Patriarch Cyril piviotal religious figure in Russia, because it is one of the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church.

His words carry great weight, and I believe he is trying to approve a further important role that Russian women play in maintaining social and cultural life of this country without any changes.

I have been to different villages in Russian as he is, and I can also check the strength and resilience of these women in maintaining their households and communities together, despite the often overwhelming struggle and hardship.

I am very glad that he made the following statements and brought more attention to these everyday heroines.

Some of my previous posts, I stressed the importance of your social network in Russia and the former Soviet Union to find a true lady.

Although the introduction of the agency is not my most recommended option, I can understand that many men will continue on this path in order to get started.

However, I believe there is a lot better and safer way to roll into this without encountering any of the many scams that unfortunately exist in this area.

There are literally millions of Russian, Ukrainian and Eastern European countries are already living in the West. And many of these people have immigrated recently or still have ties back to their homeland.

I think congratulations to the people in the Turkish Mediterranean city of Antalya.

I can probably guess that these people are quite happy to live among such people Russian ladies.

Russia is one of the few countries in the world where the number of abortions more than the number of live births.

For example, in 2001, 1.32 million children were born in Russia and 1.8 million abortions were performed.

These figures are especially tragic, given that Russia is facing a disastrous demographic crisis with the United Nations estimates that Russia could lose more than half of its population by 2050.

One oddity of the United States and living in Russia is a full day and night difference in attitudes toward abortion. In the United States seems to have real political militancy on both sides of the issue.

But in Russia there is ZERO public debate on this issue.

Russian culture has a long history and tradition and Russians are very proud of it.

Russians consider themselves as a well educated nation. They read a lot, books are cheap, and one can afford to buy 5-10 books a month without serious damage to a family budget.

Russians are also big fond of live performances at theatres and since tickets are affordable (prices in cinemas and theatres are comparable), they enjoy attending theatres: opera, musical, ballet, drama etc.

Usually every city has a few theatres. The theatre culture was developed during the Soviet times when tickets were sold through schools and enterprises: cities were divided into areas and there was a theatre agent responsible for each particular area. The agent would bring tickets for distribution to every enterprise and school in his area and the person responsible for "culture sector" would organize collective visit to the theatre. I think it was an excellent system since people had the opportunity to attend theatres from the early age, starting from attending performances in a Muppet theatre, then moving to the Youth Drama Theatre, then to Drama, Musical and Opera, according to their age. Also attending performances in a company is always much more fun, which contributed to the popularity of theatres. This is how most Russian people have developed their taste for live performances.

Movie theatres are also becoming popular in Russia and they are equipped with the latest sound systems. When Russian people talk about movie theatres, they will usually say "cinema"; if they talk about "theatres", they mean live performances.

I originally wanted to write a story about how mentally resilient Russian Women can be but instead I ended up writing about what many of these ladies go through on a daily basis.   I think this post is equally effective in illustrating my original point about their general fortitude.  The following scenario in itself is fictional but every element is completely grounded in everyday reality here.  Click the various links below to see more images.

Did you know that only 34% of Russian families own cars and the rest rely on various forms of public transportation to get around?

Now at first glance this may not seem so bad but when you combine this with extreme weather and a lack of modern infrastructure for the vast majority of the country outside of Moscow, a whole different set of visuals comes to mind.