A Russian wife - what to expect

Most men wanting to marry a Russian woman have no idea, what the world is like through her eyes. While you might know that things in your country will be pretty unusual for her, you cannot imagine how many new things she will face, and how she can deal with them. This article lists a few things for which you should be prepared once your Russian bride is in your country, and hopefully this will help both of you make her adjustment period easier.


Driving: Even if she has a license in Russia, she will be very cautious driving in your country, she will be endlessly surprised by the quality of the roads (in a good way), and get nervous every time she sees a police car. She will find it a pleasant surprise to drive on straight roads without potholes, where everyone follows the rules, and police are not asking for a bribe every time they stop you even without your fault. But she will probably stick with the back roads for a few months, and will think she is not brave enough to drive on an expressway with all that traffic!


Phone calls: Be prepared that your Russian lady will be… afraid to answer the phone because of her lack of confidence in speaking English. Don't pressure or rush her, after a few months of living in your country, she will learn to understand the accent and will find talking on the phone an adventure of the sort (feel sorry for the unsuspecting telemarketers, who will become her practice targets!).


Food: Your Russian bride will have no idea what a sweet potato is. She (most likely) will not like peanut butter. She will be stunned seeing the amount of food in the grocery stores, but she will not be able to find things she "needs": tvorog - Russian variety of cottage cheese, seledka - marinated herring, etc. This will make her look for a Russian store or restaurant in the area, and be prepared to become a guinea pig, whose opinion will be required on everything you taste there, and get a detailed explanation of what all those funny things are, how they are made, etc. She will not like the bread she can find in the stores and bakeries (so yes, having a bread maker can be a very pleasant surprise for your wife).


Other things: She will take a long time to get ready, because she will watch for her makeup to be flawless, and she will wear dress and heels just to go to the grocery store. She will get excited when she meets other Russians in the area and she will chatter away to them in Russian, as if they've known each other for years. She will carry a camera with her and take photos of the most unexpected things (which seem common to you, but will be interesting or strange to her) to send to her friends and relatives.


A few years down the road things will be quite different:

• She will go wherever and whenever she wants to, paying little to no attention to police vehicles and feeling at home on any freeway.



• She will spend hours on the phone talking to her newly found friends, and get annoyed with telemarketers just like everyone else.



• She will know how to cook sweet potatoes, make stuffing, and other traditional dishes, and visit Russian food store only on a rare occasion.. but she still will not like peanut butter or bread sold in stores.



• She will get dressed up only if the occasion demands it, and will certainly wear jeans and t-shirt when going to the store.



• She will feel quite at home, and will forget to take pictures to send home even when she should.