Cyber Prince

 The Crisis is killing off a movement that never really got going in the first place: a nascent “modern independent single Russian woman, enjoying a 72% disposable income” market segment.   Today, Russian COSMO looks positively anorexic, and, as companies part with their long-legged receptionists, only one industry seems to be experiencing an uptick: online matchmaking.

If you have ever innocently wandered, even slightly, off the beaten cyber track, then you know that the Internet is awash with potential “happily ever after” material from Russia.    But is this abundant supply currently at odds with dwindling demand?  Are mini-garchs feeling the pinch and shelving high maintenance women until the oil prices gets back up to US$ 200 where it belongs?

Rest assured that there is at least one Prince Charming left in Russia.  I found him enjoying his 15 seconds of fame in the Russian blogosphere:  39-year old Igor hails from Saint Petersburg, as all good Russian princes should, and reigns over what he describes as “an expanding kingdom,” which “lacks only Cinderella to make it complete.”   Igor, it seems, has a glass slipper going spare, and he’s ready to bestow it on someone he describes as: “Aged 16-20, with no bad habits…a good appearance…able to develop a capacity for intelligence…dedication, loyalty and love.”  Igor also insists that his Cinderella have no “intimate past.” Someone who, he says, mangling an old peasant saying, “knows to keep her clothes tidy when they are new, but her honor unsullied from childhood.”

You might think Igor’s criteria a tad stringent for this day and age, but then you clock the visuals.   Prince Igor, sparing no expense, added ten high-resolution photos to his online profile, which have to be among the most impressive in the history of Internet dating.  In each photo, Igor, a silver-haired stocky Slav, appears in outfits which include a cream colored, three-piece suit, red tie, red hanky in the breast pocket and red suede shoes; a pair of snazzy blue silk pajamas, which he strangely teams with black alligator wing tops; and no less than three full-length, high-collared, fur coats, which I have to feel were designed for someone taller than Igor.  Dressed in the more modest dark brown coat and clashing bedroom slippers, Igor hunches in front of a large frosted cake, holding a long Cossack sword on his knees.  This might strike a discordant note on an average eharmony.com profile, except for the fact that Igor’s photos are all shot in sumptuous eat-your-heart-out-Marie Antoinette Baroque interiors, smothered in gold leaf, complete with intricate inlaid parquet floors, brocade furniture, bad copies of worse 18th century oil paintings of Roman Centurions; and a palatial marble bathroom featuring a large six-person Turkish plastic Jacuzzi, flanked by hand painted panels of either Bible scenes or contented Soviet peasants of the 1930s. 

There is a little Cinderella in each of us – even if we turned 43 last week, and our “nice appearance” is visible only in the rearview mirror together with our modest CV of “intimate experiences.”  Don’t we all secretly pine for Prince Charming even as we approach the zenith of our intellectual capacity and begin to slide into forgetful middle age?  And although we substituted the lyrics to Snow White’s hit single:  “Some day, I’ll get my de-greeeee, Some day, I’ll be Pee, H Dee,” to lull our daughters to sleep, don’t our palms just tingle to see a man, dripping in sable pelts, down on bended knee on an exact copy of a 1st century Byzantine mosaic floor made yesterday?

Igor clearly hopes so.

And, because this is Russia, and hope dies last here, I’m going to ignore the frankly very cynical comments posted by bloggers, claiming the interiors were movie sets, or a Presidential Administration Guest House, and that Igor was someone’s bodyguard or driver killing time between things.  I prefer to think that there is at least one expanding kingdom left, and only needs its Cinderella.   

 
 
 
 
 
 
 Author's Note:

This article first appeared in English in Russia Beyond the Headlines on October 9, 2009.  An online version can be accessed here.

Pictures were sourced from www.katoga.ru  

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Dear Reader:

Thanks for taking a look at Russia's most eligible cyber prince!  Do you think he's for real, or do you think he's just someone's driver fooling around at a dubiously-decorated villa?  Leave me a comment by clicking the link below!