Love is on the streets

They say love has no language, knows no colour or age, but is real when there are no restrictions to the manner of association among adults. It is difficult for a man to search for love in a ‘strange’ country when he has at the back of his mind that any false move could land him in trouble.

Such is the dilemma facing some Nigerian football fans, who feel that their stay at the on-going FIFA World Cup in Russia would be incomplete if they did not ‘mix it’ with Russian babes.

Before the World Cup kicked off on June 14, some fans of the Super Eagles billed to support their team during the competition, also planned to ‘sample Russian beds’ during their stay in Vladmir Putin’s country. These are the fans who believe that any festival as big as the World Cup is not complete without sweet memories of their time with the host country’s women. But such enthusiasm was dampened even before the teams left their countries by a member of Russian parliament, Tamara Pletnyova, who warned the host country’s women against having ‘intimate relations’ with strangers.

Pletnyova, who is head of the family, women and children’s affairs committee, argued that staying away from strange men ensures that Russian children remained in Russia.

She said women who had babies with foreigners around the time of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow often “suffered” as single mothers.

“It’s good if it’s one race, but if it’s another race, then they really did. We should have our own babies,” Ms Pletnyova said.

Biracial Russians were in the past often referred to as “children of the Olympics” or “festival children” after the huge international festivals the Soviet Union hosted with African, Middle Eastern and South American participants.

And so it has been difficult for many randy Nigerian fans to roll in the hay with Russian women. That was until an ingenious member of the Club Owners’ association discovered a simple way of connecting with Russian women. Brimming with excitement like Mungo Park when he discovered the River Niger, the club owner told a group of Nigerians in front of the Park Inn Hotel in Pribaltiyskaya, Saint Petersburg, “if you want a woman look on the side walks.”

He continued: “These people are well organized. If you look carefully on the pedestrian walk ways, you will see drawings, heart shaped drawing together with phone numbers. When you call the phone number, somebody on the end will tell you what to do. Depending on the specification you provided, somebody will knock on your door in minutes. It’s so simple.”

As if that was a cue for his audience to take to the streets, many in his audience rushed to the streets in search of numbers. Unfortunately, The Guardian did not hang around to find out the outcomes of their expeditions.