From Russia with Love

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Yesterday I was hosting a meeting at work for some co-workers spread out across the country, including some high-level managers within my organization. My laptop was hooked up to project on to a screen in our conference room as well as wired to broadcast its contents out over the internet for the remote meeting participants. The mail program I use is Microsoft Outlook. As Outlook users are probably aware, when you get a new message a tiny box fades in at the bottom right hand corner of your screen that has the name of the sender and the subject line of the email (yes, I realize now I can turn it off). After about five seconds it fades back out. In the middle of the meeting, overlaid on top of the most important Powerpoint slide, popped up the following message notification:

From: Mona
Subject: a way to solve abhi’s girl problems…..

The blood rushed to my face and I think I went deaf for a few minutes after that.

So what was this article that was going to solve my “girl problems?” I wasn’t aware I needed any help.

Desperate to reverse a steep decline in their numbers, Russians are coming up with some bold ideas on how to overcome Russia’s demographic crisis.

A Russian feminist has proposed a radical solution to the falling birth rate — importing Indian bridegrooms for Russian girls. Maria Arbatova, writer and TV moderator, who married an Indian businessman a few years ago “after 25 years of keeping marrying Russians”, thinks Indian men make ideal husbands.

“They are crazy about their family and children,” she said presenting her new book, ‘Tasting India’, here. “What is more, Indians, like Russians, are Indo-Europeans, and many Sanskrit and Russian words have the same roots.”

Indian bridegrooms can help ward off a Chinese demographic invasion in Russia, says the feminist: “If we do not balance off the Chinese with Indians, Africans or aliens, by 2050 China will annex Russia’s Siberia up to the Ural Mountains…” [Link]

Was my friend right? Is this what I need?

Yesterday Amardeep wrote a post about Putin (he was writing about Putin, I am quite sure). Today Putin did two things of note. The first is that he dissolved the Russian government, paving the way for his anointed successor to become Prime Minister. The second thing he did (through one of his provincial cronies) was MUCH more relevant:

The governor of a central Russian province urged couples to skip work on Wednesday and make love instead to help boost Russia’s low birth-rate.

And if a woman gives birth in exactly nine months time — on Russia’s national day on June 12 — she will qualify for a prize, perhaps even winning a new home.

“It’s normally something for the home — a fridge or a television set,” Yelena Yakovleva at the Ulyanovsk regional administration press office, said…

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p>Regional governor Sergei Morozov told employers to contribute to a Kremlin campaign to boost the birth rate by giving couples Wednesday off to have sex. [Link]

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p>No wonder Putin is so popular despite poisoning his detractors with radioactive waste. In America we work longer hours than ever before, whereas in Russia I can take the day off to do the dirty with a woman who mail-ordered me AND I get a free fridge out of it. This useful new knowledge makes up for the embarassment at work…I think.

77 thoughts on “From Russia with Love”

  1. also, russians and indians have a similar ideal for the male body. basically fat=prosperous=attractive like that ridiculous looking Rajnikath dude. my friends russian wife, who grew up here, likes to keep him chunky. i worked with a russian woman who would hold one of my fat indian colleagues up as the epitome of male beauty, while telling me and 2 other dudes that we need to gain weight. (it was a boutique firm so we were constantly in violation of title 9 of the ’64 civil rights act that has been interpreted to mean that overt sexuality equals a hostile working environment which equals gender discrimination). pot bellies are in. (i can almost hear half the dudes on sm dancing with joy right now).

    haha, whaaaaat? maybe 20 years ago, but definitely not now. even my father’s poor village brethren have commented on his pot belly as something that he still hasn’t lost yet. while for indians there is still a point when they’ll say someone is ‘too skinny,’ there is also a point that isn’t too far to the other extreme when they’ll say someone is too heavy (for both men and women). though i think the general consensus is that weight doesn’t matter as much once you’ve gotten married because the assumption is that you won’t ever get a divorce so what does it matter?

  3. Many of the countries in Europe too, particularly Northern Europe, are really sparsely populated city-states, e.g., Holland has less people than Mumbai or Tokyo, Finland has less people than Hyderabad, but they benefit from geographical isolation, in a manner of speaking.

    I’d have to take issue with this – it’s simply not true. The Netherlands(Holland is but a province) is one of the most densly populated countries in the world, the total population count being around 16 million people. Finland is sparsely populated, I agree.

  4. …”to do the dirty” Making it about the sex again? Ha ha ha. Love you, coachie.

    i sure abhi was talking aboout laundry. ergo, the girl problems

  5. 40 “The Russian demographic implosion is notable, brought on as it was by poverty”

    Exactly what kind of poverty do you need to bring this on, we have tried so many types in Bharat now …

  6. haha, whaaaaat? maybe 20 years ago,

    yeah, i guess ur right, the aethetics have changed on the indian side as is obvious from bollywood. but the ruskies haven’t changed and indian dudes are still king of the pot bellies. pottiest bellies around, i’d say. got moe pot than cheech and chong backstage at a dead concert.

  7. So bloody true…Russian/Eastern Euro birds are a bit too aggressive for Brown Daddy : (

  9. Eastern European women are hot and more often than not they have the hots for brown men 🙂

    The Baltic States rock. Reading this thread brought back so many wonderful memories.

    Thanks to Abhi – you have made my day.

  10. If you people want to meet good-looking women who like Indian guys, GO TO MINNEAPOLIS. SERIOUSLY.

  11. If you people want to meet good-looking women who like Indian guys, GO TO MINNEAPOLIS. SERIOUSLY.

    White Americans in redneck, USA aka Republican voting base?! Blimey! :/

    If you’re a Jatt bloke, chat up Brazilian birds in Europe or S. America. They love us and we love them. To reiterate, GO TO EUROPE/S. AMERICA AND MEET BRAZILIAN GIRLS. SERIOUSLY.

  13. If you people want to meet good-looking women who like Indian guys, GO TO MINNEAPOLIS. SERIOUSLY.

    What about Bangalore? or Bombay?

    And how do you make sure that your mail-ordering bride is Tatiana, not Rosa Klebb?

  14. i love all these statements about who loves whom just based on ethnicity or location… yes, let’s move to minneapolis, just to get laid. 🙂

    If you people want to meet good-looking women who like Indian guys, GO TO MINNEAPOLIS. SERIOUSLY. White Americans in redneck, USA aka Republican voting base?! Blimey! :/

    umm check the demographics on minneapolis. though i guess you can be excused, b/c if i remember correctly, you’re not american right? though i guess there are just as many americans with the same attitude… i’m pretty much a new yorker, but willful ignorance p*sses me off

  15. oops, the quoting should look like this:

    If you people want to meet good-looking women who like Indian guys, GO TO MINNEAPOLIS. SERIOUSLY. White Americans in redneck, USA aka Republican voting base?! Blimey! :/
  16. If you’re a Jatt bloke, chat up Brazilian birds in Europe or S. America. They love us and we love them. To reiterate, GO TO EUROPE/S. AMERICA AND MEET BRAZILIAN GIRLS. SERIOUSLY.

    If you want to meet two gorgeous Palestinian girls and a hot Danish woman who really loved Indian guys, go back to Barbados in April 2005. They were visiting there that week. SERIOUSLY.

  19. If you people want to meet good-looking women who like Indian guys, GO TO MINNEAPOLIS. SERIOUSLY.

    I was in Minneapolis half a decade back for an interview and I can absolutely vouch for Amitabh. Hmm, maybe we know the same people 🙂

  20. This is hilarious! I wonder why some countries have decreasing birth rates and others have increasing ones. Maybe it has something to do with the climate. 🙂 If the Russians, also provide great high speed Internet connections to the homes of those couples having babies then it will be great for my business (Babble Soft). Plus may be the Russian women can blog about their experiences being married to an Indian guy. Oh so funny!

    So Abhi, are you moving to Russia anytime soon?

    Did your audience laugh when your Outlook message popped up?

  21. If you people want to meet good-looking women who like Indian guys, GO TO MINNEAPOLIS. SERIOUSLY.

    Now I realize why some H1B chaps never want to leave Minneapolis. I kept trying to move them to warmer climes but many refused to budge!!

    Damn – no direct flights to Minneapolis from here 🙁

  22. @al chautiya

    I hope you don’t know the same people. If you do, i bet you they’ll turn out to be hookers or something.

    As for the folks who said they resembled my last comment–you wouldn’t have happened to have been in cali about two months ago?

    Oh, and if you really want advice on where to pick up women based upon comment postings on Sepia Mutiny, I suggest you got to Amsterdam with a bunch of bills cause that’s the only place your going to get any.

  23. Minneapolis…seriously? Clearly I am missing an important piece of information. Is it all the blonde-haired, blue-eyed women or something else that’s going over my head?

  24. Is it all the blonde-haired, blue-eyed women or something else that’s going over my head?

    Nope, you got it.

  25. Eastern European women are hot and more often than not they have the hots for brown men 🙂
    If you people want to meet good-looking women who like Indian guys

    This could be a guy thing, but I personally wouldn’t want to be with someone who wanted to be with me just because I was Indian.

  26. This could be a guy thing, but I personally wouldn’t want to be with someone who wanted to be with me just because I was Indian.

    that depends on how long you want to be with the grl. 30 years, maybe not. 2 days, then who cares?