23 year old Olga, an Anglophile Russian who always wanted to live in Britain, tells the Daily Mail what she thinks about the British.
She says the women are fat, people drink too much alcohol, and scratch their bottoms frequently in public places. In general, she believes the British are "vulgar".
Though, to me, the British have ALWAYS been a vulgar people. Olga should have lived in London in the 1700s and she would have seen what vulgar really means...
A Russian's view of Britain 2008: Greedy, scruffy, lazy and full of size 22 women shaking their haunches
By WILL STEWART
17th February 2008
Daily Mail
'Debauched': Olga's book paints a distinctly unflattering portrait of Britons, such as the excessive consumption of alcohol
A young Russian woman's book about the pitfalls of living as an immigrant in Britain has become a surprise best-seller in Moscow ... and it paints a distinctly unflattering portrait of the natives.
Instead of finding London the city of her dreams, 23-year-old Olga Freer moans about the shopping hours, the public transport and the bad manners she encounters. In a litany of complaints about her adopted country, in her book The UK For Beginners she claims that Brits:
• Habitually scratch their bottoms in public places;
• Never remove the price stickers from the soles of their shoes;
• Fail to iron their clothes; and
• Are obsessed with TV programmes about buying and selling houses.
She says the country is full of "prudish, arrogant people who eat healthy food for breakfast – porridge or bacon and eggs. But in reality the nation suffers from obesity".
Some 60 per cent of the female population wear size 22 clothes, she says.
"But being overweight doesn't stop red-faced English women wearing minis and shaking their haunches at discos – some spectacle! It's a nation with girls, debauched girls to the last degree. The only sacred thing for them is Christmas, for which they wait 364 days a year."
Olga, who faked her CV to find work as a pizza-leaflet distributor, nightclub hostess and shop assistant in Oxford Street, is particularly damning about the "lazy" British working class.
"Every second immigrant achieves much more here than the ordinary Brits," she writes.
"The ordinary Brit, having a choice between education and a job on one hand, and unemployment on the other, would always prefer to live on the dole.
"Then all they have to do is send £10 notes through the mail as birthday presents for their various children who they don't see. The greed of these islanders was a real shock to me."
Olga has harsh words to say about the women of Britain
Olga came to Britain in 2002 when she was 18, and married a year later. She now has a son but the marriage ended in divorce, though she secured British citizenship.
She writes: "By settling in England I made my dream come true. The only plan I had since I was about 13 was to come here as an immigrant. I had no idea how it would work, but I knew that one day I'd become a UK citizen.
"I was so taken up with this idea that it never occurred to me that living in a foreign land, without friends, without mum's cooking and Latin American soap operas on Russian TV in the evenings, may not make me happy but rather vice versa.
"I'm not surprised any more how awful the free health service is. Like everybody else, I curse unreasonably high taxes. I've got accustomed to Indian cuisine, which seems to have replaced the traditional fish and chips that I used to dream about."
Olga, whose father was an official in the Ministry of Agriculture and mother a company financial director, says she is currently studying law at Westminster University and working in a London legal practice.
She told The Mail on Sunday last night: "Russian people are more heartful and soulful. I was bought up in the centre of Moscow, but here things are much worse.
"Here, for example, you switch on the water in the kitchen and the water in the bathroom goes off; here the central heating sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. At home it is always warm because the Government takes care of it for you.
"In Britain if it is your birthday, people send you a £10 or £20 note inside a card – like they can't be bothered with you.
"In Russia 99 per cent of people have been to university. Here you get on a bus and the way people talk, you can tell they aren't interested in anything other than football.
"I used to go to the theatre in Russia with my family a lot. But here I went once with my then in-laws and in the interval people were bringing in beer – were they there for the performance or a pint or what?"
She added: "Britain has a lot of exhibitions from abroad here, but English people don't seem to appreciate it. I go to museums or exhibitions twice a month and apart from a few Britons, most of the others are Chinese tourists."
Olga did concede one thing: "You can cook – I quite like Sunday roast dinners."
But she added quickly: "When you come home here, you open the fridge and what do you see? It's all supermarket food or half-cooked stuff. Do Brits ever cook from scratch? It is not because your society is incredibly advanced, it is because it is lazy.
dailymail.co.uk
She says the women are fat, people drink too much alcohol, and scratch their bottoms frequently in public places. In general, she believes the British are "vulgar".
Though, to me, the British have ALWAYS been a vulgar people. Olga should have lived in London in the 1700s and she would have seen what vulgar really means...
A Russian's view of Britain 2008: Greedy, scruffy, lazy and full of size 22 women shaking their haunches
By WILL STEWART
17th February 2008
Daily Mail
'Debauched': Olga's book paints a distinctly unflattering portrait of Britons, such as the excessive consumption of alcohol
A young Russian woman's book about the pitfalls of living as an immigrant in Britain has become a surprise best-seller in Moscow ... and it paints a distinctly unflattering portrait of the natives.
Instead of finding London the city of her dreams, 23-year-old Olga Freer moans about the shopping hours, the public transport and the bad manners she encounters. In a litany of complaints about her adopted country, in her book The UK For Beginners she claims that Brits:
• Habitually scratch their bottoms in public places;
• Never remove the price stickers from the soles of their shoes;
• Fail to iron their clothes; and
• Are obsessed with TV programmes about buying and selling houses.
She says the country is full of "prudish, arrogant people who eat healthy food for breakfast – porridge or bacon and eggs. But in reality the nation suffers from obesity".
Some 60 per cent of the female population wear size 22 clothes, she says.
"But being overweight doesn't stop red-faced English women wearing minis and shaking their haunches at discos – some spectacle! It's a nation with girls, debauched girls to the last degree. The only sacred thing for them is Christmas, for which they wait 364 days a year."
Olga, who faked her CV to find work as a pizza-leaflet distributor, nightclub hostess and shop assistant in Oxford Street, is particularly damning about the "lazy" British working class.
"Every second immigrant achieves much more here than the ordinary Brits," she writes.
"The ordinary Brit, having a choice between education and a job on one hand, and unemployment on the other, would always prefer to live on the dole.
"Then all they have to do is send £10 notes through the mail as birthday presents for their various children who they don't see. The greed of these islanders was a real shock to me."
Olga has harsh words to say about the women of Britain
Olga came to Britain in 2002 when she was 18, and married a year later. She now has a son but the marriage ended in divorce, though she secured British citizenship.
She writes: "By settling in England I made my dream come true. The only plan I had since I was about 13 was to come here as an immigrant. I had no idea how it would work, but I knew that one day I'd become a UK citizen.
"I was so taken up with this idea that it never occurred to me that living in a foreign land, without friends, without mum's cooking and Latin American soap operas on Russian TV in the evenings, may not make me happy but rather vice versa.
"I'm not surprised any more how awful the free health service is. Like everybody else, I curse unreasonably high taxes. I've got accustomed to Indian cuisine, which seems to have replaced the traditional fish and chips that I used to dream about."
Olga, whose father was an official in the Ministry of Agriculture and mother a company financial director, says she is currently studying law at Westminster University and working in a London legal practice.
She told The Mail on Sunday last night: "Russian people are more heartful and soulful. I was bought up in the centre of Moscow, but here things are much worse.
"Here, for example, you switch on the water in the kitchen and the water in the bathroom goes off; here the central heating sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. At home it is always warm because the Government takes care of it for you.
"In Britain if it is your birthday, people send you a £10 or £20 note inside a card – like they can't be bothered with you.
"In Russia 99 per cent of people have been to university. Here you get on a bus and the way people talk, you can tell they aren't interested in anything other than football.
"I used to go to the theatre in Russia with my family a lot. But here I went once with my then in-laws and in the interval people were bringing in beer – were they there for the performance or a pint or what?"
She added: "Britain has a lot of exhibitions from abroad here, but English people don't seem to appreciate it. I go to museums or exhibitions twice a month and apart from a few Britons, most of the others are Chinese tourists."
Olga did concede one thing: "You can cook – I quite like Sunday roast dinners."
But she added quickly: "When you come home here, you open the fridge and what do you see? It's all supermarket food or half-cooked stuff. Do Brits ever cook from scratch? It is not because your society is incredibly advanced, it is because it is lazy.
dailymail.co.uk
