Bisexual in Bloomingdales

at 12/10/2009 17:10

Deidre Dare

Zoya, a Russian girl I met in college, was the daughter of a defector and the first Russian I'd ever met. Zoyachain smoked, quoted Dante and obsessed about death. She was also my first female lover.

Before I moved to Moscow I'd only known three Russians. In order of appearance: Zoya, Nikolai and Tamara.

Nikolai, who was an older man and another lover of Zoya's, told my father one Sunday night that he'd never played poker, only to then memorably clean us all out of our chips. By early Monday morning, Daddy realised he'd been lied to.

A close relative of mine married Tamara when I was a young teen. They'd met quite romantically at the Washington Monument and had fallen instantly in love. Our family greeted the union with joy and we ferried Tamara, a recent émigré, from suburban shopping mall to suburban shopping mall, taking pleasure in her exclamations of wonder at all the available goods and services.

I remember that Tamara was especially delighted with the first floor at Bloomingdales, which is dedicated to make-up and perfume counters. She would shake her head in disbelief that at a single display alone - say, Chanel - one could choose from over 50 shades of lipstick.

Whenever I'm in Singapore, which I currently am, I feel a lot like Tamara at Bloomingdales. I rush around the stores, particularly the supermarkets, in a semi-catatonic state of glee, purchasing Fat Free Rice Pudding and other products I've not been able to procure in Moscow.

The Expat Lifestyle is very different in Russia than it is in other places. It is, I realised on one of my shopping sprees, much harder.

Expats in places like Singapore have a charmed life. Not only can they obtain any Western item they desire at a reasonable price, but they have the equivalent of live-in slaves doing all their cleaning, cooking, shopping and child-rearing.

Moreover, in the expat destinations outside Russia - Asia and the Middle-East - the expats quickly take on a colonialist air of superiority. They act a bit like they'd still prefer to be addressed as "Sahib" or "Memsahib" by the natives.

I think this is simply because the expats look different than the indigenous peoples of these places. The whiteness of the expatriates sets them apart from, and somehow above, the native population.

In Russia, on the other hand, the locals look just like us. They look like us but, of course, they're not like us. Regardless of that undeniable truth, the Russians (unlike the Indians or the Chinese) aren't going to let us expats get away with acting as if we were working for The East India Trading Company, are they?

Even though there are dramatic differences between the two lifestyles, there are still some striking similarities.

While sitting by the pool one humid Singaporean afternoon, I decided, for lack of anything better to do with my time, to create a chart of both to assess whether we in Moscow had better consider relocating or not.

Having finished my chart, I jumped in the pool and lazily paddled out to the waterfall.

As the shower of refreshing water trickled over my head, I decided that Russia's not such a bad spot for expats after all.

All I need to do to make it perfect is bring back loads of rice pudding and start making Maya, my cleaning lady, call me "Мем-сахиб".

xxoo,

Deidre Dare's novel "Expat" and "Moscow Moments" video reports can be read online at: http://www.deidredare.com/

Deidre's Definitive Chart of Expat Lifestyles

Russia Other Expat Locales

1. Ready access to native whores Yes Yes

2. Local women desperate for expat husbands Yes Yes

3. Expat men desperate for local wives No No

4. Expat men desperate for sex with local women Yes Yes

5. Expat men pussy-whipped by their local wives Yes No