This article is about the cultural trials and sufferings of a young 20-year old Russian girl from a small village Siberian visit to the U.S. for the first time.

Her name is Anna Fedorova, and I know that the culture shock she experienced living and working in the San Francisco Bay for the summer must have mirrored my own level of shock when I traveled from SF Bay Area part of the world in Siberia. :)

It's funny, when I realize that moved and went in different directions ..

Anya and my old house, and I her.

I am also sure that if a journalist had followed me around when I first came to Russia, they would have a goldmine of comic material. But hey, that's just me. I can laugh at themselves all the more that I had to learn the hard way how to deal with serious drinking session with a local who demands "respect" in the form of 500 ml of distilled potato locally medicine.

From their point of view, I am sure that I showed myself seriously FOB (fresh of the boat), but with a bit of time ... I set it and loved the fact that this new world had to offer me.

Keep this in mind when you are ready story of Anna. And to make it a point to read the other comments I put him under too.

    From Russia with love: A young woman new to the Western way
    By Carina Woudenberg
    For San Mateo County Times

    When Anna Fedorova, 20, arrived at the restaurant Menlo Park - a Russian agency employment sent her - she rushed from four days to go and ready to shower.

    More than $ 3,000 poorer for the experience, the young traveler had a passport, tourist visa, work and enough things to get her four-month stay. Based on the Shadrinsk, a small town in Russia to the north of Kazakhstan, Fedorov has never seen a real, full-service restaurant before, but she was willing to work in one.

    There was only one problem. Restaurant owners seemed to have no idea who she was and why she was there. So Fedorov left without work and no place to stay.

    On a recent morning about three months later, Fedorov was sitting on a couch in a neat, sunny living room of San Mateo. House owned by Keith Talbot, a wedding service with its own business.

    Fedorov was to remain with Talbot, as her second night in the Gulf region, and makes about two hours at home every day, Talbot, in exchange for room and board.

    A couple of chuckles first impressions of the young Russian, and her expectation of the parish, to live with an older woman. Will she have to change diapers? Or dealing with uneven?

    "I thought you would be this awful character," Fedorov said Talbot, 69.

    "With the scarf on her head and black socks up here," Talbot says, playing along.

    "Did you see old women in my country?"

    Fyodorov said, pulling out a borrowed library books and opening a page with a dried up woman wearing her grandmother. "Everything in this country is so young, all care about their personality."

    In Fedorov's hometown, she said, the journey is a rarity. Her parents and close friends hardly dared to outside the region. But within five years, it was her dream to come to the United States, and eventually she was able to convince her skeptical parents in this.

    "They would not let me go," she said. "But within five years every day, like every day, I talked to them (about) what I want. And now my mom thought it was a great chance."

    Fedorov was able to save money for a trip through a part-time she spent with a German company. Fedorov learns in his hometown, to study psychology at university. Fedorov also studied English for three years in preparation for his time here.

    Menlo Park restaurant originally had no work for Fedorov. But the owner's wife speaks Russian, and she helped Fedorov find a room that first night and put a word in the Russian community that a young couple looking for a place to stay. Talbot heard Fedorova of former Russian economy, which has offered to introduce them.

    Managers Menlo Park restaurant eventually decided that they could use the help of Fedorov in the end. In the beginning, she worked eight to 10 hours a day doing odd jobs, such as placing fliers under windshield wipers and busing tables.

    Fedorov was trying to make himself useful, but I felt that she does not get much direction. Things like computer screens with maps of the table layouts were completely alien to her.

    Bicycles with wheel brakes, another new concept. Fedorov a long walk to the station, Caltrain to get to her restaurant job, and when she saw the bike in the garage Talbot, she asked if she could borrow it. When she started down the hill and started picking up speed, however, she panicked and could not find the brakes.

    "It was bloody," Talbot said of the inevitable mask, which gave Fedorov concussion and put her down for a week. "A great big bloody chunks all over. It was awful!"

    Cultural barrier between rural Russia and the Bay Area has given the other setbacks and discoveries. During landing at the airport in New York, Fedorova I saw the sign "toilet" and thought that is a special place to relax. She was surprised to find only the toilets.

    In his hometown, no one has a bank account, and people just stuff their income under the mattress. Talbot Fedorov set with her first bank account.

    Before coming to America, Fedorov was developed exaggerated notions as we know, bad eating habits of this country.

    "I thought your food is Coca-Cola (a) Snickers," she said. "Of course, McDonald's."

    Her friends back home to share this experience.

    "My friends wrote to me every day about it," she said. "They expect that I'll be back very thick."

    Fedorov's return home in September. She said she has mixed feelings about her time spent here.

    "For me, I would like to travel alone. Now I think maybe it was a mistake. I do not know," she said. "I wanted to do it alone, because I want to know who I am."

    The young Russian hopes to visit again next year, but do not expect a settlement in America. She wants to be a child psychologist, but she knows that she will not make much money, if it works in Siberia.

    However, Fedorov did not feel that she could practice of psychology here either because of the cultural divide. If she is lucky, she says, her adventures in the U.S. will bring her some clarity.

    "I just hope that when I get back I'll be at home in my country with my parents, and I'll think about everything and figure out what I want," she said, "I can do."

    Comment by rw_man Online SJ Mercury:

    I run a blog that discusses in detail is called Russian women Russian women is true.

    russianwomentruth.com

    Ani experience in the U.S. is unhappy because she has to deal with major culture shock comes from the small remote town in western Siberia.

    Russia has suffered through three generations of socialism / communism, and it left its infrastructure from 50 to 100 years behind the developed Western nations. Moscow is no exception to this, as this capital, but most Russians do not view Moscow to present "real Russia".

    Ani traditional female values, but I'm sure quite rare and valuable in our modern world.

    And, unfortunately, this article does not attempt to solve this problem. Girls like Anna a lot to learn about the various components of modern Western society.

    However, I have always argued that we in the West have much to learn about real female power, persistence and dedication of these women for their loved ones and family.

    Sorry, this author made it so one-sided .. As if we in the West as something better. If this were true, I do not think we'll see so many western men expressing a desire to start a real relationship with women in this part of the world.

    Comment by RacerX Online SJ Mercury

    I will celebrate the seventh anniversary of his marriage with a woman from Russia. What you say is true. She is dedicated, loving, caring and tolerant of some of my foolish behavior. Relationship is what I dreamed of for nearly 30 years. Sadly, I feel that everything that happens in the development of women here has caused so many to not get that women's power, or lose sight of its importance. Men and women both here in our culture has become so misguided that the core of true happiness. I really found my sole mate and had to travel over 7,000 miles to find her. No, it was not from a catalog, and I'm not a rich man. Not at all.