Russian mail-order bride finds much to love in Vegas

A Russian mail-order bride named Zoya Klimkina arrived for her first Vegas vacation to go on dates with a fistful of American men in a week. So I took her to Rehab, the capitalist-pig pool party at the Hard Rock Hotel. (I mean "capitalist-pig" in a good way.)

There, a fleshy embrace of men and women frolicked in the familiar mating ritual of booze/blurt-something-awesome/repeat.

Zoya stood 5-feet-5 and trim, baby-faced for her 28 years, bedazzled in a gold navel ring, high-heel black shoes, shorts and a white shirt declaring "RUSSIA" in red type.

"I want to stay here for longer," she said in a charming, Russianized English I recognized from Cold War submarine movies. "People very nice and not so busy like New York. In New York, everybody running, pushing each other."

Zoya told me her likes: "Scarface," Tolstoy and hip-hop pop. She wanted to be a ballerina as a girl. She studied robotics but switched to marketing and real estate.

Last night, she said, she dined at fanciful Mon Ami Gabi with a policeman on a date set up through mail-order bride site AnastasiaDate.com. Her hopes were high for a mate.

"The most important, for me, is a guy who will be strong enough to protect the family -- children and wife. He will be kind. He will like children, plus his wife. He will be hard working and fun."

"What about love?" I asked.

"Love is number one," she said. "Love is a feeling that sometimes, it comes right away, sometimes it takes time."

She was impressed with her date, the gentleman police officer. He was strong and funny.

"Were you attracted to him physically?" I asked.

"Yes. I don't like skinny guy. I like men with muscle. Some belly is OK. You know, even if some person has little bit more weight, I can deal with it. I can make a special diet. I cook very good. If we will be together, I will cook for my boyfriend so he will lose his weight, not by eating less, just by eating healthy. No fried foods."

"What do American men tell you about American women?" I asked.

"Some of them say American woman -- she don't like to be a housewife, she want to do business. She don't care about men so much. Russian woman -- she likes to take care of the man, you're like a big baby -- the eldest baby."

She smiled, entertained by her big-baby thought.

We walked around the pool and ogled swimsuit bodies.

"It's not true that American women are fat," she said. "It's a cliche. Everybody thinks Americans are fat -- 'They eat fried foods only, morning till night, they don't exercise.' This is not true.

"There are some people that are fat, but there are fat people in Russia, too."

We sat back down at our cabana. Near us, two women in bikinis gyrated all over each other to attract men.

"Too bad you don't like girls," I jested, nodding toward the women.

"You know, I'm very conservative," Zoya said. "I never had a dream to kiss a girl. It's not typical for a Russian woman to have this need. We like men."

Zoya explained Russians are slow to warm, but they bond tightly.

"Russians are very cold from the beginning," she said. "But if you become friends, they will share everything with you, they will give you their last shirt, they will give you their last piece of bread. They will invite you into their apartments, which Americans don't do very much."

"You don't smile all the time like Americans do," I said.

"It's typical for American people to smile a lot," she said. "Once, I talked to people in Russia and they tell me, 'Americans are fake, they are smiling all the time, it's a fake smile.'

"I replied to my Russian people that when I first came to America and saw people were smiling, I started to smile. In Russia, nobody is smiling.

"I told them, 'What is better? To be among people who are smiling? Or to be among people who all the time look sad, or have face with no emotion, or if they hate you, they tell you they hate you?

"I don't want to listen to somebody who don't like me, or describe me as not good enough, or somebody think I'm dressed not well, or my character is not good enough. I don't want people to tell me about it.

"In America, they say, 'You have a beautiful dress, everything is fantastic with you.' In Russia, nobody will tell you this.

"This is why people in America, I admire them, because of their positive attitude."

I agreed, adding, "My mom always said, 'It takes more muscles to frown than to smile.' "

"A smile will give you wrinkles," Zoya said, confounding her pro-smile stance from five seconds ago.

"Not anymore," I said. "There's Botox!"

"Better to keep poker face," she said.

Then we talked about Lady Gaga.

Doug Elfman's column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Contact him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.