Quote: (11-18-2012 03:42 AM)Vorkuta Wrote:
Would you mind sharing some of your experiences from the provinces? Did you go to clubs/what reaction did you get in them? How much did you pay for apartments on average? Daily expenses? What places did you like? How is your Russian?
My Russian is not at all strong enough to understand when I watch the television news or when several Russians speak among themselves. In those cases I would recognize words, and try to guess the meaning. But one-on-one I can understand and say enough things, sometimes a dictionary is needed. Pimsleur Russian I, II and III, mamba.ru messaging and a limited amount of practice with Russian-speakers have taken me to the point I am today.
A typical daily rent for a studio apt was 1500 rubles / 48 USD. This would be central in a rather large city, modern, with washing machine, internet. Discount for longer stays. Normally booking of apts must be done in Russian. It can be hard to find a suitable apartment on short notice.
I have been traveling partly solo, and partly with friends with little game and only English speaking ability. Although it is a low percentage who speaks useful English over there, quite often somebody who does found us in bars or clubs. They would recognize or hear about us, and welcome the chance to practice English and meet "exotic" people. The visual quality of those who want to practice English is normally not the best however.
Meet one quality girl, talk to her, if she does not immediately reject you she might quickly introduce you to her friends. You're in. Or you can just talk with her for a while, odds are she will be very curious about your world. I found this a lot easier than in western clubs.
Getting attention and contact info from girls was mostly uncomplicated. Escalating quickly can be a good idea to filter out those who only "want to talk with the unusual guy". Once in a bar after an hour or so of laughter and photo shooting with several girls in a group, revealing of physical interest from me to one of them gave me a "we're only talking with you because you're a foreigner, I don't like you for something more". Thanks for letting me know. Getting her contact details earlier had been straightforward.
I left the group and found somebody just as nice and a little more serious to talk with, in the same bar. She was sitting alone when I approached her, and she reacted positively to me sitting with her. Shortly after some semi-serious cockblocking / competition came from a local guy who sat himself down with us. He seemed to have known her for a while. He ran his best AMOG-game on me, doing what he could to dominate me and getting the girl to walk with him. Putting his arm around her, giving me the stare etc. Which I responded to by being friendly but with slow moves, unreactive. "Oh, sorry, I didn't know she was your girlfriend". I saw that she wasn't. So she had to object to that verbally. I continued "You see. Me and her we're just having a friendly private conversation now." She wanted to dance. I told him "I'm going to take her dancing. Is this okay with you?" I did not feel like just walking off would work. It was only okay with him if all three of us went dancing together. The girl signaled that that's the only way. Kind of funny. Girls have a lot of respect for guys over there. Me and her had to run and hide when he went to the toilet. And even then she felt a bit bad for hiding from him.
Russian men also can find it interesting to talk friendly with you. It can sometimes be a good idea to befriend guys who seem to have status. They may introduce you to girls, and the fact that you have been talking to "status guys" may keep other guys away when you talk with women. Knowledge of Russian language is quite helpful also in this case. At other times it can be useful to "not understand" when people want to talk.
For instance, in a tiny provincial town of around 20000 people a few guys stared at me and my buddy rather agressively. For no apparent reason other than us being foreigners and talking with local girls. I felt I had to watch my back when walking around. This was in the best disco in town, you can imagine that there were not many other options. A somewhat unstable drunk guy later on became quite negative upon seeing me with a girl. Talking loudly to the others "He's a foreigner. We must do something. He's a foreigner. She's got a boyfriend. He's a foreigner!" She told me she had broken up with her ex long ago. Or maybe he was just out of town for a while. And maybe the agressor was that possible boyfriend's friend. It was unclear to me. I had no desire to escalate the mood of the place, stopped kinoing her, did not talk directly with that guy, instead talked calmly with other guys I had been talking to before. "Is he okay? Do you know him?". Soon the situation dissolved, fortunately. Outside later on, with the same guys hanging in front of the disco, including the agressor - everybody seemed to have forgotten about it. Me and my buddy shared a cab driving away from the place with three girls we met there (not the one with the alleged boyfriend, she left earlier). They did not want to come into the hotel with us however, and we left the next morning, no time for dating.
The good thing is that my buddy stated "my God, I've never seen so many hot girls in one place. This is crazy. How can it be?"
Well. Girls are typically quite a bit hotter in clubs than what you'll meet in the street. This difference is stronger than in the west. Clubs take face control seriously, they marry at a young age there, "ladies night" seems to be quite common, the competition for the best guys among girls is strong and therefore the girls dress up and make up very nicely when going out. And many average girls cannot afford to go to the nicer clubs.