Oksana or Olga and having an alcoholic father.

Too many men see Russian women as a convenience product of a Third World country. Those who are duped by scams rightly receive little sympathy. The popular stereotpye of the typical Western man in Russia is an overweight, balding, lecherous loudmouth who is too repulsive to get a woman in his own country.

When overweight, balding loudmouths lecherously ask me how easy it is to 'get a girl' in Russia, I reply that I wouldn't know as I've been in a steady relationship most of the time I've lived here. The disbelieving reaction that usually follows says it all. Real Russian women are hidden behind an electronic curtain.

Russian women are no more promiscuous than their Western counterparts. On the contrary, they have far more traditional values about relationships. The majority of (real) Russian women wouldn't touch a balding foreign lecher with any more enthusiasm than they would embrace an angry polar bear.

The misconception that simply being foreign is enough to have Russian women fall at your feet should be long dead. Balding foreign lechers need to wake up to the fact that something is severely awry when a Russian woman swoons at the sound of his Western wallet opening.

A real relationship with a real Russian woman - one not based on the premise of riches or emigration - is not the Utopian dream that the mail-order bride myth claims it to be. It can't be bought with money. Real Russian women need to realise that when they put themselves on offer on an internet catalogue, they forego their identities to the expectations of balding foreign lechers and the agencies that sell electronic fantasies.