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Information & Advice -> Tips & Articles
"Russian Brides" and The Media
By Elena Petrova "Do
they publish the truth or do they stretch it until it is a lie?"
My site Russian Brides Cyber Guide www.womenrussia.com is at the top of many search engines for the term "Russian brides", and as a result I often receive requests for interviews from newspapers and magazines all over the world; USA, Great Britain, Ireland, Spain, Germany, Finland, Hungary, Australia, South Africa, Russia - and the list goes on. About half of them have never been published. Why? I believe that the reporters are not always happy with the answers I give to their questions.
Marrying a Russian woman is routinely portrayed by the Media as the "mail order brides" process. Those words tend to leave a nasty taste in your mouth, don't they?
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.
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.
The idea that the Media spreads about mail order brides from Russia is absolutely false.
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 had a car, and for many years lived alone in my own apartment. 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.
Please forget everything
what you have heard, read or seen in the Media. The Media prefers
to concentrate 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 "extra
ordinary", which will shake their audience up to their knees. Murders
and treachery sell newspapers. This is one reason why you will rarely
find happy stories about international couples in the Media.
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" fiancée, but if she is from Russia, it is the
"Russian mail order brides" problem. 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. Yours,
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