Russian Women

Some describe it as a match made in heaven, others as a nightmare in cyberspace.

Russian women are turning, in surprising numbers, to the Internet hoping to get acquainted with lonely and marriageable western men - including Canadians.

Dozens of web-based matchmaking agencies devoted to bringing them together claim that e-romances are blossoming, and that thousands of happy Russian brides head to Canada every year.

"Russian women do not want to meet Russian men at all; they only want to meet Americans, Europeans or even Australians," says Alexei Sorokin, a former employee of one of the largest agencies.

"It's not nice to say so, but this is basically an economic problem. Women want to get out of Russia and make a better life for themselves."

The system is simple. Women pay a small fee to have their picture, bio and romantic requirements posted on an international agency's Web site.

Foreign men pay to get a particular woman's e-mail address, phone number or address.

Some agencies have branched into travel, translation and other services to profit from what they say is an exploding traffic. Though there are no firm statistics, it is estimated that about 5,000 Russian women marry North Americans alone each year.

One agency currently lists 25,000 women from Russia and other former Soviet republics seeking Canadian mates; there are dozens more agencies, each offering thousands of would-be brides.

These eager husband-seekers all say they've given up trying to find a decent man in Russia.

"A woman need only be attractive and educated, but a man must have property, means and a good job," says Alevtina Ivanova, a veteran of half-a-dozen serious cyber-relationships with European and American men in as many years, who now works as an adviser to DiOritz, a large Moscow matchmaking agency.

"Unfortunately, in our collapsed economy very few men are able to support a family properly. Russian men lack confidence, they become fatalistic, they drink, they die young. It's not surprising that Russian women pin their hopes elsewhere."

Some western men say similarly harsh things about their own female counterparts.

"American women are too independent, too demanding, too critical," says Chris, a middle-aged Toronto businessman who is visiting Moscow to meet "several very nice ladies" he contacted over the Internet. He asked that his last name not be used.

"Russian women have never heard of feminism. They want to have a man, a family, the whole old-fashioned trip."

To illustrate, he cites his favourite joke: "A Russian wife wants to keep house for you. An American wife wants to get rid of you, and keep the house."

However, there is a snake in the garden. Western men increasingly report being ripped-off by wily Russian women, who write sweet e-mails, send sexy photos, hit them up for cash and then disappear.

The potential dangers of dabbling in cyber-romance are dramatized in a recent film, Birthday Girl, in which Nicole Kidman plays an e-mail order bride from Moscow who brings a gang of Russian mafia thugs crashing into the life of her English bank-clerk beau.

In real life the sting is usually more mundane: an unsuspecting western man falls in love after a few gushing e-mail exchanges with a false identity posted on a Web site - sometimes the photos are actually of a Russian actress or fashion model - and is persuaded to wire cash for a ticket to visit him, or to meet some personal emergency.

"A woman can string a man along, playing on his emotions and sympathy and, in doing so, trick him into giving her money or expensive items," says Paul O'Brien, an American web designer who says he's given up his search for a Russian bride after being almost burned in this way twice.

"Prospective suitors need to be very wary of the women out there who have no intention of developing a relationship with them," he says.

Most of the known scams are now listed on a special Web site supported by several matchmaking agencies, www.russian-scam.org.

Russian women insist it is they who face the greatest hazards. Many have heard about Anastasia Solovyeva, a Russian from the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, who made an Internet match and moved to Seattle, where she was murdered by her American husband two years ago. She had been his second mail order bride.

Experts say there are many more tales of miserable, and sometimes tragic, mismatches.

"You come to a strange country, to meet a man you've only corresponded with by e-mail," says Ivanova, who has done it several times.

"There are issues of language, culture and personal morality. It takes a lot of trust, and for some women it goes badly wrong."

Despite the scare stories, the westward traffic of Russian women appears to be on the rise.

"We live in a world where one's social position is largely determined by geography, and Russia is considered to be a bad slum these days," says a sociologist with Moscow State University, specializing in gender relations.

"To marry a foreigner means to qualitatively improve one's position, and the prospects for one's children. Until that changes, we will see Russian women using every available means to get out of here."

Toronto, Halifax, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and so on are cities where many men have participated in these services.

 

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