Whatever they do, average Europeans talk about prices and life costs, and since I live in Austria, I never met a person, who complaining about personal financial predicaments, would not mention option of playing lotto and wining a million, as if mathematical likelihood of event equated not to its magical probability.
But how about idea that our very arrival in this world is occurrence of immeasurably greater randomness, than chance to win a million in lotto?
If conception took place 5 minutes later, fertilized cell would get other set of qualities and form other personality, not speaking already that conception could fail. But even if miracle of merge succeed, potential mother can make abortion later.
Once in crisp and frosty Moscow winter, working over my journalist projects, I was suddenly abashed by doctor, who during routine check discovered cyst in the right side of my body and suggested surgical intrude. I packed toothbrush and slippers, and found myself in the gynecologic ward of publishing center hospital – with five other women, who waited for their turn in tight schedule of medical abortion machine.
We all left our most acute fears at the porch of hospital, and once being accepted in room with beds and night tables standing in the row, we were ready to surrender. It was not expression of fear, but infinite patience  and readiness to subdue physical pain, together with guilt and shame, I observed at the faces around me. (more…)

Women seeking men

Secrets of Austrian national character and enigmas of male race,
revealed by Galina
Guidelines for Russian women seeking decent man abroad

Уж замуж невтерпёж,
или Тайны мадридского двора

Мои австрийские знакомые частенько обращаются ко мне за советом, когда русские потенциальные невесты из интернета выставляют им вместе с обещанием примчаться и любить до гроба цены на дорожные издержки.
Суммы эти, мягко выражаясь, завышены, и сам факт выглядит либо как свидетельство российского мифологического мышления о баснословном изобилии западной жизни, либо как проверка золотого бычка на платежеспособность. (more…)

Young female beggar in one of Vienna streets listening to arguments of older woman who suddenly stopped to express her opinion on beggary.

For the first time in my life, I was brought at the place against my will and kept there shut. I felt shaken and thought it must be mistake and soon they would let me go.

At the same time, I knew in my heart that the world where I lived before would never be the same again. On incomprehensible reasons, I became outcast, object of persecution; I broke certain rules and revealed my alien nature to others. I failed to act in reality that all others people except of me shared. So albino crow in flock of black birds is hit by beaks of others till it is dead. I had feeling that all others shared knowledge I had no access to.

Many years would pass until I realize that everybody creates his own truth, and common reality for all does not exist. I would realize that unanimity and group thinking point out to higher levels of compromise only and also ability to float at surface of interactions without digging deep inside Feeling of being fatally unique and isolated was destructive and overwhelming illusion of my youth. I was subservient and quiet girl, brought up in family of five children as youngest, accustomed to respect older and rely on their wisdom. (more…)

There were hordes of successful soviet ideologues, which made their career imitating fierce creative activity.
But it was not Zhanna case. She belonged to rare type of uncorrupted believers. She was person of sincerity and encyclopedia knowledge, but her eccentricity made her the scarecrow of the university. She expected from students who were fed up with Marx-Engels-Lenin staff and who studied dozens of other subjects, such as languages, world history, literary criticism, psychology and economics, she expected from them equal to hers devotion to material. In spite of all I could not help respect her.
When I was listening to her lectures on French revolution and Trotskyism, I even adored her. It was something enigmatic about this person. Her rapid walk, her gaze, how she used to throw register journal at the table in the other corner of the room, all revealed enormous suppressed force and passion.
I never accentuated her female qualities and could not dwell on idea that under formless dress she possibly had breasts and pubic hair, that as every woman she was vulnerable and perhaps had painful periods, record of aborted pregnancies and wish to be attractive for men. What I liked in her had no gender and no physiology; it was pure fascination of spirit. (more…)