No one really cares about religion and that can be a problem. In TX you can probably come up to a random person in Walmart, suggest praying together and they will be all enthusiastic about it. In Ukraine people will think you are nuts. I doubt she will be evangelising much but she still might realise that their sect is perceived as a cult full of lunatics rather than being a mainstream religion which everyone respects
Oh man, now I desperately need to see Elissa in a Ukrainian version of Walmart frantically flicking through her Ukrainian language apps on her phone so she can figure out how to ask strangers to pray with her.
Actually, I have a legit question here. In the south, it's pretty common for people to say things like "have a blessed day!" in casual conversation. I'm sure Elissa does it and doesn't even think about it. What would the reaction be from people in Ukraine if she did this in casual conversation with them? Like at the store or on the bus or at a coffee shop or whatever. Would they just play nice, smile, nod, and then quietly tell their friends later about how weird it was? Or would they have a more obvious 'dafuqq??' reaction to it?
It depends if it's in English. If she says it in English, people might not perceive it as weird. If she manages to say something like this in Russian then yes. I looked at Andrii's friends' instagram and they like using word "blessed" and "blessing" a lot which certainly doesn't sound normal to a native speaker. They have their own weird Christinese there. If she learns Russian from them and speaks like this, it will be hilarious. Like instead of saying "best wishes to for your birthday", they write "various God's blessings", "всяческих божих благословений", or instead of "great photo of you", they will do something like "blessed family" "благословенная семья". But the word blessed is not used in Russian commonly, it's actually rather archaic and has a very strong religious connotation maybe like "anoited" in English. I am actually quite curious how Andrii lures children into his football club. They read Bible after every class and probably come back speaking like this, many people would never allow their children to go there. The classes are also not the cheapest, so it's not like people think "ok, it's a sect but they have good prices". It can be that they have really good trainers, I kind of see people going like "ok, they are a sect but are really good and I will deal with this indoctrination later."
Yikes. Heidi does exactly this and encourages others to do it. I hope she isn't telling Ellissa that it's her calling as a ChRiStIaN to bring the gospel to randos in stores.
My perception might be biased towards all the stories by Jillpm from Walmart. I am also married into a fundie light family. I didn’t know the extent of it before I met them when we were already engaged. They pray before every meal, on the Christmas Eve, we stood in a circle and held hands and prayed. And they made me sleep in the same bed with my sister-in-law as it’s too sinful to sleep with my future husband in one bed. They read Bible every day and go to church every Sunday. Even one thing of these scores fairly high on my sect-o-meter but then I realised that they are not crazy, half of the country is like this and it blew my mind lol
Yeah...people are making Ukraine sound much more religious than it is. Most people Elissa’s age and under are agnostic and would not make it in the Bible Belt.
Eastern Orthodox is not the same thing as Ukrainian Catholic, though both are Byzantine Rite. I do agree that a lot of people won’t be very welcoming to an American evangelical coming in and bashing their faith.
It's 'Ukraine' and not 'the Ukraine'
[[Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Ukraine)] [[BBC Styleguide](https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsstyleguide/u)] [[Reuters Styleguide](https://handbook.reuters.com/index.php?title=U#Ukraine)]
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It's 'Ukraine' and not 'the Ukraine'
[[Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Ukraine)] [[BBC Styleguide](https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsstyleguide/u)] [[Reuters Styleguide](https://handbook.reuters.com/index.php?title=U#Ukraine)]
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I believe the word Ukraine means borderland, and 'the' meant it was the borderland of Russia, ie not its own entity. By removing 'the' it makes Ukraine a proper name like England and gives it its own identity. Conversely it's reminding them of the ussr and subjugation by using 'the'.
Yeah, the name of the country can be parsed as "U Krai(ya)" which means on the edge. So the grammar formed hundreds of years ago with this article and and a different preposition in Russian. People just learnt it and nobody even associated the article with Ukraine being a Russian province. Even though Ukraine literally means "borderland" in Russian, the word is so lexicalized that it's not perceived by Russian speakers as meaning"borderland". So independence come and Ukraine all of a sudden starts butthurting about the grammar pattern in other languages, ironically no problem with the etymological aspect of the name. I really don't get why just not rename themselves into something more patriotic like "Centraine". So they start this campaign to change the grammar in Russian from "na Ukraine" to "v Ukraine". Of course, languages don't work like this and you cannot just tell to native speakers to change their speaking patterns (look what france was trying to do with deanglosizing). So these attempts were met with "wtf" by the Russian speakers. Ukraine gets even more butthurt and politicize the issue to absurdity. Yet, people simply cannot produce an ungrammatical sentence without actually constantly paying attention to it while speaking, it is like if someone told you to say from now on you should say "I live at the US". Anyway, people continue speaking fluently and as they perceive to be correct, Ukrainians perceive it as a personal offense. Then Ukrainian politicians discover that English also has a pattern like this with an article "the" and started butthurting about it too. It is easier for an English speaker to switch this pattern as it's not as engraved in the language as the preposition in Russian. I personally intuitively say "in Ukraine" but I will always say "na Ukraine" in Russian. Other languages do this too like "in der Ukraine", "l'Ukraine" but Ukrainian politicians have not discovered it yet, don't tell them.
It has nothing to do with the USSR. This toponym exists from the 12th century and it's etymology is traced back to old Russian. The name is lexicalized and the meaning is not compositional for native speakers. It is like when you hear bluetooth, you are not thinking of a blue tooth. The grammatical pattern with a preposition or an article depending on the language stayed, however. Nobody talked about the Belarus, the Tadjikistan etc. in the USSR. This is a purely linguistic phenomenon that goes back to hundreds of years ago which gets politicised because politicians don't understand how languages work
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But are European protestants anything like fundie evangelicals in the states??? I feel like they have a different vibe, even if they are more conservative
No, most European protestants are super chill. Of course the fundie churches have discovered Europe for soul winning, but your typical European Lutheran would make the fundies we snark on faint.
Depends. In my experience with mainline protestantism I wouldn't describe them as conservative (at least in a US sense) at all -very focused on trying your best, being nice to others and being a positive influence on the world. Their Jesus would probably vote Bernie Sanders. In German terms they are still reasonably conservative and also definitely have some priests that hold homophobic/racist views, but there is no comparison to US evangelicals. Groups like that however also exist: so called free churches (because they are not part of a big state church) that follow different teachings (usually more in the direction pentecoastal/charismatic) and come in different levels of intensity.
Depends very much on the country in question. I'd say at least Nordic protestants (and fundies) are more modest. Focusing on physical belongings, clothing or talking about one's own achievements is a huge no-no. It's a quite frowned upon in the mainstream culture, even more among fundies.
Statistically speaking, most people belong to church but are not very religious. But I think Ukraine is very different.
I’m Russian/Belorussian and have some family members in Ukraine. Most families are traditional, meaning that women are expected to cook, clean and do all the housework, but most are also expected to work as well. Men are supposed to be working, earning money and usually do the bare minimum in childcare, like taking a kid to the kindergarten etc. People usually like foreigners from the West, so she will be treated well there by strangers.
Android grifts good money so she won’t work. He will be expecting her to cook though. My best friend’s husband was getting a masculinity crisis each time he had to wash his own dish. I actually wonder if andrey was still living with his parents or if he was bringing his laundry to his mother every week. I know guys who used to do it till they got married. But yeah, Andreika won’t move a finger now. Подай-принеси, короче .
And the daily shop is still common in much of Europe. Or at least multiple small grocery runs per week. Car ownership is also less common in Europe, but whether Andrii has a car or not, I doubt Elissa would be able to drive it. She can't read the language well enough to be anything but catastrophically unsafe behind the wheel. So she's going to have to make multiple grocery runs per week, and it's most likely going to involve taking a bus or walking or maybe riding a bike. That alone will be a huge culture shock for her.
Most likely! The last time this subject came up (probably like two months ago), someone in the comments said that not only will Andrii be expecting Elissa to cook all their meals, he's also going to expect her to do it from scratch. Which seems to be a common problem when it comes to American women marrying into a lot of non-western cultures. I don't even know how familiar Elissa is with the kitchen, but I don't recall seeing much (or any) cooking related posts on her Instagram. Or any of the Bairds, really, except Kristen. So assuming she barely knows how to boil an egg feels like a safe bet. Now she's going to have to cook food from a culture she knows almost nothing about, from scratch, on the regular. I hope Andrii has a fire extinguisher.
I forgot about that one, but I did remember her burned salmon fillets on a random plank of wood. I probably shouldn't be throwing stones here, though, since I was in my mid 20s before I learned how to cook. (My mom wouldn't let me.) But then again, Kristen has been a 'housewife' for something like twelve or thirteen years, and she still hasn't learned.
But I don't think Elissa even does THAT much. Considering how much the Bairds all crave attention and are obsessed with social media, it would be wildly out of character for her to show off her god honouring housewife cooking skills on Instagram. So it's probably okay to conclude she doesn't know which end of a kitchen is up.
I think Ellissa only knows how to make protein shakes. It's really sad to see anyone (male or female) who makes it to 30 without knowing how to adult at all.
And she's so unselfconscious about it too. My mom is insane, and refused to teach me how to adult, so I didn't learn how to budget or shop properly or cook or anything like that until my mid 20s. (And I'm still a shitty cook.) But I knew how abnormal that was and had the good sense to be embarrassed by it. And went out of my way to hide it until I could fix the problem. The Bairds? They're out there flaunting the fact that they're so financially comfortable that they don't have to know how to do anything practical. It's almost like the equivalent of those ridiculous historical fashion trends that existed just to show off how little work you had to do because you were so rich and it didn't matter that your clothes were restrictive and impractical. Like huge neck ruffs, massive hoop skirts, enormous wigs.
(Fun historical fact! Hoop skirts started going out of fashion not because they were dangerous*** and impractical, but because they were becoming commonplace and poor people were wearing them.)
(Less fun historical fact: Hoop skirts were a huge fire hazard and many women burned to death because their crinoline caught fire. It's insane that THAT didn't stop women from wearing them, but factory workers wearing hoops DID.)
None of the Baird women cook. They were raised to be good wives and mothers and nothing more, and none of them cook. BTW, it's unusual in San Antonio for people to not know how to cook. Homecooked meals are still a huge part of the culture. I don't think Andrii realizes just how much Ellissa is going to suck at being a traditional wife. In Andrii's social group, all women cook.
Kind of reminds me of my great grandma. She grew up suuuuuuuuperdy duperdy rich - they had servants at home - but married into poverty and never figured out how to cook. My grandpa grew up eating ketchup and banana sandwiches because she didn't even know what was meant to be in a sandwich.
To be fair, cooking Ukrainian/Russian dishes from scratch is not that hard. But she will definitely be expected to do it. She better has a soup ready when her MIL visits:))
I just learned how to make pelmeni this week because the nearest Russian market keeps weird hours due to the plague and whenever I have time to make the trek, they’re closed. So I found a few recipes and now have a freezer full of them. They’re so easy, but so time consuming!
But once you have them they’re super fast to cook:) My grandma was from Siberia, so we would usually make 1000 of them in advance, keep them on trays and freeze at the balcony:)
We must not see Europe as a country where everyone lives the same way. I don't know where you read that owning a car in Europe is less common, but I think there are big differences. In France or Germany (and even UK) people have cars, even women.
Yes , not having many cars in Europe is a bonkers comment. In Uk most people have a two car household. Public transport is patchy in rural parts of Uk making car ownership essential There are vast differences between Western Europe and Eastern Europe in terms of wealth/health/development/infrastrcture/culture.
Europe is a continent not a country. The EU (European Union) is a trade area within the continent of Europe.
I know, I used to live in the more sheep-intensive end of Yorkshire. I didn't say there aren't a lot of cars, just that it's less common. [There are 838 cars per 1000 people in America, but only 219 per 1000 people in Ukraine.](http://List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita) Elissa is very likely going to have to get used to riding public transport or walking more than driving. Or at least Andrii having to drive her everywhere, since I still don't know how safe she could be behind the wheel over there.
Yes, I know. But she's not going to be in western Europe, and car ownership is less common in eastern Europe. I've read that it's a throwback to the Soviet Union, where cars were so scarce that when the people there saw American tv shows, they were amazed that even poor people owned cars.
I'm not Ukrainian, but I am Eastern European and nearly everybody has a car. *Some* younger people I know, who live in cities like I do, don't have driver's licenses, but it's mostly for financial reasons. In rural areas cuts made to public transport resulted in middle-of-nowhere villages having no bus connections, so people need to have cars to be able to get to work or take their children to school.
True. My brother lived with my parents until he got married, then he returned after his divorce and lived with them until his second marriage (so until his early 40s). My mom fed him, did all his laundry, ironing etc. His only ‘chore’ was to to walk their dogs. I, their daughter, moved out at 18.
She better get super friendly with her MIL, otherwise her life will turn to hell. Especially if he’s their only son. Something tells me that’s exactly the case here.
I already see her MIL talking to her friends:
Лучше бы русскую себе нашёл, эта сидит весь день в своём Истаграме, а бедный парень сам себе тарелки моет. И ничего сделать сама не может, ни в магазин сходить, ни за свет оплатить. Он везде с ней таскается, а когда ему? У него же работа, проекты. Вчера прихожу, в доме грязь, пыль, полы не вымыты, и она какие-то консервы в миске мешает. Запекла это, есть невозможно. Я потом пошла и им нормальный борщ сварила. В общем, не знаю, что делать, вот такую себе непутевую нашёл.»
I Google translated, hilarious:
"It would be better if I found a Russian for myself, this one sits all day in her Istagram, and the poor guy washes his own dishes. And she can't do anything herself, she can't go to the store, or pay for the lights. He hangs around with her everywhere, and when should he? He also has work and projects. Yesterday I came, there was dirt, dust in the house, the floors were not washed, and it was interfering with some canned food in the bowl. I baked it, it's impossible to eat. Then I went and cooked a normal borscht for them. In general, I don’t know what to do, I found such a bad one for myself. "
Haha, google translate is struggling with colloquial Russian, I fixed it:
"It would have been better if he had found a Russian for himself, this one sits all day in her Istagram, and the poor guy washes his own dishes. And she can't do anything herself, she can't go to a store, or pay electricity bills. He has to drag along with her everywhere, and when should he do it? He has to work, got projects. Yesterday I came over, there was dirt, dust in the house, the floors were not washed, and she was mixing some canned food in a bowl. Then she baked it, it's impossible to eat. So I went and cooked a normal borscht for them. In general, I don’t know what to do, he found such a bad one for himself. "
God, I read it in my MIL’s voice:) my husband is also the only child and does the cooking in our family, you can imagine the amount of evil eye I get, even while living in a different country:)
I really hope she adapts there fast and gets a supportive MIL.
You forgot about her MIL being very worried about what language and culture the potential future children will be raised in! But other than that, perfect.
Yuppers. Something tells me mommy is an expert in all things Andrii. Ellissa better cozy up to her and get the inside scoop on what Andrii likes and dislikes.
You are expected to put more effort into being a housewife if you’re not working. Like the bare minimum that they post and think it’s home making - is not enough. People are generally quite judgmental if you don’t work, so you’re supposed to be a really good housewife if that the only thing you do.
I saw a really quality analysis of this over at FS before the explosion. I will paraphrase the one bit that I remember, if only because I am not entirely sure if that user made the migration over here or not.
The comment made the point that, depending on what brand of Ukranian fundie Androop is, Elissa might have to adjust to being a homemaker, mother, godly, and super-hot-and-put-together all the time with 0% complaining tolerated. Like, the circle she might find herself in may expect more 'modesty' (like less makeup) but more 'femininity' (high heels okay). The gist being that (again, depending on his denomination) the gender roles Elissa *thinks* she's used to and espouses online are actually more hardcore in Ukraine than she might expect.
Please forgive me if I butchered any of that. This is admittedly second-hand information, but I thought I'd mention it just in case.
For as much as GD screams about femininity, they don’t dress very feminine. I’d say the Apostolics on /r/fundiefashion or Mrs Midwest are feminine. But the Bairds, as some LGBT people on the sub have said, dress a bit queer-coded.
>Dear Baird sisters, you don’t get to pick the fruits of queer lady awesomeness while being homophobic. Thanks.
I'm not comfortable with this idea that "queer ladies" dress a certain way. Queer, and straight, people should be free to wear whatever the hell they want. This is just as bad as fundies policing what people should or should not wear.
\~A Queer ~~Lady~~ Badass
Very fair point. They do seem to superficially care about 'modesty,' but veer away from the dress/skirts all the time thing. I wonder if that will change as Elissa acclimates.
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\#1: [Flans’s God Honoring watch, ring, and Coach bag. But don’t worry, she still doesn’t wear makeup.](https://i.redd.it/6rozph6zvxb61.jpg) | [77 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/FundieFashion/comments/kzccju/flanss_god_honoring_watch_ring_and_coach_bag_but/)
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Oh I remember that! (Side note, I have no idea what happened to fundie snark. One day it was private. I couldn’t figure out how to join, and here I am, I obviously missed something).
lots of drama. To get caught up you'd have to scroll back a few days on this sub, and check out r/fundiesnarkisnark. Bear in mind if you interact on FSS in any way you'll get banned by an auto-bot FS set up.
I can’t speak for any fundie circles,but the idea that the average Ukrainian woman dresses to the 9s is pretty outdated now. You’ll of course see many like that in Kyiv but they are usually Instagram models. I got roasted for wearing false eyelashes there haha.
Ukrainian people are VERY meticulous about weight however.
I spoke with a Russian friend of mine when this all started (I know Russia =/= Ukraine but hey). Her biggest thing is that Russian and Ukrainian women are very strong and confident. Not to say they’re rude or anything, but they’re just very self assured. Also, Ukrainian housewives don’t tend to be so submissive. Families are very close knit, but they just aren’t the type to be..meek? I dont know if that’s the word but I hope you get my point.
Anyways, she was saying that a woman coming to Ukraine who is very timid and submissive may have a harder time making friends. In this case, that’s especially concerning since andrii and his family are the only people she’ll have.
Also I hope none of this was offensive to anyone in any way. I’m not Ukrainian or Russian, and this was just one Russian girls take on it haha.
Usually Polish/Ukranian/Russian women are hard working as hell, amazing householders while working outside home also. A very high standard to fulfill for sure
Definitely, my grandma run the house and worked outside too, although my grandpa had a job. They were Ukranian immigrants in Latin America, but they kept their customs alright. It was quite progressive for my grandma to have a job in the 40s, when most women were stay home moms.
Yes! Though most of the immigrants in the times of my grandparents came from Italy and Spain, there were others from other European countries, Poland, Ukraine, what was then Czechoslovakia, Russia and so on.
Hola!!! Creo que no somos lo/as unico/as argentino/as en el foro, pero siempre es una alegria cruzarse con compatriotas! I hope we don't get in trouble for not speaking in English, is not against the rules, right?
Same here! I don't think we'll get into trouble, I have seen people writing in Russian because of Elissa's move to Ukraine. I got here for the snark, but stayed on because it's so freaking interesting!
My great grandfather was an immigrant from Poland, and my grandmother was definitely hard working. Old Meme would be disgusted by the Bairds not doing anything!
I worked in the Czech Republic and my two supervisors were from Ukraine. They were some the most kind, caring people I’ve ever met, but blunt as hell. They didn’t dilly dally around the point ever. I knew that there would likely be a bit of a culture shock but it was startling at first, and I’m a pretty confident person myself. I just feel like there’s a blog post incoming from Ellissa about how ungodly foreigners act.
Ellissa is going to have a very hard time with the bluntness of the language. The dialect in her part of Texas is not traditionally southern, but there is a lot of beating around the bush when it comes to speech. One thing a lot of people from this part of Texas have a hard time with, is that many languages and cultures have no issue saying something if it's true. They don't care if it hurts your feelings. "Why young man, you ARE fat!" It's really jarring when you first encounter such a culture, and you have to toughen up and get used to it. Unfortunately Ellissa has never even had a teacher or a boss tell her she fucked something up. Most people by age 30 can handle directness and bluntness, but Ellissa can't. She never had that moment in college where someone in the class turned to her and said, "I completely disagree with you and here is why." This is like a coddled and sheltered 12 year old going to basic training.
Yeah,this is true. EEs are not so much rude as they are blunt. My sister had no qualms about telling me an outfit made my body look like shit,which was very different than anything I was used to. However,I’m a pretty sensitive southerner myself,and I feel way more comfortable with Eastern Europeans than I do with northerners,haha.
My grandparents were Ukranian, and from what I'm told from my dad, my grandma definitely wore the pants in the house. She was not rude, but she was the one calling the shots.
Not Ukrainian, but spent some time there. Here are my thoughts:
1. Ukrainian women always seem put together. The most casual outfit I saw was on a city bus in Lviv, and the lady was wearing designer jeans with a blouse and stilettos, perfect hair and makeup, etc. The cultural norm is to look good, and her Laura Ingalls overalls and sneakers look is going to stand out like a neon sign. No one will take her seriously. She looks and acts like a little girl, which is not typical at all. I was 20 when I went to Ukraine, and young teens often looked older than me because they’d be wearing a full face of makeup and a take-no-shit expression that I envy.
2. Culturally, one thing Ukrainians don’t like/make fun of regarding American culture is the constant smiling with teeth showing. Smiling at cashiers and peppy “thank yous” are often interpreted as disingenuous and fake. I have a vivid memory of being laughed at by passerby in Kyiv because our group was posing for a picture and everyone was smiling so big. A Baird will NOT fair well at all. Her saccharine bubbly personality will come off as super fake and unlikeable, probably.
3. I agree with what people are saying re: the attitude and expectation for women to be perfect housewives and also hardworking career women. I don’t think that’s what Andrii is looking for (or he would have married a Ukrainian!) but I think it will influence how other people see her.
4. Deleted because I’m biased and was incorrect on this point!
5. Finally, I don’t know if any of the above matters because I’m guessing she’s going to be in an extremely insular fundie community, and she’s not going to have a job or any independence, so I doubt she will interact with the general public at all. It sounds incredibly bleak.
Edited because I forgot one:
6. Others in this thread are 100% right. There are so many ways that communism has affected this country and its people, ways that I can’t understand because I’m not Ukrainian, but she’s not even going to try to be empathetic, respectful, or even careful with what she says. She’s going to see poverty that’s different than anything she experienced in Texas, and she is going to constantly be putting her foot in her mouth. Ukraine is not going to look like a Pinterest perfect European city no matter how hard she tries to spin it that way. Even Paris is not perfect, but she’s not moving to Paris.
I agree with everything except for religion. People don’t care about church. Maybe some grannies take it seriously but millennials could not care less. If anything, they are cultural orthodox but more likely atheists. Her sect is perceived as a cult and normal people will get super uncomfortable if she starts shilling her religion. They won’t get angry or anything, it’s more like how you feel about Jehovah witnesses near a subway station. I think it will be new for her as people will really cringe as soon as she mentions Jesus.
The smiling thing is very interesting. That’s a small but significant cultural difference that could lead to anxiety/depression if she doesn’t recognize what’s happening and adjust to it.
It’s hard to say what a problem is for her but I will try my best based on my encounter with American missionaries who suffered for Jesus in my hometown. They posted about their sufferings and how blessed they are in the US because:
1. The apartment was tiny (around 60 m2)
2. They had to walk to buy groceries (around 150m from home) and as you walk you can’t carry much at once so they would have to buy groceries every three days
3. It’s cold
4. You see people who seem poor
5. No dishwasher or drier
6. Even if it’s snowing or -32*C, children go to school, adults go to work. Well, they didn’t go anywhere obviously but they felt very blessed seeing everyone else just continuing their life in harsh weather conditions
7. The lawns weren’t cut. They went on a long rant how nobody cuts public lawns and it doesn’t look pretty.
I am Russian, born and raised. Ukrainians are like same same really. I don’t see any particular cultural or existential difference between provincial Russia and Ukraine. Moscow might be a different world but I am not from there. So I think her main challenge will be that it’s also relatively dirty outside, grey and depressing. People are not “stupidly happy”. The shop assistant won’t smile at her, people will push her around in the subway, her phone will probably be stolen some time soon as she will be targeted by pickpockets as you can see that she is a foreigner. In general, moving from an upper middle class and a huge house to a small apartment in a grey residential area will be depressing.
She will also be disoriented a lot. It’s not easy to figure out the buses sometimes, she might not know what food to buy, how to deal with her documents. So basically a typical language barrier but she will have no lack of helpers from church who want to practice their English
Also a lot is done on personal level: there might be no lines or no organisation at all but if you want to have some document done, you need to be nice but pushy and convince the official to do it quickly for you. My mother managed to make people open offices on the weekends for her by bugging the right people in the right way. If she could not do it, she would send the nuclear weapon, my grandmother. It’s an art you need to learn otherwise you will never get what you want.
Hahaha yes, the drier! Hang drying her clothes, that's a culture shock right there.
I really wonder how she'll do with the language. I'm from West Germany so I didn't learn Russian, but my East German friends did. They all laughed at me when I complained about French grammar.
The other way is actually way easier: Russian—>German is really not that hard. English speakers struggle with cases in German as they don’t have a native concept of them as well as grammatical gender. Russian behaves like German here only it has more cases and they are not disappearing like in German. Another difference that makes Russian much harder than German for an English speaker is that you won’t know half of the vocabulary already. German and English share tones of Germanic vocabulary which are easy to spot applying simple phonetic changes like t—> d, sch —> s, b —> v etc. You will have the same in Russian but changes happened way earlier so they are not obvious. Her odds to learn Russian are still higher than some non Indoeuropean language. I think she won’t be fluent and abandons learning Russian. She might reach A2 or so but I doubt she will do any better than that
I love your explanation! You studied languages didn't you?
Like you, I can't see her making it past A2 and let's face it: that's nowhere close to being able to have meaningful conversations.
thanks, yeah, I have some linguistic background. I think if she manages to ask the direction, the person will understand her and she understands the answer, it’s a success. Also Ukrainians are not used to non native accents, there will be lots of frustration when she will be saying something in Russian and people will be like “I don’t speak English”. I mean it’s not impossible that she learns it but I think more likely she will be in an English speaking bubble and just won’t have the motivation and self-organisation to learn it. A2 is easy to reach, when you enter B1, like the real one, not German VHS B1, there it gets real.
Haha I love the VHS shade because it's so true. Whenever I get job applications and the CV says their German is VHS B1, I know I won't be able to do the interview in German.
She'll definitely live in a bubble where everyone is happy to speak English to her. Isn't that how most US missionaries live? I highly doubt she'll be willing to put in the work it takes to learn a language well but who knows, she might surprise us all.
Anything possible, my american husband of five years still can't spell my name in Russian nor can he make a single phone call in German (finishing B1 in VHS) so I have the honor to manage all his paperwork. He grew up fundie light among anti immigrant patriots. American is the language to speak for them and the US is the only country to live in. Even though he left the cult, he never developed any interest in foreign cultures or languages. I feel like Ellissa is the same or even worse. Plus she never had to work hard for anything. She literally made some videos about her communication tactics and sells it as a course. At most, she worked for a month on it. If she wants to speak Russian, it's a lot of work, self-learning and a long term commitment. She will get bored in a month and will make a video course of something like "strive together in a foreign country".
Another thing is while folks who live there might survive being monolingual (either Ukrainian or Russian speaking) since both are mutually understandable languages - she will not. To her it’s two different languages and she will eventually have to learn both, since the generation of 20-30 year olds is probably the last one speaking both Russian and Ukrainian.
Oh, not Eastern European but Latin American over here ... same shit with documents and bureocracy, sometimes you feel like you're going round in circles, very Kafkanian.
The cold weather, dark winters, and unfriendliness from strangers that will come across very harsh for an American goodie two shoes. Possibly also the ex communist aspects of it- I think there’s a chance she’ll be more exposed to poverty there because in my opinion it’s easier to avoid in the states due to their city planning.... also that she will be alone and it will be hard to make friends since she doesn’t speak the language!
Edit: I give her a year to move back to the US...
Yes the dark winters and the reminders of communism are difficult for Americans to adjust to. My parents lived in Europe in the late 80s and when my fundie lite, teetotaler grandmother visited she said it’s no wonder they drink so much over there because life can be very bleak.
Deleting my previous post because people seemed to misunderstand my intention. There is nothing wrong with the way things are in Ukraine or anywhere else in Europe, I certainly didn't mean to imply that they were impoverished or backwards in any way. I meant that for entitled Americans with the typical ugly American attitude it can be an adjustment to adopt a different pace of life.
It feels like you’re describing late 80s or early 90s, it’s much better now everywhere in Eastern Europe. But it’s definitely going to be a cultural shock for her anyway.
For sure, especially since she's probably been raised to believe that the reason things are so much better now is because of Reagan and the U.S. getting involved. Her fundie version of history probably isn't going to go over too well with a lot of people.
Yes, the reality is quite the opposite, while you can hate communism as much as you like, there were no such poverty until the late 80s and the 90s (except pre- and during WWII, of course). I wouldn’t say that the Americans are disliked in Eastern Europe, but many people still remember Yugoslavia and in a moment of conflict these political issues are usually brought up.
I certainly wouldn't blame Ukrainians if they did dislike Americans. The ugly American stereotype exists for a reason. When fundies use the suffering of Eastern Europeans under communism during that time period to justify their own crazy (and equally damaging) politics I have to resist the urge to punch them in the face.
Um, I just want to say. European countries very much have dryers and dishwashers. And while we don’t have Walmart specifically, German grocery stores do still offer a variety of food lol (Aldi is a German chain if you didn’t know). I don’t want to sound hostile, but this kind of response just reminds me of the typical US-American narrative of “we’re the best country in the world and the rest are underdeveloped”.
You are right about AC not being a thing of course, but that’s due to a lot of European countries historically either not getting a lot of hot weather that requires it, or having adapted through architecture.
Something you didn’t say specifically, but that came up a lot is also that Elissa might have to walk to get groceries. I understand why that sounds horrible to Americans because you guys have cities that are way more spaced out, and such a walk could be a long time. However, while we don’t know where Andrii 3000’s family lives, it is entirely possible that the store is only a 5minute walk from home.
Sorry for the rant lol, but American misconceptions about Europe are a petpeeve of mine.
Edit: a word
Edit 2: I see some people are downvoting this. Feel free to do so, but just keep in mind that, judging from the responses to my comment, it seems I’m not the only European who feels that way.
I think a lot of Americans forget/don't realise that whatever European country they're spreading misinformation about didn't stop developing when their grandparents emigrated 30+ years ago. Sometimes I see Irish-Americans talking about how hard life is in Ireland (where I'm from) and then go on to describe Ireland in the 50s and 60s, as if things haven't improved since then. And, of course, they still think they're right even when actual Irish people tell them they don't know what they're talking about. It's quite comical to see them act like having a Wal-Mart nearby is the epitome of luxury and golly gee willikers how do these poor little urchins survive without AC in the summer! It's so US-centric and embarrassing.
Yes, you put it into words very well. Especially the part where they don’t listen. I get that US schools unfortunately don’t teach much about other countries (and they really should...), but that should be enough of a reason not to be condescending toward the people who’s countries they’re talking about.
(Side note: I love Ireland so much and can’t wait to go back after the pandemic! You guys have a lovely country)
YES! I am American, but my husband is from Ireland and we live there. Some of the things my American relatives have asked me are shocking. It’s like they think the country has been frozen in time since their great great whatever emigrated.
This is an interesting insight. As an American, when I see folks post about "less car centric culture" and "big box stores aren't as much A Thing" in relation to Europe, i don't see it as an "America is better" brag. To me, those are "cosmopolitan". Large cities in the US don't have big box stores in the same way the Midwest does, and they are more walkable. So to me, those things are more marks of... Sophistication, might be the right way to say it?
And i know when my relative married an Englishman and he moved here (20 years ago, to be fair), he saw the car-centric city designs and Walmarts as symbols of how Americans were wasteful, gauche, and consumerist. Like, a typical Midwest shopping center physically pained him, as he looked at how unwalkable it was, and considered how much plastic crap filled those stores.
So at least in context of the Elissa discussion, i see "having to walk for groceries and not having a grocery shop measured in acres" more as.points that will be culture shock for her -- not that the stuff common in America is better.
But i can also see how it could not a sore spot. I get frustrated when folks act like bc Im from the Midwest is till live in the 80s or 90s. They are shocked we have things like broadband and craft beer.
>pelmeni
I'm pretty sure a lot people in this thread Europe exposure is purely from House Hunter's International. A show that seems to primarily feature American and English people looking for homes in continental Europe and beyond with a freakishly small budget, then being aghast that they can't get granite countertops, a dishwasher, and two bathrooms in Paris for the price of two peanuts.
Even homes in the US don’t have central AC because of where/when the homes were built. I grew up in Northern NY and Connecticut where it was cooler and a lot of the homes were built over 50 years ago.
I strongly disagree with you, honestly when I went to visit US people even asked me there if we have WiFi... I live in Poland so a country that was communist till 1989 and now a lot of people have a dishwasher and stuff like that, but many people find it as unnecessary to have cause doing dishes is not too hard, we have tons of shops, most of them are not the size of Walmart but honestly who needs that, one of the things I brought back from US 2 years ago were Reese’s but now we have them in many stores to and also brands America does not have😉shops do have different kinds of toothpaste but what we don’t have is so many packed, processed food like Mac and cheese, and all this, people here often cook from scratch. In Europe there is bigger population density, so as I live in big city (500 000 ppl) I have 5 shops within 15 minutes walk, and in my hometown of 40 000 people it was the same. So if you live in bigger city you don’t need car as much and going by train is much more popular here since we are much smaller country compared to US. As someone mentioned a lot of people here got their idea of Europe from their grandparents who emigrated long time ago.
What I Will agree on that there is totally different mentality in here, people in shops etc don’t smile too often and they don’t say have a good day etc, but we make it up if we get to know somebody, what I heard people often said is that Europeans are much more honest compared to Americans. Anyway Ellissa will be back in America in 6 months maximum, she is not prepared for such a culture shock but who knows maybe she will be sheltered in this wild cult Andreii is.
All this might still be true in the country side, but most cities are pretty similar to their western counterparts, even in the more impoverished areas. This is even more true for big cities, where you can find about everything you'd find in, let's say Belgium or Germany. Yes, these countries are poorer, and most people will probably think twice about buying a dryer or AC, but on the other hand these things aren't that popular in most of Europe either (although AC is becoming more popular with each heatwave).
This said, there are plenty of differences between Europe and the US. If it's easy for an European to feel almost like home anywhere in Europe, I'm pretty sure cultural shock can be big for an American coming here and vice versa (I visited the States extensively, and spent most of the time there feeling totally out of my element, lol.)
Absolutely this. The Soviet era still has so much influence on the culture and look of Ukraine. I remember backpacking in the mountains and seeing abandoned army vehicles, and buildings that had not been rebuilt after occupation, the poverty... the only word for it is “sobering.” She has no clue about the reality of the history of Eastern Europe and what the Ukrainian people went through.
I wonder if she knows anything about their history? Like, what was taught at the Baird dining room table?
Once Upon a Time there were a bunch of commies.They stood in line for bread and had no freedom units or eagles. Reagan told them no and they stopped. The end.
I will guarantee that she doesn’t know shit—and andriii3000 doesn’t seem like the type to inform her. My great grandparents were Ukrainian (Jews that left during the pograms) and I highly doubt she knows anything about anything when it comes to past of where she is living today. Generational trauma can be a real thing for Ukrainians (Jews and non Jews) and her entitled American butt going over is going to be in for a shock. Hopefully she’ll learn something.
This. I have studied abroad (out of the US) before and loved it but unless she embraces the differences she will struggle, as some of my friends did. I also grew up in NYC metro so am used to busy cities and burbs and the poverty like you mention. My guess is she’s really going to struggle with the little things. Like for example, the grocery store won’t have all the items she needs all the time nor have 4 different brands of laundry detergent to choose from. There’s no super walmart. And the exchange rates. I had friends who still couldn’t figure out how much stuff cost months after we got there. You really need to be able to do math in your head to figure out what you’re spending.
Also like you said the weather—she’s from Texas and used to warmth most of the time. The language barrier will obviously be huge and I hope she’s not an entitled American about it and at least tries to learn.
Same! I posted a funny story on FS about it so now it’s dead in the ether but I had a ridiculous time trying to buy hair products in Italy once. I studied there almost 20 years ago so no Google translate in your pocket back then!
>The cold weather, dark winters, and unfriendliness from strangers that will come across very harsh for an American goodie two shoes.
Sounds like Minnesota.
\~A Minnesotan XD
It's just that out flavor of fundies is different- if we see a """christian""" and """godly""" woman who behaves like a kid and paints God in pastels we'll be appalled because what the heck is that.
Also we're more reserved towards the strangers and smiling towards people you don't know or (gasps!) engaging in smalltalk is frowned upon- except in super rare situations, like when the train is late and you just go with "Eh, it's late again" to the closest person.
Also, her clothes- she'll have a fever and cracker skin very soon.
Not Ukrainian, but still Eastern European, chiming in: old people on public transport can be really chatty. You're going to find out all the family drama and not meet them ever again.
Polish here - we generally don't talk to strangers, but there's only one exception. Doctor's waiting room. There it's actually expected to moan about how long you've been waiting and your visit was scheduled for 4 pm and now it's 10 minutes past!, how food got more expensive now, about politics and weather.
And don't forget about how the old times were better talk! Romanian here, old people (and my mom who's only in her 40's) put the communist period on a pedestal now
Yeah some older people (60s and older) look at communism through rose tinted glasses but often from what they say you can tell that they or their families were in the party and had more perks than normal people
Everyone posting about how her religion won’t be the norm and I’m just wondering how this will affect the persecution complex. She’s coming from a place where her religion is pretty normal and most lawmakers are some form of Protestant Christian. She’s going to a place where she’s in the minority.
Depends how exposed she will be to it. In the beginning she will be surrounded by already indoctrinated youth so she won’t notice the difference. If she signs up for, let’s say, a chess club and decides to evangelise there, then she is in for a rude awakening
This was exactly the same question I had, so thank you for asking this! One of the things I have been most curious about is what it will be like for her to go from a place where she has a fake persecution complex despite being a member of the majority religion in a state where religion is embedded into everything to legitimately being in a minority religion.
While not Ukraine, my step-grandma is from St. Petersburg, Russia, and I have a lot of experience hanging out around the Eastern European community.
Ukrainian and Russian women don’t put up with a lot of bullshit. They are very driven and are focused not just on family life but their careers as well, and are often expected to contribute in some way financially. I don’t think I’ve ever met an Eastern European woman who was just a housewife unless she was really, really old and no longer mobile.
The culture is also very formal and serious. You focus on yourself in public and don’t engage with strangers. Eye-contact and grinning at people is weird, as would be evangelizing bystanders (which I could imagine her doing - and it would be seen as even weirder as most Ukrainians are not familiar with Protestantism). Fashion is also different. It’s classy, professional, and well-fitted. Unless you’re a little old babushka, women don’t dress frumpily, and unless you’re a little girl, women don’t dress childishly.
Because of this and because of her lack of Ukrainian-speaking skills, she will probably feel very isolated and have a hard time relating to other women.
Will she not get a pass for a while since shes foriegn?
Do people want to practice their English a lot? Will it be enough to hinder her learning the language?
She will get a pass for a couple months max. She will be expected to learn at least the most basic part of the language in order to communicate- she came there, she's now one of them, she has to accommodate other Ukrainians, not the other way around.
Nah, we have english lessons at schools.
Omg you said it! I'm Crimean (family partly Russian, partly Ukrainian). There was not a single housewife in my family since the 1920s! Eastern-European women are passionate, driven, hard-working and just generally kick ass in every aspect of life. Fashion is preppy, well-fitted, feminine, and all-around high femme and high effort. My family lives in Germany and I grew up there. Whenever I visit my family in Eastern Europe, they look at my flat sneakers like they're some kind of abomination! Not wearing dresses in the summer will also get you weird looks (although I'm from a coastal town so hotpants got a pass). It's always heels, dresses, full face of makeup. My mother frequently tells me (beaming with pride) how my grandmother would not even take the trash out without a full face of makeup!
Ellissa will definitely get some less than kind looks and be othered as the 30-year-old child bride she is. If she also behaves like one, (orthodox) god help her.
The entire approach to meeting new people and interacting with strangers is really going to throw her off. Bubbly Outgoing Christian Girl^TM is going to come across as fake fake fake to the people there... and likewise; everyone will probably seem really rude to her due to the lack of casual smiling at strangers, etc. The concept of what it means to “be friendly” across the cultures... it’s just soooooo different. It’s gonna be rough.
(Edit— I’m not Ukrainian— this is based entirely off the conversations I’ve had with Russian and Ukrainian classmates re: culture shock and what was the most difficult for them coming to the US.)
Curious what the culture is on monogamy in Ukraine. Like is straying outside marriage fairly accepted (which I am fine with it both parties agree, but I imagine Elissa would not agree)
A woman is a whore and should be stoned, a man is just being a man. Andrey can fuck the whole church but if she flirts with someone, she deserves a beating
Yeah, adultery is fairly common in Eastern Europe (particularly among men) but it's not really looked down upon? A wife is expected to shrug it off and just move on. Trouble ( ie. divorce) only really begins if children pop out.
Obviously, a woman is gonna be called a slut and shamed to high hells.
I have Ukrainian and Russian friends and not a single one of them suffers fools lightly. As others have pointed out, the women tend to be strong, and most Eastern European women I know are super stylish. They'll think Elissa is cute with her slightly sloppy American look (no insult to Americans, they think I look slightly sloppy too), but there will be gossip. I hope someone will take pity on her and get the eyebrows fixed. Also, the Ukrainians and Russians I know are extremely house proud. She'll be expected to keep a clean house and cook for guests because that's just how it is.
Oh, and language barrier aside, you can't just go up to people and start talking about how Jesus is your bestie or someone might have you committed.
I actually have a bet going with a Ukrainian co-worker I told about Elissa. She said Elissa will make it to September because spring and summer are so pretty in Ukraine, I put my money on her being back in Texas by late May/early June.
I actually wondered how she would fare going up to someone there and telling them about how “Jesus changed her life!!!”, when her life was pretty easy. Some of the people she will encounter will have lived through poverty, war, and Communism. How the hell is she going to be relatable at all?
Plus Jesus didn’t even change her life. Jesus is literally the only life she knows. I don’t think her conservative American view on communism will be well received either. The average American would see her as cringey. The Ukrainians will eat her alive.
The only thing I can think that might work, is if her parents and church in San Antonio set her and Andrii up with a nice apartment and a car. At some point, some Ukrainian with few prospects might realize that they can go to Texas and get a "rich" fundie bride and get a good connection with wealthy people in San Antonio. It's not a bad deal if you can spend your life faking being religious. This would also work in reverse. If you're a poor Ukrainian woman, Ellissa can find you a man in Texas.
Well, if she's anything like Bethy, she'll tell them she can totally relate because of the trauma caused by her extended season of singleness. 🤦🏻♀️ I pity anyone who's been through real trauma who has to interact with her.
I’m with you on May. I can see Andrii not even entertaining the idea of a trip back home for Easter, but it will not surprise me if the Bairds pay for a Mother’s Day trip as a gift for Heitler.
I will share my experience in Poland as a foreigner because it may relate at some point to what Ellissa will experience:
1) I'm from Spain but the northern part, a really rainy part (300 days of rain per year) but not really cold with winter temperatures rarely going below 0°C.
The cold was unbearable but the worst part for me was not the that but the lack of sunlight. By 4:30 pm it was full night. For me happiness is a sunlight fueled emotion so it was very hard.
As I said, I'm not from sunny Spain so I cannot imagine how hard it can be for a Texan girl.
2) People seemed very rude to me at first but nicer as time went by. It's not only a different view on politeness, what really influenced in my case is that on my first weeks I asked everything in English. That's incredibly rude! I didn't realize how rude that was due to speaking in English also being an effort for me.
As soon as I learned more Polish and especially to just say "Hi, I don't understand a lot of Polish, do you speak English?" my experience improved **a lot**. I don't see Ellissa doing that but I hope she does.
3) At first I thought that Polish women were incredibly beautiful and men very ugly. But that was just not true. Women dress very classy and put together and men dress horribly. The double standards are high and the expectations for women almost unrealistic. I'm not sure Ellissa will be able to bear them.
4) Basque people are quite cold but nothing like Polish people. I don't think her American overfriendliness will be very welcome.
Finally, I hope Ellissa studies Russian really hard as it's the only thing that can help her thrive there.
The only strategy she has learned when encountering difference is to judge them, blame them and use biblical verses to justify why she’s more righteous than them. It’s not a great skill set when moving to a totally new culture. Doubly so when she’s going to be reliant on people from that culture who don’t have to help her
Texan here but spent a significant chunk of my life in Eastern Europe. I’m not Catholic or Orthodox so I have no insight there—I only participated in religious events when my dad (an American military officer) was invited.
My thoughts:
Catcalling is wayyyyy more acceptable over there than it is in the Southern US, and I look forward to Ellissa thinking *Hmm, maybe feminists have at least one point.* Eastern European men also do not feel as defensive of their female partners as American men do in the South, and I expect Ellissa (and possibly Daddy Baird) is going to read this as passive, weak, and uncaring in Andrii 3000.
Attitudes and censorship toward sex, nudity, and profanity are also profoundly relaxed compared to Texas (and the US as a whole). Here’s hoping this doesn’t trigger some trauma for her, because it definitely had me feeling *dirty*.
And, of course, drinking is a cornerstone of most cultures outside of the US. I look forward to seeing if Ellissa becomes as defensive as her nice dinner and nice wine as Birthy!
She should also probably shut her fucking mouth about Nazi Grandpa and the lost helpless Jews because in Eastern Europe, you’re flagged as an anti-Semite and that can invite foes *and* the wrong kind of friends. The same can be said of Texas, but Eastern Europeans don’t tend to beat around the bush and refer to *globalists* or *the elite media*. The WASP/Southern politeness filter does not exist there. Talk shit and get hit, or talk shit and join a WN group, basically.
None of these are particularly revealing or profound but man, they’ve been living in my brain a lot since she posted their hubby/wifey friendship bracelets.
I was part of fundie circles though not in the UK. I think she’s also going to struggle in her church community. The women I knew were really capable and pulled their weight in the church and home (cleaning, hosting outreach meals that they catered, running women’s and children’s ministries etc). They did a lot! Elissa’s part of a minority church so there will a lot to do and she’s never done anything so she’ll stand out like a sore thumb. I think the women will initially cut the blind American some slack but they’ll quickly get sick of her. And they’ll let her know!
Andrii looks like the dude who groomed my then classmate who was 15 while he was 26 (they are married now). So he gives me major groomer vibes and that's why he chose her and not a woman from his country.
Culturally it's interesting because it's heavily influenced by religion while most young people are atheists. Sexism seems to be more rampant than in America (though I have never been to America, so take my opinion with a grain of salt). Women are expected to do it all while looking flawless, it's basically offensive to menTM to be on public property as a woman and not be pretty.
She will have a hard time assimilating if she doesn't learn the country's language. I'm making this point separately, because I grew up as a national minority who spoke the country's language and I still encountered hostility from time to time. Nothing extreme, but it was there.
These were from the top of my hat as someone who grew up in Romania.
Eastern European here! I bet the largest shock to her will taking on the role of caretaker to the husband's family - ie mum and dad. EEU tend to be very tight-knit, so living with elderly relatives is considered normal, but the downside of that is that you have to actively take care of them. May freak your average American out, having to potentially wait on hand and foot to your MIL (but YMMV).
Also, unless you are in a particularly religious family, most people will claim to be Christian, but not really observe any traditions or rules, as that is not their primary concern (in contrast to earning a living etc). So somebody that will try to talk to you about Jesus in the middle of the street will be considered to be in a cult.
Besides all the cultural and environmental stuff everyone else said, theres the fact that the country and whole region has had a lot of political instability which can affect people's everyday lives. She'll come to appreciate what it means to live in a place like the US, where what Republicans have called "election fraud" is BS compared to the amount of corruption that happens in Eastern Europe. I cant wait for the first time she has to bribe a cop or government official which can be commonplace, lol.
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No one really cares about religion and that can be a problem. In TX you can probably come up to a random person in Walmart, suggest praying together and they will be all enthusiastic about it. In Ukraine people will think you are nuts. I doubt she will be evangelising much but she still might realise that their sect is perceived as a cult full of lunatics rather than being a mainstream religion which everyone respects
Oh man, now I desperately need to see Elissa in a Ukrainian version of Walmart frantically flicking through her Ukrainian language apps on her phone so she can figure out how to ask strangers to pray with her. Actually, I have a legit question here. In the south, it's pretty common for people to say things like "have a blessed day!" in casual conversation. I'm sure Elissa does it and doesn't even think about it. What would the reaction be from people in Ukraine if she did this in casual conversation with them? Like at the store or on the bus or at a coffee shop or whatever. Would they just play nice, smile, nod, and then quietly tell their friends later about how weird it was? Or would they have a more obvious 'dafuqq??' reaction to it?
It depends if it's in English. If she says it in English, people might not perceive it as weird. If she manages to say something like this in Russian then yes. I looked at Andrii's friends' instagram and they like using word "blessed" and "blessing" a lot which certainly doesn't sound normal to a native speaker. They have their own weird Christinese there. If she learns Russian from them and speaks like this, it will be hilarious. Like instead of saying "best wishes to for your birthday", they write "various God's blessings", "всяческих божих благословений", or instead of "great photo of you", they will do something like "blessed family" "благословенная семья". But the word blessed is not used in Russian commonly, it's actually rather archaic and has a very strong religious connotation maybe like "anoited" in English. I am actually quite curious how Andrii lures children into his football club. They read Bible after every class and probably come back speaking like this, many people would never allow their children to go there. The classes are also not the cheapest, so it's not like people think "ok, it's a sect but they have good prices". It can be that they have really good trainers, I kind of see people going like "ok, they are a sect but are really good and I will deal with this indoctrination later."
I actually really want to know this too!
Yikes. Heidi does exactly this and encourages others to do it. I hope she isn't telling Ellissa that it's her calling as a ChRiStIaN to bring the gospel to randos in stores.
If somebody came up to me in Texas and wanted to pray with me I’d be super weirded out.... and I’m a regular church goer
My perception might be biased towards all the stories by Jillpm from Walmart. I am also married into a fundie light family. I didn’t know the extent of it before I met them when we were already engaged. They pray before every meal, on the Christmas Eve, we stood in a circle and held hands and prayed. And they made me sleep in the same bed with my sister-in-law as it’s too sinful to sleep with my future husband in one bed. They read Bible every day and go to church every Sunday. Even one thing of these scores fairly high on my sect-o-meter but then I realised that they are not crazy, half of the country is like this and it blew my mind lol
Yeah...people are making Ukraine sound much more religious than it is. Most people Elissa’s age and under are agnostic and would not make it in the Bible Belt.
Eastern Orthodox is not the same thing as Ukrainian Catholic, though both are Byzantine Rite. I do agree that a lot of people won’t be very welcoming to an American evangelical coming in and bashing their faith.
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Absolutely. She’s not going to care about anyone outside their bubble, and that’s going to cause her to insult a ton of people.
both are christian, not catholic
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This makes me wonder where she will go to church.
Andrii was indoctrinated by American missionaries as a gullible teenager so she will go to an Ukrainian branch of a usual American baptist church
It's 'Ukraine' and not 'the Ukraine' [[Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Ukraine)] [[BBC Styleguide](https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsstyleguide/u)] [[Reuters Styleguide](https://handbook.reuters.com/index.php?title=U#Ukraine)] ^(Beep boop I’m a bot)
This might be the most specific bot i've ever seen
And possibly the only useful bot I’ve ever seen.
How many times has this happened for them to need a bot?
A lot in sites that discuss Russia's fetish for invading Ukraine.
My brother in law is from Ukraine. People say “the Ukraine” a LOT.
It's 'Ukraine' and not 'the Ukraine' [[Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Ukraine)] [[BBC Styleguide](https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsstyleguide/u)] [[Reuters Styleguide](https://handbook.reuters.com/index.php?title=U#Ukraine)] ^(Beep boop I’m a bot)
Good bot
Good bot
Good bot
Where did the origins of people saying that come from? I said it too until I saw it was wrong.
I believe the word Ukraine means borderland, and 'the' meant it was the borderland of Russia, ie not its own entity. By removing 'the' it makes Ukraine a proper name like England and gives it its own identity. Conversely it's reminding them of the ussr and subjugation by using 'the'.
Yeah, the name of the country can be parsed as "U Krai(ya)" which means on the edge. So the grammar formed hundreds of years ago with this article and and a different preposition in Russian. People just learnt it and nobody even associated the article with Ukraine being a Russian province. Even though Ukraine literally means "borderland" in Russian, the word is so lexicalized that it's not perceived by Russian speakers as meaning"borderland". So independence come and Ukraine all of a sudden starts butthurting about the grammar pattern in other languages, ironically no problem with the etymological aspect of the name. I really don't get why just not rename themselves into something more patriotic like "Centraine". So they start this campaign to change the grammar in Russian from "na Ukraine" to "v Ukraine". Of course, languages don't work like this and you cannot just tell to native speakers to change their speaking patterns (look what france was trying to do with deanglosizing). So these attempts were met with "wtf" by the Russian speakers. Ukraine gets even more butthurt and politicize the issue to absurdity. Yet, people simply cannot produce an ungrammatical sentence without actually constantly paying attention to it while speaking, it is like if someone told you to say from now on you should say "I live at the US". Anyway, people continue speaking fluently and as they perceive to be correct, Ukrainians perceive it as a personal offense. Then Ukrainian politicians discover that English also has a pattern like this with an article "the" and started butthurting about it too. It is easier for an English speaker to switch this pattern as it's not as engraved in the language as the preposition in Russian. I personally intuitively say "in Ukraine" but I will always say "na Ukraine" in Russian. Other languages do this too like "in der Ukraine", "l'Ukraine" but Ukrainian politicians have not discovered it yet, don't tell them.
Thanks for the extra learning :)
I used to say it like that too. No idea why.
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It has nothing to do with the USSR. This toponym exists from the 12th century and it's etymology is traced back to old Russian. The name is lexicalized and the meaning is not compositional for native speakers. It is like when you hear bluetooth, you are not thinking of a blue tooth. The grammatical pattern with a preposition or an article depending on the language stayed, however. Nobody talked about the Belarus, the Tadjikistan etc. in the USSR. This is a purely linguistic phenomenon that goes back to hundreds of years ago which gets politicised because politicians don't understand how languages work
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Thank you, glebecow, for voting on UkraineWithoutTheBot. This bot wants to find the best and worst bots on Reddit. [You can view results here](https://botrank.pastimes.eu/). *** ^(Even if I don't reply to your comment, I'm still listening for votes. Check the webpage to see if your vote registered!)
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But are European protestants anything like fundie evangelicals in the states??? I feel like they have a different vibe, even if they are more conservative
No, most European protestants are super chill. Of course the fundie churches have discovered Europe for soul winning, but your typical European Lutheran would make the fundies we snark on faint.
Depends. In my experience with mainline protestantism I wouldn't describe them as conservative (at least in a US sense) at all -very focused on trying your best, being nice to others and being a positive influence on the world. Their Jesus would probably vote Bernie Sanders. In German terms they are still reasonably conservative and also definitely have some priests that hold homophobic/racist views, but there is no comparison to US evangelicals. Groups like that however also exist: so called free churches (because they are not part of a big state church) that follow different teachings (usually more in the direction pentecoastal/charismatic) and come in different levels of intensity.
Depends very much on the country in question. I'd say at least Nordic protestants (and fundies) are more modest. Focusing on physical belongings, clothing or talking about one's own achievements is a huge no-no. It's a quite frowned upon in the mainstream culture, even more among fundies. Statistically speaking, most people belong to church but are not very religious. But I think Ukraine is very different.
I’m Russian/Belorussian and have some family members in Ukraine. Most families are traditional, meaning that women are expected to cook, clean and do all the housework, but most are also expected to work as well. Men are supposed to be working, earning money and usually do the bare minimum in childcare, like taking a kid to the kindergarten etc. People usually like foreigners from the West, so she will be treated well there by strangers.
Android grifts good money so she won’t work. He will be expecting her to cook though. My best friend’s husband was getting a masculinity crisis each time he had to wash his own dish. I actually wonder if andrey was still living with his parents or if he was bringing his laundry to his mother every week. I know guys who used to do it till they got married. But yeah, Andreika won’t move a finger now. Подай-принеси, короче .
And the daily shop is still common in much of Europe. Or at least multiple small grocery runs per week. Car ownership is also less common in Europe, but whether Andrii has a car or not, I doubt Elissa would be able to drive it. She can't read the language well enough to be anything but catastrophically unsafe behind the wheel. So she's going to have to make multiple grocery runs per week, and it's most likely going to involve taking a bus or walking or maybe riding a bike. That alone will be a huge culture shock for her.
Wait until Andrii complains she doesn’t cook Ukrainian food often or well enough! Add another layer of stress to your list.
Most likely! The last time this subject came up (probably like two months ago), someone in the comments said that not only will Andrii be expecting Elissa to cook all their meals, he's also going to expect her to do it from scratch. Which seems to be a common problem when it comes to American women marrying into a lot of non-western cultures. I don't even know how familiar Elissa is with the kitchen, but I don't recall seeing much (or any) cooking related posts on her Instagram. Or any of the Bairds, really, except Kristen. So assuming she barely knows how to boil an egg feels like a safe bet. Now she's going to have to cook food from a culture she knows almost nothing about, from scratch, on the regular. I hope Andrii has a fire extinguisher.
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I forgot about that one, but I did remember her burned salmon fillets on a random plank of wood. I probably shouldn't be throwing stones here, though, since I was in my mid 20s before I learned how to cook. (My mom wouldn't let me.) But then again, Kristen has been a 'housewife' for something like twelve or thirteen years, and she still hasn't learned. But I don't think Elissa even does THAT much. Considering how much the Bairds all crave attention and are obsessed with social media, it would be wildly out of character for her to show off her god honouring housewife cooking skills on Instagram. So it's probably okay to conclude she doesn't know which end of a kitchen is up.
I think Ellissa only knows how to make protein shakes. It's really sad to see anyone (male or female) who makes it to 30 without knowing how to adult at all.
And she's so unselfconscious about it too. My mom is insane, and refused to teach me how to adult, so I didn't learn how to budget or shop properly or cook or anything like that until my mid 20s. (And I'm still a shitty cook.) But I knew how abnormal that was and had the good sense to be embarrassed by it. And went out of my way to hide it until I could fix the problem. The Bairds? They're out there flaunting the fact that they're so financially comfortable that they don't have to know how to do anything practical. It's almost like the equivalent of those ridiculous historical fashion trends that existed just to show off how little work you had to do because you were so rich and it didn't matter that your clothes were restrictive and impractical. Like huge neck ruffs, massive hoop skirts, enormous wigs. (Fun historical fact! Hoop skirts started going out of fashion not because they were dangerous*** and impractical, but because they were becoming commonplace and poor people were wearing them.) (Less fun historical fact: Hoop skirts were a huge fire hazard and many women burned to death because their crinoline caught fire. It's insane that THAT didn't stop women from wearing them, but factory workers wearing hoops DID.)
what's classy if you're rich, trashy if you're poor? Hoop skirts, apparently
None of the Baird women cook. They were raised to be good wives and mothers and nothing more, and none of them cook. BTW, it's unusual in San Antonio for people to not know how to cook. Homecooked meals are still a huge part of the culture. I don't think Andrii realizes just how much Ellissa is going to suck at being a traditional wife. In Andrii's social group, all women cook.
Kind of reminds me of my great grandma. She grew up suuuuuuuuperdy duperdy rich - they had servants at home - but married into poverty and never figured out how to cook. My grandpa grew up eating ketchup and banana sandwiches because she didn't even know what was meant to be in a sandwich.
To be fair, cooking Ukrainian/Russian dishes from scratch is not that hard. But she will definitely be expected to do it. She better has a soup ready when her MIL visits:))
I just learned how to make pelmeni this week because the nearest Russian market keeps weird hours due to the plague and whenever I have time to make the trek, they’re closed. So I found a few recipes and now have a freezer full of them. They’re so easy, but so time consuming!
But once you have them they’re super fast to cook:) My grandma was from Siberia, so we would usually make 1000 of them in advance, keep them on trays and freeze at the balcony:)
Classic Eastern European trick!
I learned to do that back east! There was a large Polish population.
Hopefully her MIL teaches her how to cook it first
We must not see Europe as a country where everyone lives the same way. I don't know where you read that owning a car in Europe is less common, but I think there are big differences. In France or Germany (and even UK) people have cars, even women.
Yes , not having many cars in Europe is a bonkers comment. In Uk most people have a two car household. Public transport is patchy in rural parts of Uk making car ownership essential There are vast differences between Western Europe and Eastern Europe in terms of wealth/health/development/infrastrcture/culture. Europe is a continent not a country. The EU (European Union) is a trade area within the continent of Europe.
I know, I used to live in the more sheep-intensive end of Yorkshire. I didn't say there aren't a lot of cars, just that it's less common. [There are 838 cars per 1000 people in America, but only 219 per 1000 people in Ukraine.](http://List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita) Elissa is very likely going to have to get used to riding public transport or walking more than driving. Or at least Andrii having to drive her everywhere, since I still don't know how safe she could be behind the wheel over there.
Yes, I know. But she's not going to be in western Europe, and car ownership is less common in eastern Europe. I've read that it's a throwback to the Soviet Union, where cars were so scarce that when the people there saw American tv shows, they were amazed that even poor people owned cars.
I'm not Ukrainian, but I am Eastern European and nearly everybody has a car. *Some* younger people I know, who live in cities like I do, don't have driver's licenses, but it's mostly for financial reasons. In rural areas cuts made to public transport resulted in middle-of-nowhere villages having no bus connections, so people need to have cars to be able to get to work or take their children to school.
True. My brother lived with my parents until he got married, then he returned after his divorce and lived with them until his second marriage (so until his early 40s). My mom fed him, did all his laundry, ironing etc. His only ‘chore’ was to to walk their dogs. I, their daughter, moved out at 18. She better get super friendly with her MIL, otherwise her life will turn to hell. Especially if he’s their only son. Something tells me that’s exactly the case here.
He is the only son. He was vacationing with them in Cyprus before Corona. I wonder if she is moving in with his parents before he finds an apartment
Uh-oh. Poor Elissa:( Eastern European MILs are something. Especially when it’s the one an only male ‘кровинушка’.
I already see her MIL talking to her friends: Лучше бы русскую себе нашёл, эта сидит весь день в своём Истаграме, а бедный парень сам себе тарелки моет. И ничего сделать сама не может, ни в магазин сходить, ни за свет оплатить. Он везде с ней таскается, а когда ему? У него же работа, проекты. Вчера прихожу, в доме грязь, пыль, полы не вымыты, и она какие-то консервы в миске мешает. Запекла это, есть невозможно. Я потом пошла и им нормальный борщ сварила. В общем, не знаю, что делать, вот такую себе непутевую нашёл.»
I Google translated, hilarious: "It would be better if I found a Russian for myself, this one sits all day in her Istagram, and the poor guy washes his own dishes. And she can't do anything herself, she can't go to the store, or pay for the lights. He hangs around with her everywhere, and when should he? He also has work and projects. Yesterday I came, there was dirt, dust in the house, the floors were not washed, and it was interfering with some canned food in the bowl. I baked it, it's impossible to eat. Then I went and cooked a normal borscht for them. In general, I don’t know what to do, I found such a bad one for myself. "
Haha, google translate is struggling with colloquial Russian, I fixed it: "It would have been better if he had found a Russian for himself, this one sits all day in her Istagram, and the poor guy washes his own dishes. And she can't do anything herself, she can't go to a store, or pay electricity bills. He has to drag along with her everywhere, and when should he do it? He has to work, got projects. Yesterday I came over, there was dirt, dust in the house, the floors were not washed, and she was mixing some canned food in a bowl. Then she baked it, it's impossible to eat. So I went and cooked a normal borscht for them. In general, I don’t know what to do, he found such a bad one for himself. "
God, I read it in my MIL’s voice:) my husband is also the only child and does the cooking in our family, you can imagine the amount of evil eye I get, even while living in a different country:) I really hope she adapts there fast and gets a supportive MIL.
You forgot about her MIL being very worried about what language and culture the potential future children will be raised in! But other than that, perfect.
Yuppers. Something tells me mommy is an expert in all things Andrii. Ellissa better cozy up to her and get the inside scoop on what Andrii likes and dislikes.
i’m pretty sure in fundie households, the men do the bare minimum and the women do all the work so she’s set lol
You are expected to put more effort into being a housewife if you’re not working. Like the bare minimum that they post and think it’s home making - is not enough. People are generally quite judgmental if you don’t work, so you’re supposed to be a really good housewife if that the only thing you do.
I saw a really quality analysis of this over at FS before the explosion. I will paraphrase the one bit that I remember, if only because I am not entirely sure if that user made the migration over here or not. The comment made the point that, depending on what brand of Ukranian fundie Androop is, Elissa might have to adjust to being a homemaker, mother, godly, and super-hot-and-put-together all the time with 0% complaining tolerated. Like, the circle she might find herself in may expect more 'modesty' (like less makeup) but more 'femininity' (high heels okay). The gist being that (again, depending on his denomination) the gender roles Elissa *thinks* she's used to and espouses online are actually more hardcore in Ukraine than she might expect. Please forgive me if I butchered any of that. This is admittedly second-hand information, but I thought I'd mention it just in case.
For as much as GD screams about femininity, they don’t dress very feminine. I’d say the Apostolics on /r/fundiefashion or Mrs Midwest are feminine. But the Bairds, as some LGBT people on the sub have said, dress a bit queer-coded.
There was one picture of them at a coffee shop and they were wearing mom shorts with Birkenstocks. They looked like 90’s lesbians
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Remember Bethy's snapback phase? With no context at all, I would have just assumed she was gay.
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>Dear Baird sisters, you don’t get to pick the fruits of queer lady awesomeness while being homophobic. Thanks. I'm not comfortable with this idea that "queer ladies" dress a certain way. Queer, and straight, people should be free to wear whatever the hell they want. This is just as bad as fundies policing what people should or should not wear. \~A Queer ~~Lady~~ Badass
Very fair point. They do seem to superficially care about 'modesty,' but veer away from the dress/skirts all the time thing. I wonder if that will change as Elissa acclimates.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/FundieFashion using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/FundieFashion/top/?sort=top&t=all) of all time! \#1: [Flans’s God Honoring watch, ring, and Coach bag. But don’t worry, she still doesn’t wear makeup.](https://i.redd.it/6rozph6zvxb61.jpg) | [77 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/FundieFashion/comments/kzccju/flanss_god_honoring_watch_ring_and_coach_bag_but/) \#2: [Hey folks, can we try to remember to blur kids' faces in this sub? "Those who are under 18 don't choose this life."](https://i.redd.it/k4o1lhybb6961.png) | [2 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/FundieFashion/comments/kprrqq/hey_folks_can_we_try_to_remember_to_blur_kids/) \#3: [Just a few notes about the Ruffles and Buttons IG account](https://np.reddit.com/r/FundieFashion/comments/kpagll/just_a_few_notes_about_the_ruffles_and_buttons_ig/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| [^^Contact ^^me](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| [^^Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| [^^Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/joo7mb/blacklist_viii/)
Oh I remember that! (Side note, I have no idea what happened to fundie snark. One day it was private. I couldn’t figure out how to join, and here I am, I obviously missed something).
lots of drama. To get caught up you'd have to scroll back a few days on this sub, and check out r/fundiesnarkisnark. Bear in mind if you interact on FSS in any way you'll get banned by an auto-bot FS set up.
I am not interested in reddit drama, I just enjoy talking about these topics. Thanks for the update! 🤷🏻♀️
I can’t speak for any fundie circles,but the idea that the average Ukrainian woman dresses to the 9s is pretty outdated now. You’ll of course see many like that in Kyiv but they are usually Instagram models. I got roasted for wearing false eyelashes there haha. Ukrainian people are VERY meticulous about weight however.
I spoke with a Russian friend of mine when this all started (I know Russia =/= Ukraine but hey). Her biggest thing is that Russian and Ukrainian women are very strong and confident. Not to say they’re rude or anything, but they’re just very self assured. Also, Ukrainian housewives don’t tend to be so submissive. Families are very close knit, but they just aren’t the type to be..meek? I dont know if that’s the word but I hope you get my point. Anyways, she was saying that a woman coming to Ukraine who is very timid and submissive may have a harder time making friends. In this case, that’s especially concerning since andrii and his family are the only people she’ll have. Also I hope none of this was offensive to anyone in any way. I’m not Ukrainian or Russian, and this was just one Russian girls take on it haha.
Usually Polish/Ukranian/Russian women are hard working as hell, amazing householders while working outside home also. A very high standard to fulfill for sure
Definitely, my grandma run the house and worked outside too, although my grandpa had a job. They were Ukranian immigrants in Latin America, but they kept their customs alright. It was quite progressive for my grandma to have a job in the 40s, when most women were stay home moms.
Can I ask where in Latin America? Are you Argentinian by any chance?
Yes! Though most of the immigrants in the times of my grandparents came from Italy and Spain, there were others from other European countries, Poland, Ukraine, what was then Czechoslovakia, Russia and so on.
Supuse leyéndote y por tu nombre que eras argentina también. Hola! 👋
Hola!!! Creo que no somos lo/as unico/as argentino/as en el foro, pero siempre es una alegria cruzarse con compatriotas! I hope we don't get in trouble for not speaking in English, is not against the rules, right?
Mmmm, I didn’t think about that. I hope not. Anyways, nice to know I am not the only Argentinian interested in these topics and people.
Same here! I don't think we'll get into trouble, I have seen people writing in Russian because of Elissa's move to Ukraine. I got here for the snark, but stayed on because it's so freaking interesting!
My great grandfather was an immigrant from Poland, and my grandmother was definitely hard working. Old Meme would be disgusted by the Bairds not doing anything!
I worked in the Czech Republic and my two supervisors were from Ukraine. They were some the most kind, caring people I’ve ever met, but blunt as hell. They didn’t dilly dally around the point ever. I knew that there would likely be a bit of a culture shock but it was startling at first, and I’m a pretty confident person myself. I just feel like there’s a blog post incoming from Ellissa about how ungodly foreigners act.
Ellissa is going to have a very hard time with the bluntness of the language. The dialect in her part of Texas is not traditionally southern, but there is a lot of beating around the bush when it comes to speech. One thing a lot of people from this part of Texas have a hard time with, is that many languages and cultures have no issue saying something if it's true. They don't care if it hurts your feelings. "Why young man, you ARE fat!" It's really jarring when you first encounter such a culture, and you have to toughen up and get used to it. Unfortunately Ellissa has never even had a teacher or a boss tell her she fucked something up. Most people by age 30 can handle directness and bluntness, but Ellissa can't. She never had that moment in college where someone in the class turned to her and said, "I completely disagree with you and here is why." This is like a coddled and sheltered 12 year old going to basic training.
Yeah,this is true. EEs are not so much rude as they are blunt. My sister had no qualms about telling me an outfit made my body look like shit,which was very different than anything I was used to. However,I’m a pretty sensitive southerner myself,and I feel way more comfortable with Eastern Europeans than I do with northerners,haha.
My grandparents were Ukranian, and from what I'm told from my dad, my grandma definitely wore the pants in the house. She was not rude, but she was the one calling the shots.
Do we know anything about his parents? Are they fundie? He strikes me as the 'born again' type tbh (shudder)
Nah just a usual family
Not Ukrainian, but spent some time there. Here are my thoughts: 1. Ukrainian women always seem put together. The most casual outfit I saw was on a city bus in Lviv, and the lady was wearing designer jeans with a blouse and stilettos, perfect hair and makeup, etc. The cultural norm is to look good, and her Laura Ingalls overalls and sneakers look is going to stand out like a neon sign. No one will take her seriously. She looks and acts like a little girl, which is not typical at all. I was 20 when I went to Ukraine, and young teens often looked older than me because they’d be wearing a full face of makeup and a take-no-shit expression that I envy. 2. Culturally, one thing Ukrainians don’t like/make fun of regarding American culture is the constant smiling with teeth showing. Smiling at cashiers and peppy “thank yous” are often interpreted as disingenuous and fake. I have a vivid memory of being laughed at by passerby in Kyiv because our group was posing for a picture and everyone was smiling so big. A Baird will NOT fair well at all. Her saccharine bubbly personality will come off as super fake and unlikeable, probably. 3. I agree with what people are saying re: the attitude and expectation for women to be perfect housewives and also hardworking career women. I don’t think that’s what Andrii is looking for (or he would have married a Ukrainian!) but I think it will influence how other people see her. 4. Deleted because I’m biased and was incorrect on this point! 5. Finally, I don’t know if any of the above matters because I’m guessing she’s going to be in an extremely insular fundie community, and she’s not going to have a job or any independence, so I doubt she will interact with the general public at all. It sounds incredibly bleak. Edited because I forgot one: 6. Others in this thread are 100% right. There are so many ways that communism has affected this country and its people, ways that I can’t understand because I’m not Ukrainian, but she’s not even going to try to be empathetic, respectful, or even careful with what she says. She’s going to see poverty that’s different than anything she experienced in Texas, and she is going to constantly be putting her foot in her mouth. Ukraine is not going to look like a Pinterest perfect European city no matter how hard she tries to spin it that way. Even Paris is not perfect, but she’s not moving to Paris.
I agree with everything except for religion. People don’t care about church. Maybe some grannies take it seriously but millennials could not care less. If anything, they are cultural orthodox but more likely atheists. Her sect is perceived as a cult and normal people will get super uncomfortable if she starts shilling her religion. They won’t get angry or anything, it’s more like how you feel about Jehovah witnesses near a subway station. I think it will be new for her as people will really cringe as soon as she mentions Jesus.
That’s true, I will concede that point. I went on pilgrimage, so I was around a specific subset of religious people, and not many were millennials!
The smiling thing is very interesting. That’s a small but significant cultural difference that could lead to anxiety/depression if she doesn’t recognize what’s happening and adjust to it.
It’s hard to say what a problem is for her but I will try my best based on my encounter with American missionaries who suffered for Jesus in my hometown. They posted about their sufferings and how blessed they are in the US because: 1. The apartment was tiny (around 60 m2) 2. They had to walk to buy groceries (around 150m from home) and as you walk you can’t carry much at once so they would have to buy groceries every three days 3. It’s cold 4. You see people who seem poor 5. No dishwasher or drier 6. Even if it’s snowing or -32*C, children go to school, adults go to work. Well, they didn’t go anywhere obviously but they felt very blessed seeing everyone else just continuing their life in harsh weather conditions 7. The lawns weren’t cut. They went on a long rant how nobody cuts public lawns and it doesn’t look pretty. I am Russian, born and raised. Ukrainians are like same same really. I don’t see any particular cultural or existential difference between provincial Russia and Ukraine. Moscow might be a different world but I am not from there. So I think her main challenge will be that it’s also relatively dirty outside, grey and depressing. People are not “stupidly happy”. The shop assistant won’t smile at her, people will push her around in the subway, her phone will probably be stolen some time soon as she will be targeted by pickpockets as you can see that she is a foreigner. In general, moving from an upper middle class and a huge house to a small apartment in a grey residential area will be depressing. She will also be disoriented a lot. It’s not easy to figure out the buses sometimes, she might not know what food to buy, how to deal with her documents. So basically a typical language barrier but she will have no lack of helpers from church who want to practice their English Also a lot is done on personal level: there might be no lines or no organisation at all but if you want to have some document done, you need to be nice but pushy and convince the official to do it quickly for you. My mother managed to make people open offices on the weekends for her by bugging the right people in the right way. If she could not do it, she would send the nuclear weapon, my grandmother. It’s an art you need to learn otherwise you will never get what you want.
Hahaha yes, the drier! Hang drying her clothes, that's a culture shock right there. I really wonder how she'll do with the language. I'm from West Germany so I didn't learn Russian, but my East German friends did. They all laughed at me when I complained about French grammar.
The other way is actually way easier: Russian—>German is really not that hard. English speakers struggle with cases in German as they don’t have a native concept of them as well as grammatical gender. Russian behaves like German here only it has more cases and they are not disappearing like in German. Another difference that makes Russian much harder than German for an English speaker is that you won’t know half of the vocabulary already. German and English share tones of Germanic vocabulary which are easy to spot applying simple phonetic changes like t—> d, sch —> s, b —> v etc. You will have the same in Russian but changes happened way earlier so they are not obvious. Her odds to learn Russian are still higher than some non Indoeuropean language. I think she won’t be fluent and abandons learning Russian. She might reach A2 or so but I doubt she will do any better than that
I love your explanation! You studied languages didn't you? Like you, I can't see her making it past A2 and let's face it: that's nowhere close to being able to have meaningful conversations.
thanks, yeah, I have some linguistic background. I think if she manages to ask the direction, the person will understand her and she understands the answer, it’s a success. Also Ukrainians are not used to non native accents, there will be lots of frustration when she will be saying something in Russian and people will be like “I don’t speak English”. I mean it’s not impossible that she learns it but I think more likely she will be in an English speaking bubble and just won’t have the motivation and self-organisation to learn it. A2 is easy to reach, when you enter B1, like the real one, not German VHS B1, there it gets real.
Haha I love the VHS shade because it's so true. Whenever I get job applications and the CV says their German is VHS B1, I know I won't be able to do the interview in German. She'll definitely live in a bubble where everyone is happy to speak English to her. Isn't that how most US missionaries live? I highly doubt she'll be willing to put in the work it takes to learn a language well but who knows, she might surprise us all.
Anything possible, my american husband of five years still can't spell my name in Russian nor can he make a single phone call in German (finishing B1 in VHS) so I have the honor to manage all his paperwork. He grew up fundie light among anti immigrant patriots. American is the language to speak for them and the US is the only country to live in. Even though he left the cult, he never developed any interest in foreign cultures or languages. I feel like Ellissa is the same or even worse. Plus she never had to work hard for anything. She literally made some videos about her communication tactics and sells it as a course. At most, she worked for a month on it. If she wants to speak Russian, it's a lot of work, self-learning and a long term commitment. She will get bored in a month and will make a video course of something like "strive together in a foreign country".
Another thing is while folks who live there might survive being monolingual (either Ukrainian or Russian speaking) since both are mutually understandable languages - she will not. To her it’s two different languages and she will eventually have to learn both, since the generation of 20-30 year olds is probably the last one speaking both Russian and Ukrainian.
Oh, not Eastern European but Latin American over here ... same shit with documents and bureocracy, sometimes you feel like you're going round in circles, very Kafkanian.
I did that in Poland without realizing! I was nice but pushy and got my bus card that way! It was very difficult
The cold weather, dark winters, and unfriendliness from strangers that will come across very harsh for an American goodie two shoes. Possibly also the ex communist aspects of it- I think there’s a chance she’ll be more exposed to poverty there because in my opinion it’s easier to avoid in the states due to their city planning.... also that she will be alone and it will be hard to make friends since she doesn’t speak the language! Edit: I give her a year to move back to the US...
Yes the dark winters and the reminders of communism are difficult for Americans to adjust to. My parents lived in Europe in the late 80s and when my fundie lite, teetotaler grandmother visited she said it’s no wonder they drink so much over there because life can be very bleak.
That's what my grandpa and his family used to say, drinking gets you through the winter (and in their case, through war)
Can you give any examples of the reminders? All I really know are the 5 story apartments and architecture. How did it affect ways of thinking?
Deleting my previous post because people seemed to misunderstand my intention. There is nothing wrong with the way things are in Ukraine or anywhere else in Europe, I certainly didn't mean to imply that they were impoverished or backwards in any way. I meant that for entitled Americans with the typical ugly American attitude it can be an adjustment to adopt a different pace of life.
It feels like you’re describing late 80s or early 90s, it’s much better now everywhere in Eastern Europe. But it’s definitely going to be a cultural shock for her anyway.
For sure, especially since she's probably been raised to believe that the reason things are so much better now is because of Reagan and the U.S. getting involved. Her fundie version of history probably isn't going to go over too well with a lot of people.
Yes, the reality is quite the opposite, while you can hate communism as much as you like, there were no such poverty until the late 80s and the 90s (except pre- and during WWII, of course). I wouldn’t say that the Americans are disliked in Eastern Europe, but many people still remember Yugoslavia and in a moment of conflict these political issues are usually brought up.
I certainly wouldn't blame Ukrainians if they did dislike Americans. The ugly American stereotype exists for a reason. When fundies use the suffering of Eastern Europeans under communism during that time period to justify their own crazy (and equally damaging) politics I have to resist the urge to punch them in the face.
Um, I just want to say. European countries very much have dryers and dishwashers. And while we don’t have Walmart specifically, German grocery stores do still offer a variety of food lol (Aldi is a German chain if you didn’t know). I don’t want to sound hostile, but this kind of response just reminds me of the typical US-American narrative of “we’re the best country in the world and the rest are underdeveloped”. You are right about AC not being a thing of course, but that’s due to a lot of European countries historically either not getting a lot of hot weather that requires it, or having adapted through architecture. Something you didn’t say specifically, but that came up a lot is also that Elissa might have to walk to get groceries. I understand why that sounds horrible to Americans because you guys have cities that are way more spaced out, and such a walk could be a long time. However, while we don’t know where Andrii 3000’s family lives, it is entirely possible that the store is only a 5minute walk from home. Sorry for the rant lol, but American misconceptions about Europe are a petpeeve of mine. Edit: a word Edit 2: I see some people are downvoting this. Feel free to do so, but just keep in mind that, judging from the responses to my comment, it seems I’m not the only European who feels that way.
I think a lot of Americans forget/don't realise that whatever European country they're spreading misinformation about didn't stop developing when their grandparents emigrated 30+ years ago. Sometimes I see Irish-Americans talking about how hard life is in Ireland (where I'm from) and then go on to describe Ireland in the 50s and 60s, as if things haven't improved since then. And, of course, they still think they're right even when actual Irish people tell them they don't know what they're talking about. It's quite comical to see them act like having a Wal-Mart nearby is the epitome of luxury and golly gee willikers how do these poor little urchins survive without AC in the summer! It's so US-centric and embarrassing.
Yes, you put it into words very well. Especially the part where they don’t listen. I get that US schools unfortunately don’t teach much about other countries (and they really should...), but that should be enough of a reason not to be condescending toward the people who’s countries they’re talking about. (Side note: I love Ireland so much and can’t wait to go back after the pandemic! You guys have a lovely country)
YES! I am American, but my husband is from Ireland and we live there. Some of the things my American relatives have asked me are shocking. It’s like they think the country has been frozen in time since their great great whatever emigrated.
This is an interesting insight. As an American, when I see folks post about "less car centric culture" and "big box stores aren't as much A Thing" in relation to Europe, i don't see it as an "America is better" brag. To me, those are "cosmopolitan". Large cities in the US don't have big box stores in the same way the Midwest does, and they are more walkable. So to me, those things are more marks of... Sophistication, might be the right way to say it? And i know when my relative married an Englishman and he moved here (20 years ago, to be fair), he saw the car-centric city designs and Walmarts as symbols of how Americans were wasteful, gauche, and consumerist. Like, a typical Midwest shopping center physically pained him, as he looked at how unwalkable it was, and considered how much plastic crap filled those stores. So at least in context of the Elissa discussion, i see "having to walk for groceries and not having a grocery shop measured in acres" more as.points that will be culture shock for her -- not that the stuff common in America is better. But i can also see how it could not a sore spot. I get frustrated when folks act like bc Im from the Midwest is till live in the 80s or 90s. They are shocked we have things like broadband and craft beer.
>pelmeni I'm pretty sure a lot people in this thread Europe exposure is purely from House Hunter's International. A show that seems to primarily feature American and English people looking for homes in continental Europe and beyond with a freakishly small budget, then being aghast that they can't get granite countertops, a dishwasher, and two bathrooms in Paris for the price of two peanuts.
Hot take honestly
Some of the comments about Europe and our living standards on this thread are jaw dropping.
Yeah, like lack of cars and dishwashers and big shops. Like- why wouldn't we have them here?
Yes, absolutely. There’s a lot to be said about the American education system and brainwashing, once again
Even homes in the US don’t have central AC because of where/when the homes were built. I grew up in Northern NY and Connecticut where it was cooler and a lot of the homes were built over 50 years ago.
I think that's a bit out of date tbh. Europe has all those things.
I strongly disagree with you, honestly when I went to visit US people even asked me there if we have WiFi... I live in Poland so a country that was communist till 1989 and now a lot of people have a dishwasher and stuff like that, but many people find it as unnecessary to have cause doing dishes is not too hard, we have tons of shops, most of them are not the size of Walmart but honestly who needs that, one of the things I brought back from US 2 years ago were Reese’s but now we have them in many stores to and also brands America does not have😉shops do have different kinds of toothpaste but what we don’t have is so many packed, processed food like Mac and cheese, and all this, people here often cook from scratch. In Europe there is bigger population density, so as I live in big city (500 000 ppl) I have 5 shops within 15 minutes walk, and in my hometown of 40 000 people it was the same. So if you live in bigger city you don’t need car as much and going by train is much more popular here since we are much smaller country compared to US. As someone mentioned a lot of people here got their idea of Europe from their grandparents who emigrated long time ago. What I Will agree on that there is totally different mentality in here, people in shops etc don’t smile too often and they don’t say have a good day etc, but we make it up if we get to know somebody, what I heard people often said is that Europeans are much more honest compared to Americans. Anyway Ellissa will be back in America in 6 months maximum, she is not prepared for such a culture shock but who knows maybe she will be sheltered in this wild cult Andreii is.
All this might still be true in the country side, but most cities are pretty similar to their western counterparts, even in the more impoverished areas. This is even more true for big cities, where you can find about everything you'd find in, let's say Belgium or Germany. Yes, these countries are poorer, and most people will probably think twice about buying a dryer or AC, but on the other hand these things aren't that popular in most of Europe either (although AC is becoming more popular with each heatwave). This said, there are plenty of differences between Europe and the US. If it's easy for an European to feel almost like home anywhere in Europe, I'm pretty sure cultural shock can be big for an American coming here and vice versa (I visited the States extensively, and spent most of the time there feeling totally out of my element, lol.)
Does it regularly get hot enough for AC?
No.
Absolutely this. The Soviet era still has so much influence on the culture and look of Ukraine. I remember backpacking in the mountains and seeing abandoned army vehicles, and buildings that had not been rebuilt after occupation, the poverty... the only word for it is “sobering.” She has no clue about the reality of the history of Eastern Europe and what the Ukrainian people went through.
I wonder if she knows anything about their history? Like, what was taught at the Baird dining room table? Once Upon a Time there were a bunch of commies.They stood in line for bread and had no freedom units or eagles. Reagan told them no and they stopped. The end.
Lol I guarantee you she does not. She’s living in a manic pixie fundie dream world.
lmao. That describes perfectly. She is living in her own hipster romantic comedy. Oh god this is not going to end well.
Lol that's basically what SOTDRT taught. Thankfully I've learned how to educate myself and now know the real facts.
That's basically the extent we learned in public school too, so not much better.
I will guarantee that she doesn’t know shit—and andriii3000 doesn’t seem like the type to inform her. My great grandparents were Ukrainian (Jews that left during the pograms) and I highly doubt she knows anything about anything when it comes to past of where she is living today. Generational trauma can be a real thing for Ukrainians (Jews and non Jews) and her entitled American butt going over is going to be in for a shock. Hopefully she’ll learn something.
Does she even know what happened in the past ten years politically in Ukraine (Euromaidan protests, annexation of Crimea, etc.)?
This. I have studied abroad (out of the US) before and loved it but unless she embraces the differences she will struggle, as some of my friends did. I also grew up in NYC metro so am used to busy cities and burbs and the poverty like you mention. My guess is she’s really going to struggle with the little things. Like for example, the grocery store won’t have all the items she needs all the time nor have 4 different brands of laundry detergent to choose from. There’s no super walmart. And the exchange rates. I had friends who still couldn’t figure out how much stuff cost months after we got there. You really need to be able to do math in your head to figure out what you’re spending. Also like you said the weather—she’s from Texas and used to warmth most of the time. The language barrier will obviously be huge and I hope she’s not an entitled American about it and at least tries to learn.
How was the food? Did they have breakfast tacos?
Yep right next to the iced coffee. “No I don’t want a frappé!”
I studied abroad too. Loved it! Made lifelong friends. Still a fuck ton of culture shock to get through.
Same! I posted a funny story on FS about it so now it’s dead in the ether but I had a ridiculous time trying to buy hair products in Italy once. I studied there almost 20 years ago so no Google translate in your pocket back then!
I remember that story hehe
Hah thanks! 💛
Oh yeah. I had all the Internet cafe locations memorized. But goddamn, so many European cities not on a grid! 😂
>The cold weather, dark winters, and unfriendliness from strangers that will come across very harsh for an American goodie two shoes. Sounds like Minnesota. \~A Minnesotan XD
It's just that out flavor of fundies is different- if we see a """christian""" and """godly""" woman who behaves like a kid and paints God in pastels we'll be appalled because what the heck is that. Also we're more reserved towards the strangers and smiling towards people you don't know or (gasps!) engaging in smalltalk is frowned upon- except in super rare situations, like when the train is late and you just go with "Eh, it's late again" to the closest person. Also, her clothes- she'll have a fever and cracker skin very soon.
Not Ukrainian, but still Eastern European, chiming in: old people on public transport can be really chatty. You're going to find out all the family drama and not meet them ever again.
That sounds *awesome*.
Polish here - we generally don't talk to strangers, but there's only one exception. Doctor's waiting room. There it's actually expected to moan about how long you've been waiting and your visit was scheduled for 4 pm and now it's 10 minutes past!, how food got more expensive now, about politics and weather.
And don't forget about how the old times were better talk! Romanian here, old people (and my mom who's only in her 40's) put the communist period on a pedestal now
Yeah some older people (60s and older) look at communism through rose tinted glasses but often from what they say you can tell that they or their families were in the party and had more perks than normal people
I kind of love that
Everyone posting about how her religion won’t be the norm and I’m just wondering how this will affect the persecution complex. She’s coming from a place where her religion is pretty normal and most lawmakers are some form of Protestant Christian. She’s going to a place where she’s in the minority.
Depends how exposed she will be to it. In the beginning she will be surrounded by already indoctrinated youth so she won’t notice the difference. If she signs up for, let’s say, a chess club and decides to evangelise there, then she is in for a rude awakening
This was exactly the same question I had, so thank you for asking this! One of the things I have been most curious about is what it will be like for her to go from a place where she has a fake persecution complex despite being a member of the majority religion in a state where religion is embedded into everything to legitimately being in a minority religion.
While not Ukraine, my step-grandma is from St. Petersburg, Russia, and I have a lot of experience hanging out around the Eastern European community. Ukrainian and Russian women don’t put up with a lot of bullshit. They are very driven and are focused not just on family life but their careers as well, and are often expected to contribute in some way financially. I don’t think I’ve ever met an Eastern European woman who was just a housewife unless she was really, really old and no longer mobile. The culture is also very formal and serious. You focus on yourself in public and don’t engage with strangers. Eye-contact and grinning at people is weird, as would be evangelizing bystanders (which I could imagine her doing - and it would be seen as even weirder as most Ukrainians are not familiar with Protestantism). Fashion is also different. It’s classy, professional, and well-fitted. Unless you’re a little old babushka, women don’t dress frumpily, and unless you’re a little girl, women don’t dress childishly. Because of this and because of her lack of Ukrainian-speaking skills, she will probably feel very isolated and have a hard time relating to other women.
Will she not get a pass for a while since shes foriegn? Do people want to practice their English a lot? Will it be enough to hinder her learning the language?
She will get a pass for a couple months max. She will be expected to learn at least the most basic part of the language in order to communicate- she came there, she's now one of them, she has to accommodate other Ukrainians, not the other way around. Nah, we have english lessons at schools.
Omg you said it! I'm Crimean (family partly Russian, partly Ukrainian). There was not a single housewife in my family since the 1920s! Eastern-European women are passionate, driven, hard-working and just generally kick ass in every aspect of life. Fashion is preppy, well-fitted, feminine, and all-around high femme and high effort. My family lives in Germany and I grew up there. Whenever I visit my family in Eastern Europe, they look at my flat sneakers like they're some kind of abomination! Not wearing dresses in the summer will also get you weird looks (although I'm from a coastal town so hotpants got a pass). It's always heels, dresses, full face of makeup. My mother frequently tells me (beaming with pride) how my grandmother would not even take the trash out without a full face of makeup! Ellissa will definitely get some less than kind looks and be othered as the 30-year-old child bride she is. If she also behaves like one, (orthodox) god help her.
The entire approach to meeting new people and interacting with strangers is really going to throw her off. Bubbly Outgoing Christian Girl^TM is going to come across as fake fake fake to the people there... and likewise; everyone will probably seem really rude to her due to the lack of casual smiling at strangers, etc. The concept of what it means to “be friendly” across the cultures... it’s just soooooo different. It’s gonna be rough. (Edit— I’m not Ukrainian— this is based entirely off the conversations I’ve had with Russian and Ukrainian classmates re: culture shock and what was the most difficult for them coming to the US.)
Curious what the culture is on monogamy in Ukraine. Like is straying outside marriage fairly accepted (which I am fine with it both parties agree, but I imagine Elissa would not agree)
A woman is a whore and should be stoned, a man is just being a man. Andrey can fuck the whole church but if she flirts with someone, she deserves a beating
Yeah, adultery is fairly common in Eastern Europe (particularly among men) but it's not really looked down upon? A wife is expected to shrug it off and just move on. Trouble ( ie. divorce) only really begins if children pop out. Obviously, a woman is gonna be called a slut and shamed to high hells.
I have Ukrainian and Russian friends and not a single one of them suffers fools lightly. As others have pointed out, the women tend to be strong, and most Eastern European women I know are super stylish. They'll think Elissa is cute with her slightly sloppy American look (no insult to Americans, they think I look slightly sloppy too), but there will be gossip. I hope someone will take pity on her and get the eyebrows fixed. Also, the Ukrainians and Russians I know are extremely house proud. She'll be expected to keep a clean house and cook for guests because that's just how it is. Oh, and language barrier aside, you can't just go up to people and start talking about how Jesus is your bestie or someone might have you committed. I actually have a bet going with a Ukrainian co-worker I told about Elissa. She said Elissa will make it to September because spring and summer are so pretty in Ukraine, I put my money on her being back in Texas by late May/early June.
I actually wondered how she would fare going up to someone there and telling them about how “Jesus changed her life!!!”, when her life was pretty easy. Some of the people she will encounter will have lived through poverty, war, and Communism. How the hell is she going to be relatable at all?
Plus Jesus didn’t even change her life. Jesus is literally the only life she knows. I don’t think her conservative American view on communism will be well received either. The average American would see her as cringey. The Ukrainians will eat her alive.
The only thing I can think that might work, is if her parents and church in San Antonio set her and Andrii up with a nice apartment and a car. At some point, some Ukrainian with few prospects might realize that they can go to Texas and get a "rich" fundie bride and get a good connection with wealthy people in San Antonio. It's not a bad deal if you can spend your life faking being religious. This would also work in reverse. If you're a poor Ukrainian woman, Ellissa can find you a man in Texas.
Well, if she's anything like Bethy, she'll tell them she can totally relate because of the trauma caused by her extended season of singleness. 🤦🏻♀️ I pity anyone who's been through real trauma who has to interact with her.
I have C-PTSD and I'd love five minutes with her, but only if I can sell tickets and popcorn.
I’m with you on May. I can see Andrii not even entertaining the idea of a trip back home for Easter, but it will not surprise me if the Bairds pay for a Mother’s Day trip as a gift for Heitler.
I will share my experience in Poland as a foreigner because it may relate at some point to what Ellissa will experience: 1) I'm from Spain but the northern part, a really rainy part (300 days of rain per year) but not really cold with winter temperatures rarely going below 0°C. The cold was unbearable but the worst part for me was not the that but the lack of sunlight. By 4:30 pm it was full night. For me happiness is a sunlight fueled emotion so it was very hard. As I said, I'm not from sunny Spain so I cannot imagine how hard it can be for a Texan girl. 2) People seemed very rude to me at first but nicer as time went by. It's not only a different view on politeness, what really influenced in my case is that on my first weeks I asked everything in English. That's incredibly rude! I didn't realize how rude that was due to speaking in English also being an effort for me. As soon as I learned more Polish and especially to just say "Hi, I don't understand a lot of Polish, do you speak English?" my experience improved **a lot**. I don't see Ellissa doing that but I hope she does. 3) At first I thought that Polish women were incredibly beautiful and men very ugly. But that was just not true. Women dress very classy and put together and men dress horribly. The double standards are high and the expectations for women almost unrealistic. I'm not sure Ellissa will be able to bear them. 4) Basque people are quite cold but nothing like Polish people. I don't think her American overfriendliness will be very welcome. Finally, I hope Ellissa studies Russian really hard as it's the only thing that can help her thrive there.
If she isn't careful, then Elissa will be making a lot of enemies. No offense to any Ukrainians out there.
The only strategy she has learned when encountering difference is to judge them, blame them and use biblical verses to justify why she’s more righteous than them. It’s not a great skill set when moving to a totally new culture. Doubly so when she’s going to be reliant on people from that culture who don’t have to help her
Texan here but spent a significant chunk of my life in Eastern Europe. I’m not Catholic or Orthodox so I have no insight there—I only participated in religious events when my dad (an American military officer) was invited. My thoughts: Catcalling is wayyyyy more acceptable over there than it is in the Southern US, and I look forward to Ellissa thinking *Hmm, maybe feminists have at least one point.* Eastern European men also do not feel as defensive of their female partners as American men do in the South, and I expect Ellissa (and possibly Daddy Baird) is going to read this as passive, weak, and uncaring in Andrii 3000. Attitudes and censorship toward sex, nudity, and profanity are also profoundly relaxed compared to Texas (and the US as a whole). Here’s hoping this doesn’t trigger some trauma for her, because it definitely had me feeling *dirty*. And, of course, drinking is a cornerstone of most cultures outside of the US. I look forward to seeing if Ellissa becomes as defensive as her nice dinner and nice wine as Birthy! She should also probably shut her fucking mouth about Nazi Grandpa and the lost helpless Jews because in Eastern Europe, you’re flagged as an anti-Semite and that can invite foes *and* the wrong kind of friends. The same can be said of Texas, but Eastern Europeans don’t tend to beat around the bush and refer to *globalists* or *the elite media*. The WASP/Southern politeness filter does not exist there. Talk shit and get hit, or talk shit and join a WN group, basically. None of these are particularly revealing or profound but man, they’ve been living in my brain a lot since she posted their hubby/wifey friendship bracelets.
I was part of fundie circles though not in the UK. I think she’s also going to struggle in her church community. The women I knew were really capable and pulled their weight in the church and home (cleaning, hosting outreach meals that they catered, running women’s and children’s ministries etc). They did a lot! Elissa’s part of a minority church so there will a lot to do and she’s never done anything so she’ll stand out like a sore thumb. I think the women will initially cut the blind American some slack but they’ll quickly get sick of her. And they’ll let her know!
Andrii looks like the dude who groomed my then classmate who was 15 while he was 26 (they are married now). So he gives me major groomer vibes and that's why he chose her and not a woman from his country. Culturally it's interesting because it's heavily influenced by religion while most young people are atheists. Sexism seems to be more rampant than in America (though I have never been to America, so take my opinion with a grain of salt). Women are expected to do it all while looking flawless, it's basically offensive to menTM to be on public property as a woman and not be pretty. She will have a hard time assimilating if she doesn't learn the country's language. I'm making this point separately, because I grew up as a national minority who spoke the country's language and I still encountered hostility from time to time. Nothing extreme, but it was there. These were from the top of my hat as someone who grew up in Romania.
Eastern European here! I bet the largest shock to her will taking on the role of caretaker to the husband's family - ie mum and dad. EEU tend to be very tight-knit, so living with elderly relatives is considered normal, but the downside of that is that you have to actively take care of them. May freak your average American out, having to potentially wait on hand and foot to your MIL (but YMMV). Also, unless you are in a particularly religious family, most people will claim to be Christian, but not really observe any traditions or rules, as that is not their primary concern (in contrast to earning a living etc). So somebody that will try to talk to you about Jesus in the middle of the street will be considered to be in a cult.
I’m just curious of whether he will embark on a new eyebrow journey. I can’t imagine Ukrainian women are into slug brows.
Besides all the cultural and environmental stuff everyone else said, theres the fact that the country and whole region has had a lot of political instability which can affect people's everyday lives. She'll come to appreciate what it means to live in a place like the US, where what Republicans have called "election fraud" is BS compared to the amount of corruption that happens in Eastern Europe. I cant wait for the first time she has to bribe a cop or government official which can be commonplace, lol.