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The first time
I heard those words were soon after my marriage when
"Cosmo" happened to interview me, quite by
chance. I was sitting at home, bored and decided to send a
letter to a competition that the magazine was launching.
"Cosmo" was looking for somebody to feature in
their article about Russian brides. My letter was like a
God send, and they phoned me asking for an interview. This
was my first interview with the Media, and I was pretty
naive at the time. I thought that "Cosmo", like
all our friends and family, would find the way we met
"very romantic". Imagine my surprise when I read
the announcement of the future article: "South
Africa's Mail Order Brides"! Honestly, I was shocked
and humiliated. I had no idea that, that was the official
name of the process! (The actual article had the heading
"South Africa's Mail Order Romances" which
sounded a bit better, and the article itself finished with
the words "Welcome!" and "Good luck!"
addressed to all us Russian women. All in all, the article
was quite all right.)
Now, getting
back on track. The history behind the term "mail
order brides" goes as far back as the time of the
first American settlers. The settlers, most of whom were
men, could not find suitable women to marry and had to
write letters to Europe asking women to become their
wives. In those days, arranged marriages were common, and
marrying somebody you barely knew was nothing out of the
ordinary. Back then; the women truly were "mail order
brides".
These days the
term "mail order brides" is
currently used to label the relationship between a man
from a first world country and a woman from the third
world country or the countries of the former USSR.
The common
misconception is that the women only want a way out of
their misery and terrible economic situation. Being
incompetent in Filipino, Thailand, Colombian, Mexican and
other mail order brides, I can tell you with confidence
that this is NOT the case with Russian women seeking
husbands abroad.
Russian women
have a much better education than the brides from Asia and
Latin America. About 90% of the women that apply to our
agency have college or university degrees, or are current
college or university students. With their fair
complexion, their intelligence and their astounding
beauty, men have often asked me if our selection is real!
Our women appear too beautiful to be seeking husbands on
the Internet.
Being
intelligent and educated, Russian women are still
feminine, warm and gentle. Competing with men is the last
thing they seek in their family lives. The Russian ideal
of a man is the man with whom she feels like she is
"behind the stone wall", the leader, the
provider and the protector. Believe it or not, the
reason for all these beautiful Russian women seeking their
destiny over the Internet is that they cannot find their
ideal man in Russia. It is that simple - even if it
sounds unbelievable.
Most
Russian women seeking husbands abroad are NOT focused on
finding a "foreign
husband" but more importantly on finding "The
Husband". We often receive requests from
Russian women featured in our catalogs to remove their
profiles, because they have married Russian men living in
Russia - this is a clear evidence that most Russian women
seeking contacts with foreign men are not fixed on moving
abroad but on finding a serious relationship and getting
married. For many of them, finding a husband in her home
country would be preferable to moving abroad, and
sometimes we even receive requests from women if she can
find a man who will move in with her in Russia.
In Russia,
women outnumber men (there are 10 million more women
than men, according to the latest census!), and in
most situations it is a question of luck if a woman
manages to find herself a man or not. Russians marry
early, and at the age of 25 most people are already
married. If a man is not married, it can only mean he is
not willing to commit - even bad men can find themselves a
wife! Women must act fast if they want to get married and
to ensure that they have a husband, one can only hope he
will be a good man. There were even talks about changing
the family legislation so that it would allow men to have
multiply wives so that there would be competition among
men too. (This is not a joke; this question was discussed
in Russian parliament.)
Now, what
is the general idea about Russian "mail order
brides"?
Most men
thinking about "mail order brides" services are
not even aware that they will not receive their bride
delivered to their postal box (or their door) on request
and will have to spend time, money and effort to convince
a "bride" that he is a worthy candidate for her
to consider. Yes, the first contact happens usually by
mail, air or electronic, but this is the case with using
any Internet personals, isn't it?
The
interpretation the media gives to the term "Mail
order brides" is that a Russian mail order bride will
marry any man, of any age, just to get out of Russia. The
Mail order bride service is interpreted by most people as
a service that "sells women", a service that is
neither respectable nor trustworthy. Some men still
believe they can point their finger at any woman and she
must marry him because he paid for her address.
This
"mail order brides" idea is an insult to any
decent Russian woman.
C'mon, guys!
Those women do not think you are doing them a favor by
writing to them. They feel as if you were one of the guys
who would approach her at a bar: where she can say,
"yes" if she likes you, and "thanks, but
no, thanks" if she doesn't. She does not owe you
anything just because you selected her from the thousands
of other applicants or paid 10 bucks for her contact
details. If you dare to be arrogant or offensive in your
letter, you are out. She knows your music and movies as
well as you know them, and is also SEEKING HER SOUL MATE
so remember that! Do not jeopardize your chances with her
by letting yourself believe in the "mail order
brides" nonsense.
Let me tell
you about myself. Before I left Russia, I was working as a
regional manager of a large marketing agency, which had
offices in 22 regions all over Russia. At some stage I had
150 people working for me. I lived much better than most
of the regular citizens, and my income would fit in the
top 10% of the population. I have traveled all over Europe
and Asia. I was not miserable because of the economic
reasons. I was content with my life style and envied by
many people, though I would be lying to you if I said my
life style did not improve since I moved to the west. But
as I said, for a woman in Russia I was doing very well.
The only reason that I did not feel completely happy was
because I could not find a good husband - and yes, finding
a husband and starting a family was VERY important for me.
Because of this, and only because of this, I decided to
look abroad. I made a few disastrous attempts to find a
partner using local personals, which I will not describe
here because the subject of this article is a serious one
and my meetings with the guys from personals would turn it
into a sitcom. Being an industrious person, sooner or
later I would end up at the "marriage agencies"
as they call dating services in Russia. With me it
happened later, after 3 years of thinking, because I could
not believe that good, faithful, honest, caring,
professional, ambitious, career orientated AND single men
existed in this world, men who did not have a long queue
of hopeful women knocking at their door. This would be too
good to be true. Why did I eventually do it? It was the
same type of thing that one does when buying a lotto
ticket - do you REALLY think you will hit the jackpot? No,
but it doesn't hurt to try and if you don't try, you will
never even have the "hope" that you might just
win.
When I started
to receive letters from mostly nice, good-looking,
successful guys (far from the portrait of the
"looser" that the Media wants you to believe
in), I was absolutely smitten. I could not believe those
guys were telling all these wonderful words to ME! It
could not be real. It could only be a dream. They wanted
to have a family and children! They wanted TO GET MARRIED
AND SETTLE DOWN. Those were the things that I could never
expect from a Russian guy. Russian guys are hunted down,
and would only capitulate into marriage after a proper
siege. Too good to be true? This was exactly my feeling
from all those photos and letters.
You
probably get the same feeling when you read ads of Russian
women on the Internet, well, Russian
mail order brides. It is too good to be true,
and there must be something wrong either with the website
itself or the women that advertise on it.
Well, well,
well… YOU are looking for a wife. You personally, you
are OK, aren't you? So are they.
Why you see so
many negative stories about Russian mail order brides in
the Media? The Media concentrates on scandal stories
because they must sell their newspapers, magazines, etc,
and horror stories attract more
attention than "happily ever after" fairy tales.
(When was the last time you saw a story about a
happy marriage on the front page? But a "mail order
brides" horror can easily make it.) To sell more
copies magazines must publish something
"newsworthy". Murders and treachery sell
newspapers. This is one reason why you will rarely find
happy stories about international couples in the Media.
But there is
also a more powerful reason. WHY newspapers want to
sell more copies and TV channels to attract more viewers? They
would never survive if their only source of income were
the regular Joe buying the newspaper on the street corner.
The driving
force behind the Media is ADVERTISING, and newspapers,
magazines and TV channels' most important goal is to sell
advertising space in their editions. Half of their
audience is WOMEN. Imagine if they tell in their stories
how wonderful are Russian mail order brides, how happy are
their husbands and what great kids they have?
Put it
simpler, you are not getting all the truth. You are
getting the negative information, and seldom the positive.
Let me give
the word to people who work in this industry themselves:
Alan,
publisher and journalist: "I met Aryna, my
Ukrainian bride, through one of these big dating sites and
asked the company to publish our story. However, while the
site does carry 'true stories' and its service and
profiles span the globe, the company's management views
and perceptions appear to be parochially American. If the
romance is not "N.Y., N.Y. meets Washington
D.C." it isn't worthy of publication!"
Anthony
Bochene, journalist (also the author of Foreign
Bride Guide): "Lena and I are an example of
just one more success story that you don't read about in
the local newspapers. Added to the dozens of other happy
couples I've come in contact with in the last few years
who would not have met each other without the help of the
international romance tour industry, means the general
public is not getting the whole truth about this
business."
When a
negative report is about your own country fellows, you
understand that the cases featured in a TV story or an
article are extreme; you know very well what the real
picture is.
When the
report is about some other country, you have no idea about
the real picture and often build your impression on
incomplete facts.
The thing is, the
journalists who write the stories are also only people,
and most often, they do not possess the complete
information themselves. Often they are affected by the
same common misconceptions and myths. The best and most
objective stories are usually written by reporters that
live in the country they write about. But even then,
writing about something they are not professionally
involved with, the reporters often follow the usual
stereotypes: "mail order brides" mean something
that is highly suspicious, and most likely a scam.
I can confirm
it from my own experience with interviews to newspapers
and magazines: very often they are not supplying you with
all the facts. I do not mean that they purposefully
mislead their readers; most likely, they just follow their
stereotypes. It is not easy to break a common stereotype,
built through many years, in the short time allocated to
an interview. The very questions journalists ask show how
little most of them know about Russia and the situation
between sexes in Russia. Some questions that seem to me
crucial in the "Russian mail order brides
phenomena", are never asked.
Often
reporters take some words out of context and it then looks
like you said something completely different than what you
in fact really said. For example, they would ask me
why I did not want to marry a Russian guy, and I would say
that I would be happy to marry a Russian guy; that I was
actually looking for a Russian guy for a long time but
could not find somebody suitable. That because I had a
very good career in Russia, good education, and was
earning good money, and generally lived very well, I
wanted to find somebody like me,
who would also be educated and career orientated,
and at the same time was unmarried, and willing to commit.
I did not look for somebody rich or famous, just a
"normal guy". But to find such a guy in Russia
for a woman over 25 is all but impossible - and I was
already 28, the age where all your family and friends had
already written you off as an "old maid" who
would never get married: 28 and never married in Russia -
is a life sentence. This is why I decided to try to look
abroad. Then the magazine would write in their article
that I decided to look for a husband abroad because I
wanted to marry a guy who had money and a good career, and
lived well. Taken out of the context it would sound
like I was a perfect "gold-digger"!
This is non
unusual in compiling stories. On the TV, they ask you 100
questions, and show only 2-3 of them. So a two-hour
interview turns into a few phrases that would sound very
different in the light of the previous discussion.
I believe the Media
is actually doing a bad service to their countrymen,
making them believe that Russian women are hard up and
will marry anybody just to get out of their misery.
This is the
concept that is extensively exploited by scammers, you
have probably heard about them. Dating scammers usually
contact unsuspecting men through large Internet personals
and start professing their undying love and desire for
marriage after a few short letters. The scam scenario fits
perfectly with the Media's insinuations, and men believe
all they need to do is to pay her travel expenses and they
will have a perfect mail order bride at their front door
next week Friday. When "she" does not show up on
"D"-day, they say "All those Russian women
are just a scam" and if they are very unhappy,
probably another "mail order brides" horror
story is born.
Would people
believe this story if she were from Cincinnati, Ohio, and
not from Ekaterinburg, Russia? No way! But the Media
created a "mail order brides" myth, which led
them to think this unbelievable situation is possible in
the case with a woman from Russia. After all, she is just
a mail order bride. See the consequences?
The real,
legitimate Russian dating agencies do NOT offer Russian
mail order brides.
Russian
mail order brides is a thing that does not exist.
There are
Russian women that seek contacts with foreign men with the
intention of future marriage. Those women are educated,
intelligent and smart. They are not going to become
intimate submissives or maids. They seek equal partnership
and will not tolerate infidelity or abuse. There is
nothing wrong with them; they are not doing anything
different from women that place ads in your local
personals. There is a lack of men in their country, why
can't they look elsewhere? We all have the right to seek
happiness.
As said by a
reporter from Irish TV after I answered their questions
about why Russian brides are suddenly so popular in
Ireland, "From what you said I see a legitimate
matchmaking service and not just some slicky mail order
brides operation". And this is exactly what
Russian dating agencies offer - introductions to real,
existing, marriage minded Russian women. They do not sell
women. They offer a way for people from different
countries to find each other and be happy.
But those
people are free, and bear full responsibility for their
own actions. One would not complain on a national
television about problems with his
"girl-next-door" fiancee, but if she is from
Russia, it is the "Russian mail order brides"
problem.
It is just
a problem of a particular guy, with a particular woman!
There are bad
people among all nations; in your country, too, there are
probably some men and some women who get ripped off
through their marriages - unfortunately, there is nothing
we can do about it. Just try to avoid the bad ones to the
best of our abilities. No relationship is guaranteed
problem-free; it is impossible.
There are
hundreds or even thousands of happy international
marriages, and there are only a few unhappy ones. One can
get into trouble in a marriage with her countryman or his
countrywoman; and you know yourself it happens all the
time; it probably happened with somebody of your family or
friends. Yes, there are gold diggers and social
climbers; which nation does not have them? It is not
the reason to discriminate against of Russian, or
Ukrainian, or Uzbek women.
I do not say a
marriage to a Russian woman will guarantee you will live
in paradise on Earth. Not all marriages are the same! But
it does not mean it has to end in trouble either.
Most things in
life are potential trouble-makers. But, for example, no
one cancels adoptions because there were a few adoptive
parents that abused their adopted children, and a few
adopted kids that later caused great problems for their
adoptive parents. People understand that they were rather
untypical cases.
More people
die in road accidents than of cancer; but no one is
thinking about prohibiting cars. What is done concerns
road safety.
There are
sexually transmitted deceases, including AIDS, but no one
is thinking about prohibiting sex. Just take precautions
when you do it!
There was a
case where an American husband killed his Russian wife.
Now what? All Americans marrying foreigners are paranoid
murderers?? Was not there ever a case where an American
husband killed an American wife? Were marriages in general
announced dangerous after that?
Don't throw
away the kid with the dirty water, and don't judge a
phenomena by some untypical, extreme cases. I went through
the process of marrying a foreigner myself, and I was not
exploited, or trafficked, or abused, and neither was my
husband. It was a story
of two people from different countries meeting each
other and falling in love.
I am proud to
do what I am doing. I am not in the "mail order
brides" business. I am in a dating business. I am
helping people to find their love. I hope with my input
there will be a few more happy couples in the world, and a
few less lonely people.
Because good
people deserve to be happy!
Copyright 2004 Elena Petrova
More Russian dating personals related articles:
Sexy,
beautiful, intelligent and educated women… Mail Order
Brides!
Meet
Real-Life Russian Brides!!
Where
is YOUR place in global markets? - Internet dating and
globalization
Are
you desperate enough?
Immigration
Scams: ARE YOU AT RISK?
Dating
Russian Women: The Crazy Thing OR A Wonderful Opportunity?
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