Russian Romance?
A few of my non-Russian speaking friends have goten e-mails with content very similar to the following
Hi!
My name is Elena.I am 28 years old. I am a lonely, young, attractive, kind, careful, sociable girl with a perfect sense of humor. I am in search at this moment. Certainly, I search for the man, who will support me in all. This man should be a handsome, clever, strong-willed, self-sufficient, and strong. He should be a good interlocutor. He should be able to support conversations on any themes. He also should have a good sense of humor .I search for man for the long, serious relations. I need the man for creation of strong, amicable family. If you are lonely, and you think that we approach each other. Write to me, I necessarily shall answer to you. Probably we can become the pleasant interlocutors or we shall have serious relations. My electronic address is: elenakrasivaya@googlemail.com I wait for the letters with impatience.
Being my friends, they were naturally astute and intelligent enough to recognize that this is total bullshit, and had a laugh at the crude attempt to get money from lonely morons...which my friends are not.
What I find freakish and silly is the fact that there ARE guys (and probably women too) out in this world who are gullible enough to fall for this .
If there weren't any...well. there would be no more need for a site like Russian Romance Scammers than a site to warn people not to chew on razorblades
The part that is confusing and disturbing to me in all this is the complex nature of the long con game.
Ir's not just shelling out several thousand dollars and international flight tickets for a chance to hook up with some Russki babe from Cheboksary or Nizhny Tagil, who may or may not exist.
No, once you've bought into the scam, and swallowed the bait, there are endless ways to get a little more money out of a sucker's wallet.
Like a 10 hr course called "Romantic Russian In One week"...or if you really plan on being able to say all the sweet and pretty words to the mail-order Natasha, spend $210 for a "Romantic Russian Phrasebook" (.PDF sample here) and you'll be set with following helpful sets of meaningless noises (since actual language comprehension is impossible to develop in the short time provided for the courses)
Unit 1. How To Be Polite In Russian?
Unit 2. Greetings
Unit 3. Your First Meeting With Her
Unit 4. How To Say A Compliment To Her In Russian
Unit 5. Making Her A Gift
Unit 6. Romantic Dinner For Two
Unit 7. When She Is Silent And Thoughtful
Unit 8. Moments Of Intimacy
Unit 9. When Doing Things Together
Unit 10. Creating Cute NickNames/ Having Fun Together
Unit 11. Asking For Things
Unit 12. Speaking To Her On The Phone
Unit 13. Riding In A Taxi
Unit 14. Shopping Together
Unit 15. Meeting Her Family
Unit 16. Some Conversation Starters
Unit 17. Some Phrases To Use In Love Letters
Unit 18. Some Additional Words To Use In Conversation
Yet,somehow, I doubt that "the team of Russian teachers at the Discovery school of virtual learning" (what? who?!!) have bothered to include the two phrases in romantic russian that would be most useful for the yankee doofus looking for some hot (post)commie nookie--
"Zotg-Knees, sookah" and "Sah Sea!" :))