Disbelief Not Suspended

For the first time since the end of Cold War products of Russian television industry began to appear on Croatian small screens.

One week ago RTL Televizija began to air Anastasia a.ka. Bednaya Nastya, Russian soap opera set in mid 19^th Century. I saw only few shots but I can tell that someone has obviously put a great effort in locations, costumes and other sorts of period detail.

However, one small detail they didn't pay attention to. All glamorous young aristocratic ladies that appear on the show tend to wear spectacular white dresses. That tends to emphasise their nice tan.

And that very tan is something that good girls from 19^th Century aristocratic families didn't have. Such tan was reserved only for serf women who were spending most of their days working in the field. Ideal of female beauty in those times was pale skin, today mostly associated with tuberculosis and other romantic diseases.

Brasilian, Mexican and other South American soap operas set in 19^th Century can get away with it because their heroines are Creoles, Mulattos and Mestizos. Russian soap opera can't.