I admit I go to great lengths to get my kids to see and learn about Russian culture, including letting them stay up late on a school night.

Yes, they stayed up a bit past bedtime last night to catch part of Dancing With The Stars. What's the connection to Russia? The professional dancers paired with the stars. Moscow-born Elena Grinenko is paired with former NBA star Clyde Drexler. Karina Smirnoff, who has to dance with country western crooner Billy Ray Cyrus, was born in Ukraine, but pre-split from Russia. Ditto Maksim Chmerkovskiy, who is dancing with Muhammad Ali's daughter Laila Ali. The ABC site for Dancing With The Stars gives the nationality of both Maks and Karina as Russian.

I put in a couple of intense years of ballroom dancing, pre-kids, and almost every one of my teachers was a Russian émigré (if you saw the documentary Mad Hot Ballroom, you met one of them). While people of many countries dance for the sheer enjoyment, Russians seem intensely focused on competitive dancing. By my count, one quarter of the more than 1,000 couples on the International DanceSport Federation's ranking of the top adult dancers are from Russia. If you read Russian, you can get a good idea of just how big competitive dancing is in Russia from the Web site of the Dancesport Federation of Russia.

I don’t need my kids to be champions, but boy it would be nice if they grew up to be great social dancers. Am I right, ladies? Social dancing in the U.S. has gotten this weird rap as being something that real guys don't do. Or if they do dance, it's mostly by flailing their arms and shuffling their feet. I'm really hoping that Emmett Smith's victory last season on Dancing With The Stars is putting and end to this, but I'll take every opportunity I can to show my kids that dancing is cool--including playing the Russian card.

Unfortunately, the celebs paired with this season's professionals aren't doing much to advance the cause. Grinenko has a thankless task trying to breathe life into Drexler's dancing. Cyrus' ballroom is as wooden as his singing and while Smirnoff has saved him from three rounds of elimination, I doubt she'll be able to do much more. Thankfully, there's Chmerkovskiy, who manages to make even the dopiest of dances (the jive) look like something the average guy would want to do.

How's the voting going in my house? My little guy is undecided. My older son is supporting Billy Ray, but only because his daughter, Miley Cyrus, is now a Disney Channel star. My vote? Sorry Maks, I'm betting on Apolo.


Photo Credit: Dancing With The Stars