Comments on: Today, the Washington Post made me gnash my teeth

By: koko

koko — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 04:02:26 +0000

on applebaum’s unbelievably stupid and vulgar article, see this followup:

http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=16477&IBLOCK_ID=35&phrase_id=22453&PAGE=2

By: Natalia Antonova

Natalia Antonova — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 10:19:09 +0000

Well, I am going to come off as hugely biased here (perhaps I’ll provide pictures, so you can judge for yourself) – but my mom was beautiful. Drop-dead gorgeous. Like, ridiculous beauty. Think Tatiana Drubich – only hotter. I think her looks did cause her problems – the way looks would cause problems for a lot of women, not just Soviet women. I could be wrong.

If you lived in Kyiv in the 1980’s – for all you know, we saw each other! Well, I was born in 1984. Perhaps you passed me in my pram. Did you see a loud, blonde baby in a white kerchief? That was me, lol.

By: Katya

Katya — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 21:09:09 +0000

I lived in Kyiv, early 1980’s. My husband lived in Kyiv and (illegally) Leningrad in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.

There is a difference between being attractive and being very pretty or beautiful. Many women in Kyiv were (and are) attractive/pretty. But beauty is rare.

I don’t agree that beautiful women were viewed with suspicion as Applebaum stated. Only that it didn’t conform to proletarian ideals, and that she has a point on that issue.

By: Natalia Antonova

Natalia Antonova — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 06:59:40 +0000

I remember the USSR. Well, from the time I started to have memories, which might have been around 1986. I wasn’t around in the 1970’s, but I have pictures of my mother from that period. She was glorious as were her sisters, and had no problem finding jobs.

However, there might have been a real difference between what was acceptable for labourers and shop assistants and what was acceptable for office workers.

Remember Slujebnii Roman? Alisa Freindlich’s character was criticized for her deliberately plain clothing style. Then again, she was also the boss, and had real power.

I think it honestly dependent on where you were and what you were doing. The USSR was not a monolith, far from it.

By: Katya

Katya — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:36:33 +0000

I am old enough to remember Soviet times (I suspect, Natalia, that you are not). There were, definitely beautiful women in the USSR, and to suggest there were not is silly.

I disagree with Applebaum about most things. But in this case, Applebaum is, in some things, correct.

Real beauty was not “proletarian”. To be too pretty, or too refined, was suspect. Many girls I knew could not find jobs in shops because they were pretty.

By: TomT

TomT — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 05:27:57 +0000

I agree with you completely. There’s something deeply depressing about an “enlightened” columnist such as Applebaum taking it for granted that attractive Russian women exist solely to please wealthy western women. There’s a real lack of self-awareness about the piece.

The whole thing is kind of sad.

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 23:14:05 +0000

I wish I had something deeper to say, but the truth is when I saw her name I got A Tribe Called Quest’s track “Bonita Applebum” stuck in my head.

By: olechko

olechko — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 19:11:12 +0000

Thanks for taking them to cleaners for all of us!

cheers/ Thanks for sharing this!

By: Jo

Jo — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:16:45 +0000

Thanks for sharing this. What an unbelievably patronising load of American drivel that article was! I certainly gnashed my teeth at it!

“They didn’t even dream of becoming Vogue cover girls, since very few had ever seen an edition of Vogue.” Because that’s obviously what every girl dreams of becoming!

Anne Applebaum – Shush now! Enough already!

By: Daisy

Daisy — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:20:57 +0000

Really fascinating.

I have to say, I’m not 100% sure all this ‘discovery’ of the Russian beauties is necessarily always a GOOD thing. I have read about the mass exploitation/importation of teenage models, mail-order wives, etc and *that* wouldn’t have happened in the old USSR either.

With additional capitalist opportunities, you always have an additional possibility of greedhead exploitation of the poor and naive.