All Black is Russian Fashion
Russians have an odd fashion sense
Russian Fashion
By Nick
Three days ago one of my Russian staff came to breakfast with her hair down.
It was really long, all most down to her butt, and very wavy. This struck
me as unusual because I could not remember her having long hair. Later on
during the day I was talking to someone else and standing right above her.
I was looking down at her hair and I noticed that the hair close to the head
was jet black and the long hair was brown, NOT JET-BLACK. Needless
to say that the next day her hair was short again. I can only imagine how
many people noticed this repeated changing of hair length. I thought that
I would not be that surprised by Russian fashion again for a long time.
I was wrong . . . . . . .
The weather has finally gotten warm here in Siberia. Wednesday was the first
really nice day. The temperature was about 78 F. I know I really loved it
after being 45 F, or less, for the last two weeks. It even snowed twice.
Well the local citizen went all out by striping down to the smallest articles
of clothing they had. I was walking around the parks with a Russian friend
drinking a few beers and enjoying the wildlife (young girls – young ladies
to you Americans. Just so you do not think I am chasing after 13 year olds.
They are all at least 14 and a half.) Any way I was totally surprised when
I saw a young girl wearing a very see through black negligee as a dress.
She had on a black bra and panties and this negligee over the top of it.
Then of course she had black high-healed shoes and a black purse. She looked
just like she was going to go out dancing in a short mini-skirt. She probably
thought she was looking real good. Oh well life here really sucks having
to stare at things like that.
30 April, 1998
Miss Ekaterinburg
By Nick
Last night I went to the Miss Ekaterinburg Beauty Competition. Ekaterinburg
is one of the larger cities in Russia with about 2-3 million people. I must
be honest I went to the competition just to watch the girls. However, I was
very pleasantly surprised. The show started just like I would have imagined,
there were two spot lights being manually moved around the closed curtain,
very unprofessional in nature. The curtain opened and there was a young girl
of about 6 dancing a ballet. Later an adult woman came out and they danced
together like two forest fairies. The dance was very good but normal.
Then, the 29 contestants were introduced, one at a time. They came out in
their street clothes and this was exactly what I thought it would be like,
seeing as how Russia is a poor country. Some girls were wearing ultra short
mini-skirts, some shorts that did not cover their whole buttocks and others
skin tight black pants. It looked more like a beauty pageant in a bar than
anything else. All the girls wanted the audience to see exactly “what they
had”.
After this they had the Russian Latin dance champions perform and then two
young children of about 6 danced after them. These performances were very
excellent with great lighting from above the stage. Then the girls came out
in swimsuits. I was surprised that all swim suits were the same style but
different colors. I would have thought that each contestant had to buy their
own stuff but this was not the case. (With Russian fashion mentality it would
really have been a show if they bought their own swim suits.)
One of the most popular rock and roll singers in Russian sang a few songs
with a back up dance team of two men and women. They were dressed all in
blue and were really quite good. After one of the songs by this famous Russian
singer, a man brought flowers onto the stage. This is not unusual for Russians
because flowers mean good performance or thank you. However, the flowers
were not for the singer they were for the lead male dancer. The singer did
not mind at all and made the comment, “The dancer’s color (blue costume)
is not indicative of his sexual orientation”. The word for the color blue
is the same for “gay” in Russian. So the singer made a really good joke and
assured the audience that this dancer was not homosexual.
Then the girls then came out in evening gowns and each was wearing gorgeous
diamond necklaces. They all looked radiant. After wards their was a short
fashion show with exotic looking clothing. The pageant went on for a while
with singing, dancing and fashion performances.
For the fashion performances, they had a runway that came from the stage
into the audience. The people’s heads in the first three rows were at about
the same level as the runway. During one portion of the show they were asking
people from the audience what they thought about the show. They asked one
man in the second row what he thought and he said that if you were not sitting
in one of the first rows you really were not seeing the whole show. (In case
you cannot figure out what he meant, he had to look up at the girls to see
them and he was seeing more of them than they probably wanted.) They whole
audience roared with laughter because they had thought the same thing also.
I skipped the parts about reducing the competition to five girls but for
the grand finally the 24 simi-finalist came out in wedding gowns. Then the
five finalists came out in new evening gowns. They were all lined up across
the stage with the five finalists in the middle. Then a local flower company
provided flowers for each girl. What a beautiful picture, 24 beautiful women
in wedding dressing and five finalists all holding flowers.
This would have been the perfect scene to declare the winner. However, the
Russians have learned a little too much about capitalism. Each and every
company who wanted to get some adverting came out on stage and presented
the girls presents. By the time the presents were done, each girl had 2-3
bouquets of flowers, 2 packages of cosmetics and a small handbag. Some girls
received stereos, one a TV, some jewellery, two large stuffed animals a vacation
trip and who knows what else.
So all of this crap was lying all over the stage and the girls looked liked
they had just robbed a store, they had so much junk in their arms. Now after
all of this was over they declared the winner. Two men had to come on stage
to move the junk so she could walk down and receive her crown.
All in all the show was great. It was better than the ones I have seen in
America. The entertainment was excellent and the production quality, other
than the very beginning, was great. This whole thing lasted about six hours,
so this was really an event.