The Life-Changing Lesson I Learned About Love in Russia
(Photo: Sarah Jio)
Say what you will about Russia. It’s cold. The men might drink too much vodka. The leaders have a history of questionable practices. But the women? After a recent trip to Moscow, I came to realize that Russian women have, hands down, the most evolved perspective on love.
This year, my friend Claire and I found ourselves, two divorced (Claire, almost-divorced), moderately disillusioned (jaded?) 36-year-old women, in Moscow—on Valentine’s Day.
After one of my novels hit the best-seller list unexpectedly in Russia, I’d been invited by my publisher to go on a week-long book tour in the dead of winter. I asked Claire, my most adventurous girlfriend, to tag along. We each bought enormous down jackets, packed our warmest sweaters, and embarked on an adventure across the world.
On the plane to Moscow, the flight attendant refilled our wine glasses, I stared out the dark airplane window and thought about my divorce, my beleaguered heart, and the endless dating hamster wheel. Though I had recently begun seeing someone exclusively, I still had fears, and even more questions.
“Maybe Russian women have it all figured out?” I asked Claire, remembering one of my friends in Seattle, a Siberian-born Russian with extremely high expectations for the men in her life and a strict no-bullsh*t rule when it comes to dating.
An hour later, when we stepped off the plane in Moscow, Anna, the head of marketing for my Russian publisher, greeted me with flowers. A driver in a black Mercedes waited on the snow-dusted street outside (as pictured above in one of my favorite shots from the trip).
Though my books are not romance novels, my stories all have strong romantic elements. I also write this column for Glamour about love and life after my recent divorce. I’m interested in love, and I couldn’t help but ask Anna, the first Russian woman I would meet on my trip, a little about the love landscape in her country.
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“Are you married?” I asked her casually and perhaps somewhat deliriously after the long flight. I eyed her bare ring finger as our driver whizzed by bleak-looking fields of snow-covered fields of birch trees.
Anna laughed as if she found my question quite unexpected and somewhat hilarious. “No, no,” she said quickly as if the very idea of marriage was somehow silly or unnecessary.
About my age, and beautiful, with dark hair and a petite frame, she quickly changed the subject to something she seemed much more interested in: training for the Moscow Marathon in the fall. We chatted about how she runs on snowy streets in 10-degree weather. The subject of men, it seemed, was the farthest thing from her mind.
In those next few days, everywhere I met Russian women like Anna: stunning, accomplished, clad in designer clothes, fiercely independent, and consciously choosing to remain single. This wasn’t just a coincidence. It’s estimated that in Moscow alone, there are more than 3 million single women in a population of 11 million.
While I have a few girlfriends who have sworn off men for short periods of time (even Taylor Swift reportedly was on a break from dating, though I think I may have just spotted a tabloid pic of her snuggling with a bad-boy DJ—sigh), and I’ve had my share of I’m-done-with-men-moments in past months, I’d never encountered anything like this. Women in Russia seemed to not only be at peace with singlehood, they actually seemed to unabashedly embrace it.
Between book signings, I indulged my curiosity by interviewing Russian women and reading everything I could find online written about the plight of women in this beautiful and complex country. According to recent statistics, there are 11 million more women than men in Russia. Experts theorize that not only do Russian men die earlier (the life expectancy for males is a bleak 59), many die in on-the-job accidents, and still more move elsewhere to find work.
The women I spoke to in Russia told me, quite plainly and openly, what most men are like in their country. “They smoke and drink too much,” a woman named Olga in St. Petersburg shared, adding that many are unfaithful and almost all expect their wives to cook and clean and look perfect while doing it. But perhaps most shocking of all, even in the year 2015, there is no law against domestic violence in Russia.
And while the previous generation might have married out of necessity, Russian women today have an independence and strength that their mothers and grandmothers did not. As such, many young women in Russia have radically sworn off men and the entire idea of love.
During a photo shoot with a particularly handsome photographer named Alex, I overheard Claire whisper to my 25-year-old Russian-born translator, Nina, “he’s cute.”
Nina made a disapproving face. “Never ever tell a Russian man he’s good-looking,” she said, shaking her head. “Men are already too cocky.”
Later, I asked Nina what it’s like to date in her country. The men here are,” she paused to find the right word, “terrible.” Though she had recently started dating someone, her attitude toward love mirrored the other women I’d met: guarded, taken with a grain of salt, almost a “take it or leave it” mentality.
I thought a lot about this in contrast with the way American women think about love. As a culture, we believe in happy endings, in soulmates, in the idea of love completing us, making us whole. In America, we’re Romance Pollyannas of sort; and being single somehow feels shameful, the quest for love exhaustively ever-present.
You’d think that the social landscape in Russia would send women into a desperation and hysteria to find a suitable mate, but as I wandered the chilly streets of Moscow, I sensed the complete opposite. Russian women seem to have accepted the fact that they may never have their Jerry Maguire moment (cue: “you complete me”). And while they may desire love just as much as any other human being, they appear to be at peace without it, at peace with the idea of being complete, even happy, without love.
This is a sentiment that Svetlana, an editor at Glamour Russia shared, during an interview with me at my hotel one snowy morning. Striking and stoic, with a pixie haircut, she smiled very little but had kind, intense eyes. “You write about love,” she said in so many words, “and your stories seem to mostly have happy endings and hint that love is out there for all of us.”
Her question felt like a high-powered spotlight aimed directly at me. My cheeks burned. I knew what she was getting at before she continued.
“But that’s not really true of real life,” she added.
I nodded. She was right. It isn’t true of real life, or mine, either. By all standards, love had done me wrong. And yet, my novels, wildly popular in dozens of countries including Russia, employ the following formula: Girl meets boy. Girl and boy fall in love. Girl and boy have some sort of tragic separation but find their way back to love in the end.
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There isn’t anything inherently wrong with this, and my stories have deeper messages too, but Svetlana was getting at the thing that haunted me. In real life, sometimes girl never meets boy. Or sometimes girl meets the wrong boy. Then what?
“So what are you really saying to readers about love?” she asked.
I paused for a long moment before responding. What sort of advice could I possibly give Russian women? Me, a hopeless romantic, still finding her way, trying to make sense of life alone. “I guess it’s hope,” I finally said. “Even after everything I’ve gone through, I still believe in love.”
Svetlana didn’t seem satisfied with my answer. “In Russia, many women will never get married. Are you saying that you must have love in your life to be happy?”
I fumbled with my words, and thoughts, for a moment. The thing is, she didn’t need my answer, because she, and millions of other Russian women already knew it.
But I needed the answer. And I needed to believe it, finally.
“No, women don’t need love to be happy,” I said, leaning forward in my chair. “We think we do, but we don’t. The truth is, being alone scares me. It scares the hell out of me to think that I might never have the kind of love I write about. But I’m learning to be OK with that.”
On our last day in Moscow, I turned to Claire. “I’m so glad we went to Russia,” I said.
“Me too,” she said.
There we were, two Americans with newly minted Russian states of mind.
A few months have passed, and I’m dating the same wonderful man and feeling happy for the first time in a long time. Yes, love is wonderful and beautiful and worthy of attaining (and keeping). And yet, the thing that Russian women taught me is that, even so, it might find you, or it might not. Either way, that’s OK. It’s actually more than OK.
Life can still be celebrated and lived fully. Besides, men usually die earlier. And in the end, all of us gals will be a bunch of babushkas having tea together. Or vodka.
Hugs to all my Russian sisters.
xo, Sarah
PS: If you’re just starting to read my column, and you’d like to catch up on my backstory, start here.
By Sarah Jio
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