Moskow, Russia (ViaNews) – Russian women are being accused of disregarding Russian men and “sell themselves” to foreigners. Online haters have been launching bullying campaigns in the social media. They search for photos of Russian women with men from other countries, post them on social media pages, and then write demeaning comments and messages to the females.
International events such as the World Cup are cause for celebration, friendship, and support. But in Russia, that’s more to it than that.
It all started with a video of a group of Brazilian fans surrounded a Russian girl while cheerfully singing “Buceta Rosa”. The girl was singing along with them without understanding what was being said. Sometime later, it turned out that “Buceta Rosa” means “pink vagina” in Portuguese.
Brazilians besieging Russian girl and taking advantage of her ignorance of the Portuguese language to abuse her sympathy.
This has to be denounced. pic.twitter.com/sfsEkWfJJP— Toni Lula da Silva Bulhoes (@ToniBulhoes) June 16, 2018
Online users created a public page called “Buceta Rosa” at the most popular social media platform in Russia, Vkontakte. On the 30th of June, 6 thousand people subscribed to the page. The majority of posts there were videos and photos of Russian females interacting with the foreign fans – singing, talking, hugging, or taking selfies. All women depicted in the videos and photos were signed as “Natasha” (unofficial sobriquet for the prostitutes from Eastern Europe) or “inkwells” (a reference to the communication with the black people). Many posts gained hundreds of comments and likes. The ones who went online to protect women found themselves being humiliated by other subscribers.
The World Cup Russian Women cyberbullying has been escalating and is now resembling a witch hunt. Online comments are full of alleged misogynistic affirmations, racism, and hate-speech. Most of them are people blaming women for mixing races, prostitution and of women ignoring Russian men, now that foreigners are in Russia for the World Cup. Some even call others for physical violence towards the females. According to the Russian media Novaya Gazeta, the “Buceta Rosa” page was launched by Youtube blogger, Vladislav. He describes his activity as propaganda of traditional values, patriarchy, and harsh critics of women with low social responsibility.
Online haters go beyond the “Buceta Rosa” page and are humiliating women right in at their private online accounts. Muscovite Mila Agapova posted a photo with three Brazilian fans on 29th of June at her page in Vkontakte. A few hours later, offensive messages and comments were posted below her photo. As it turned out, her photo was posted on the page “Buceta Rosa” with the link to her profile. In private message, one man asked Mila how will she manage to “wash off herself when ‘Rodriguez’ and ‘Diego’ go home and leave her in Russia”. Strangers were actively using filthy language towards Mila and posted pornographic photos and videos in the comments in her page. “It was very painful for me to learn that all this is happening in earnest and that such issues find broad support. In the beginning, I wanted to somehow defend my honor. Later it became amusing, but that soon was replaced by anger and later by contempt” — told Mila Agapova.
This hate against women isn’t just online and is now expands to the offline world as well. A video in Vkontakte, that gathered more than 32 thousand views, depicts how Russian male approaches a couple of young woman and man going hand-in-hand after the football match. The man calls the female “Russian inkwell” and pushes away her partner.
Administration of Vkontakte asked the moderators of page “Buceta Rosa” to toughen the policy of the comments there. They even deleted some comments that included hate-speech. However, this page is still functioning, as well as, pages with the similar content. Moderators continue to post photos of Russian females with foreigners and making links to their private online accounts. Also, Russian online users continue to write humiliating comments on Russian women’s posts.