A side explanation to the question of where Russia's beautiful women were before capitalism is that they were right there, hanging around, but not flashing the signifiers that we tend to associate with beautiful women. This was something I noticed when I moved back to Los Angeles for a time. I'd find myself assuming women were prettier than they were, because they wore the sort of trendy, fashionable outfits that, in Northern California, none but the really beautiful bothered with (I'm sure an economist would say there was less return for being semi-attractive in Santa Cruz, and so fewer tried to lift to that level). Similarly, I imagine Russia was perfectly attractive, but the clothes weren't form-fitting, the hair was tied back, the lip gloss wasn't applied, and so forth. We've all seen the difference between a friend glitzed up for a wedding and wearing sweats to watch television. She may be exactly as beautiful in the latter scenario, but it wouldn't necessarily be as noticeable to someone walking down the street -- the brain would register sweats and wouldn't look that closely, as it's not getting tipped off by the normal accomplices of attractiveness. Russia, under communism, was a land of sweats.
