Bikini, balalaika, or both?

In 1968, at the climax of the Cold War, the Beatles came out with a bawdy ode to the Soviet woman (“Back in the USSR, you don’t know how lucky you are, boy…”).

Photo by Tatyana Shadrina

It is doubtful, however, that many people took those flattering lyrics very much to heart. After all, on the western side of the Iron Curtain, the iconic Soviet female – with a sickle in one strong hand and a balalaika in the other – was believed to be more industrious than beautiful, more blustering than blush. Indeed, the practical value of a Russian woman ranked somewhere between a good tractor and a surplus wheat harvest: extremely useful in the right situations (snowstorm, famine, revolution), but certainly not the most likely candidate to grace the cover of a glossy fashion maga- zine, for example, or win Playboy playmate of the year.

(Briefly, I can think of one good reason why so many Americans believed that Russian females were somehow defective: Yakov Smirnoff, a Ukrainian immigrant to the United States. Armed with an absurd Russian accent, Smirnoff went on to become a hugely popular comedian in the 1980s by savagely ridiculing life in the Soviet Union – without sparing the women. Here are two samples of his material that should suffice: “In Russia, if a male athlete loses he becomes a female athlete.” And this tasteless whopper: “I like American women. They do things sexually that Russian girls never dream of doing – like showering.” For any Russian woman who would like to exact some verbal revenge on Mr. Smirnoff, he is still alive and may be hunted down at www.yakov.com).

Before we go any further, caveat emptor: The first half of this article has been researched by mean members of the male sex, a hirsute tribe of moderately evolved monkeys that are said to contemplate life largely with the help of one clumsy tool, and one that is conspicuously distant from the brain at that. In other words, any attempt by mortal men to fully comprehend the sublime features of the fair sex is more often than not an exercise in sheer futility. “Yes, it is true, God did create men before women,” commented one smart female. “But then you always make a rough draft before the final masterpiece.”

Okay, enough said. Let’s just jump right into the blistering action, as Tolstoy advises.