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Russian Women Find Boredom and Depression Are Side
Effects of Wealth
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
March 11, 1997
MOSCOW -- In the elegant Estee Lauder Beauty Center on the sumptuous
grounds of the Moscow Country Club, wealthy women fill
empty lives
with facials, massage and the kindness of beauticians. “To be honest, I am very lonely,” Elvira Averyanova, 41, confided in
a soft whisper. “I am someone who needs human contact. I
try to go to
places where I am known, and I am greeted warmly.”
She cited the beauty center, her hairdressing salon and an upscale
shopping mall as her havens from solitude. The other: her
diary. “I write down all my thoughts and problems in my journal,” she
explained. “It is my best friend.”
Mrs. Averyanova, a trained pianist who gave up working and whose
husband, a successful CD manufacturer, never stops, was
describing a
darker side of life among Russia’s new rich. Like many
wives of
successful businessmen, she is finding that money and
privilege are
shadowed by isolation, anxiety and boredom.
Their complaints are entries from a “Diary of a Mad Russian
Housewife.”
A new phenomenon in post-Soviet society, such women represent less
than 1 percent of the population. The vast majority have
little choice
but to work; millions are locked in dead-end jobs and have
not been
paid in months. There is little sympathy for the laments
of ladies of
leisure.
Russia remains a highly sexist society, where women, regardless of
marital or professional status, are rarely allowed a
prominent public
role. Despite, or perhaps because of, 70 years of Soviet
lip service
to female equality, women distrust feminism. The few who
can afford
the luxury of not working often find that option
irresistible --
particularly when their husbands insist.
But many who happily quit their jobs quickly discovered that it was
not the liberation they expected. The stay-at-home wife
has become an
important status symbol for the new rich, but the prestige
falls on
the husbands far more than the wives.
Psychologists, psychics and massage therapists have built
flourishing practices ministering to such women.
Sergei G. Agrachev, a leading psychologist, charges $60 an hour to
guide wealthy patients, most women, through depression and
the anxiety
that often follows sudden wealth.
Russians have their own special psychoses to work through, he said,
issues of disillusionment that are unique to
post-Communist society. “For 70 years,” he said, “we idealized the West. Now we discover
that wealth really doesn’t buy happiness. “Intelligent women who used to work in institutes and universities
find themselves alone at home, entirely dependent on their
husbands.
They find out that in this brave new world, their role has
regressed
to the 19th century.”
He is not licensed to prescribe drugs, but he said many of his
patients disregarded his advice, overindulging in Valium
and other
tranquilizers prescribed elsewhere.
Russian women do not usually accompany their husbands to business
dinners or out-of-town conferences. Nor do they attend
social events
on their own. Mrs. Averyanova, who taught piano until her
husband
insisted that she stop, said that although she yearned to
go to art
gallery openings and receptions, her husband was too busy
to take her
and she would not dream of going alone.
The social organizations that occupy affluent housewives in the West
-- garden clubs, book clubs, even the PTA -- have not yet
taken hold
in Russia. Philanthropy, a relatively new thing here, is
mostly
handled by the tycoons who made the money and want credit
for
disbursing it.
Volunteer work, common among the wives of foreign diplomats and
businessmen in Russia, has not yet caught on among
Russians. “The system isn’t established here,” said Olga Dubova, 48, the wife
of a top executive at Logovaz, the country’s largest car
dealership. “We would love to do charity work,” Mrs. Dubova said. “But you can’t
just drop by a prison or a hospital. There is a whole
bureaucracy in
the way.”
She added that higher-profile charity work, fund-raising or charity
balls, was taboo. “Raisa Gorbachev annoyed the public by being too visible,” Mrs.
Dubova said. “Most husbands want to keep their wives in
the shadows.”
The closest thing to public scrutiny of their problems was a recent
episode of the television talk show “My Family.” The topic
was the new
rich, and the program featured a masked man who said he
was a gigolo
for the wives of rich businessmen. “What you have to understand,” he told the snickering studio
audience, “is that most of these women are really lonely.
Their
internal life is not as easy and comfortable as it appears
on the
outside.”
Like Mrs. Averyanova, whose children are 21 and 13 and do not need
much supervision, many find themselves tending an empty
nest before
they are even 45. Trapped in pre-Betty Friedan gilded
cages, they seek
solace in shopping, foreign trips and long hours at the
hairdresser.
Feelings of isolation are compounded by the grim realities of
financial success in Russia. Many have moved to
high-security
compounds in the suburbs. Bodyguards drive them to their
appointments.
Bodyguards also take the children to their expensive private
schools. Armed guards patrol school playgrounds.
Kidnapping, common
but rarely reported, is one of the rich Russian mother’s
greatest
terrors. An academy in St. Petersburg recently began
advertising
courses to train nannies in the martial arts.
Economic dependence breeds passivity; all of the women interviewed
seemed to be waiting for someone to rescue them. “I look in the newspapers every day to see if anyone has created a
women’s club,” Mrs. Averyanova said wistfully. “If only
someone would
organize us.”
There have been efforts to create a club for women of wealth in
cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg, but none have come
to fruition.
The closest equivalent is a luxurious new private club in
Moscow
called Monolith, founded by rich businessmen and
government officials,
which advertises itself as a “family club.” A pink marble
emporium, it
boasts a French restaurant, an English-style game room, a
fitness
center, a beauty salon and a children’s playroom.
Vladimir Popov, a manager of the club, dryly explained the MO of the
rich nuclear family at play. “Men are supposed to go somewhere with their families on weekends,”
he said. “Here the wife goes to the sauna, the kids go to
the playroom
and the husband goes to the bar to talk with his friends
--
officially, it’s a family day.”
Olga Zdravomyslova, a researcher at the Center for Gender Studies in
Moscow, has conducted interviews with rich housewives for
five years. “They find themselves totally dependent on their husbands, cut off
from old friends whose economic stations are now totally
different,
and alone,” she said. “There is no role for them in our
society.”
Male chauvinism is as rampant among young businessmen as it is among
pensioners. “Sergei says that anything a woman can do, a man can do better,”
said Anya Lisovskaya, 29, paraphrasing her husband, one of
Russia’s
most successful young businessmen. Lisovsky, 36, a music
promoter
turned advertising mogul, was a major fund-raiser for
President Boris
N. Yeltsin’s campaign last year.
In an interview before the election, she explained, “He says it’s
better for women to stay at home and look after the
family.”
Married for five years, they have no children, but Mrs. Lisovskaya
said her days were quite occupied. “I take English lessons three times a week, I go to the gym five
times a week and work out with a trainer. I make dinner
for Sergei
when he can come home, so really I am quite busy.” She
added that he
rarely made it home for dinner. “What can I do?” she asked with a shrug. “There is so much he wants
to achieve. When we are old, we can sit down and enjoy our
life.”
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