by Natalia Chajkovskaya

Should You Give Russian Ladies Compliments?

There is no doubt that most women like compliments and if you know how and when to give them, it can really improve your relationship. Russian ladies don’t just like compliments. They need them and yearn for them, so if you want to please your Russian woman, don’t forget to give her compliments all the time.

In Russian and most Eastern European cultures it is socially acceptable for men to give women compliments. If a good-looking young woman walks down the street, it is normal (and somewhat even expected) for random guys to compliment her beauty or to stare at her. Decent women don’t usually react to these (Russia women like to play hard to get) , although they may say “thank you”, but I have yet to meet a Russian woman who didn’t like this type of attention.

Russian and Eastern European men are not afraid of being accused of sexual harassment if they make a comment to their female employee or co-worker about the beauty of her legs. First of all, most women are not going to be offended. Russian ladies do their best to try to look beautiful, so not getting any attention from guys almost makes them feel defective. Second of all, you can’t really sue anyone in Russia for sexual harassment anyway.

Since 1991 only 2 women won sexual harassment cases and these were VERY serious. Last year a 22-old woman from St. Petersburg decided to take her boss to court, because he locked her out of the office after she refused to have sex with him. Do you know what the Russian judge ruled out?

“If we had no sexual harassment, we would have no children”.

I am not going to write about sexual harassment in Russia’s work places, because it is a completely different topic, but I brought this example up just to give you the feel of how the things are in Russia and how they probably will be for a long time.

So if locking someone out of the office for refusing sex is not a good enough reason for a Russian court to give a guilty verdict, you can imagine that giving compliments to females is not anywhere close to being considered offensive.

Many Russian women have careers and are pretty smart, but before anything else they like to be women and if their boss or someone else tells them that they look wonderful, they will not consider this to be sexist or unpleasant. If they get a compliment on their beauty, it doesn’t mean that it automatically diminishes their intellect and all other values.

When beautiful Russian ladies come to America, they don’t get as much attention from Westerners. While Western men probably appreciate Russian women’s looks more than Russian men do, they are not used to casually throwing compliments at women they are not dating.

So once again, the pressure is on you. It is crucial for a Russian lady to know that she looks beautiful. Since you can’t change your culture and very likely you may feel uncomfortable with other guys commenting your wife’s looks, you need to make sure you give her enough compliments, so that she is confident in her appeal.

Above said, Russian women rarely give compliments. Until they get Americanized, they will only compliment someone’s baby if they think that the baby is really cute. They will tell you that you look very handsome only if they believe that you really do. I’ve noticed that it is part of the American culture to give each other compliments (not sexist) when you don’t really mean it. For example, it seems like a social norm for women to tell other women that they look stunning even if they don’t at the moment. A Russian woman is never going to say to her girlfriend, or an acquaintance that she looks hot in a dress which is not flattering for her. So if your Russian lady is giving you a compliment, you can be sure – she really means it.

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