Pitounes & mullets part 2: supporting the cause

The warm weather has arrived in Russia. The days are long and the temperature is now up to the positive teens as opposed to staying in the -20's. It was nice to see the mountains of snow finally gone. So before we turn to colder weather again, I thought we should re-cap the sights that entertained us during the cold months. (yes, we're really overdue on this one!)

The "hot chicks vs. the mullet" got so much feedback, that we couldn't help but give a second serving. There was over 50 cm of snow that fell in the span of 2 weeks, and yet women were still making there way through the snowbanks in 4-inch high heeled boots. And that's were the phrase was coined: "supporting the cause".

So let's review the criteria:

The girls: - Height of the stiletto (HS): 0 = flat ; 5 = Crazy stripper shoes! - Length of skirt (LS): 0 = OLD USSR standard for pants ; 5= ah! nice "Victoria's secret" underwear - Location or day the outfit is worn (LDO):0 = Da! Da! we were at a strip club ; 5 = Geez, come on it's my nephew's baptism ......

OVERALL points = HS + LS + LDO (couldn't help it, engineer geek)

The boys : - Length of the mullet (LM): 0 = baby/wannabee mullet ; 5 = Jesus Christ, thank God I brought my clipper, Nadia please shave my head. - Mullet Power -thickness of hair (MP) : 0 = come on you're about to be bald - shave it off ; 5 = that is some race horse thickness power! Bravo Champion! - Overall clothes (OC) : 0 = At least your clothes is nice (not going to happen folks) ; 5 = Geez, is it the clothes Canada shipped 30 years ago to help out, yep those are Grandpa's sweatpants! OVERALL points = LM + MP + OC

Let's start with the hot chicks supporting their cause...

#4 - What would a winter in Russia be without catching a hockey game?! Though I'm still convinced that the old ladies in the metro are tougher in the corners than the guys we saw on the ice! I vote for Babushka hockey! It will be rough!) So there we were, watching the game in the SKA arena. In Canada, hockey is an outing where you scream, drink beer and (if the Canadians manage to play well) get a little rowdy. In Russia? She came down the stairs in 4" stiletto swede boots...

HS = 4 (they're high but there isn't much of a platform to them)

LS = 4. It's short enough that you can't see it when she's sitting, but she loses a point for the opaque tights.

LDO = 3.5 IT'S A HOCKEY GAME!!! Her boyfriend will have had enough to drink by the end of the first period that he won't remember whether she was dressed up on in track pants... Overall SCORE = 11.5

#3 - Next we go to one of my favourite places: the endless metro escalators. (I should get bonus points for this picture since photographs are "forbidden" in the metro)

HS = 4 those are some nice boots LS = 4.5 the short shorts are nice, but they don't compare with the micro shorts that came out to play in the summer. So she gets a 4 for the shorts, but I'll give a bonus .5 for the cool tights LDO = 3 Not too sure where she was headed... but showing mid-drift under the bomber jacket when it's -27 deg.C outside should count for something! Overall SCORE = 11.5

#2 - This brings us back to what will go down as our last wild night at Terra Cotta (bye bye our Brazilian Buddies! We miss you!!). It was a great bar with too many nights ending up with fuzzy moments in our heads the next morning, but it's now under renovations, so that season is now past...

HS = 4 LS = 5 - the underwear WERE visible. She's dancing on a table after all! LDO = 4 - I would have given her a "2" given that she's at a bar, but there's +1 bonus since she got up on that table to dance with the short dress and another +1 since our global director was sitting in that chair when she got up on the table to dance. Overall SCORE = 12

#1 - we had to go FAR for this one: Sharm El Sheil, Egypt. Sharm is the "Cuba" of Russia: lots of charter flights that get packaged with all you can eat & drink hotel stays. As we were about to walk through security we met our leading lady... Wait? Is she wearing a bottom or just her sweater? Oh Wait! Now I see the nylon short shorts...

HS = 3 (they're just ok) LS = 5 -I don't know whether she was wearing underwear... LDO = a perfect 5 - Egypt is a very conservative Muslim country. The local women wear scarves to cover their hair and clothes from wrist to ankle. The face of the security agent when she walked through the metal detector could only be described one way: priceless! Overall SCORE = 13

**SPECIAL MENTION This is a sighting that I will remember for a while... One FREEZING Sunday afternoon (-27 deg.C at 80% humidity = I want to die when I breathe!), our friends took us far out of the city to go cross country skiing. That's when we spotted this diva...

Let's take a closer look at this one because I couldn't believe it myself...

HS = 4 (they're high but there isn't much of a platform to them) LS = 0 - for once we have full coverage with the snow pants LDO = 5 - stiletto boots in the middle of the woods in snow 30 cm deep?! Rock star! Overall SCORE = 9 - but she will stand out in our memories for a while!

Now we move to our second topic: the MULLET!

The credit for this one goes to Lisa - good spotting this sight! This is a window display in a Moscow department store... At firs it catches your eye because the pose is a little provocative for a family friendly store and then it hits you: even the mannequin has a mullet?! Whaaaaat?

LM = 3 - that was good length, but the front was longish as well, so the "delta length" wasn't that much...

MP = 3- it's a wig, so it's easy to have a good head of hair!

OC = 1 - he would be one the better dressed guy on Nevsky (if only the doll could walk!)

Overall SCORE = 7 - not bad considering he doesn't have a pulse! This was taken at Club Ikra, the underground club that is better hidden than sector 7 in the US...

LM = 5 - the "delta length" was great and the hair was long MP = 3- there was no curl, so we couldn't rank this one much higher

OC = 4 - the rolled-up jeans are what made him a champion in my mind. All he was missing was the mustard stain on the T-Shirt to be perfect... Overall SCORE = 12 - but you have time to improve your score with time, young one! As I was putting this together (Matvei has moved back to Canada, so I've lost my co-writer and other member of team Sputnik for a while), I realised that we had MANY more pictures of hot chicks supporting the cause than we did mullets. Have grown immune to the mullets? Or was it just that they didn't stand out as much as stiletto boots in knee-deep snow?

Whatever the case, I thought I would end this entry with our ode to the Mullet: we wore our bunny ears upside-down to pay homage to the "business in front, party in the back" haircut ; )