Post-Soviet Dating

Introduction to Post-Soviet Dating

Hi, I'm Anonymous Jack. Okay, no, that's not my real name. My real name, and the names of all the people I will talk about in this website, are changed to protect the guilty. In a few limited instances, I'll use real names, but I will let you know when I do that.

I'm writing to talk about the experience my experience with meeting Russian women for dating and ultimately marriage, the business with the terrible and offensive and misleading name of "Mail Order Brides". This wretched and insulting term suggests that it is some sort of Sears Roebuck Catalog ("Do you have one in a Medium Tall?"), but since the term is used commonly, I may refer to it. And then go wash my mouth out with soap.

There's a lot of strong opinions on this subject. That men who pursue this are desperate losers, abusers, control freaks, nuts, whack jobs, sex tourists, what have you. That women who pursue this are manipulative, liars, money grubbers, thieves, or even prostitutes. That the agencies that enable these are thieves, scoundrels, and scam artists. That it is human trafficking, open to abuse, and should be eliminated, regulated, or who knows what else. There's a lot of prejudice, a lot of strong opinions, but also some good sources of information and level headed people. I'm going to write in my column here about some of the myths, some of the problems, some of the real challenges, and a bit about my own experience as a man who has attempted to pursue this.

In the process I hope to illuminate a little about what really goes on, what would motivate someone to consider dating and marrying someone from the former Soviet Union, both from the male and female perspective, talk about other sources of good information. I'll try to dispel some of the myths, and maybe even dispense a little insight and advice as I go.

I'm going to use a few assumptions as I write which are not strictly true. First, I will talk about women in Russia and men from the United States. I have two reasons. One is that all my experience has been with meeting women in Russia. Another is that I am from the U.S. These are representative and you'll find many of the same issues in any of the former Soviet republics (Ukraine, Belarus, Kyrgzstan, Moldavia, and so on), though not universally so. Also, the challenges for a man from the United Kingdom or South Africa might well be very similar to an American, though of course not identical. Most of the marriage agencies have predominately Russian women and American men. Why so much of the men come from the U.S., I do not know. But it is the most common group. I'll try to catch and flag some comments where they might be unique to Russia, or particular regions in Russia.

So let me start by talking about myself first.

Around October of 2004, there was a terrible court case here in the Washington D.C. area. A young woman from the Ukraine in her late 20s had filed a court case against a marriage agency and the court ruled in her favour. As the facts of the case were presented in the media, she had been introduced through this agency to an American man from Northern Virginia whom she ultimately married. Not long after getting here, he began to physically abuse and threaten her. He was a divorcee with a history of abuse, but this was not something she had known ahead of time. Scared and unsure of what to do, she had called the agency for help and they had allegedly responded "Oh, American men are just like that." Ultimately she escaped to a woman's shelter, got the legal protection she needed which also prevented her from being deported from her visa when the marriage failed. She settled out of court with her ex-husband, but the agency refused to settle and challenged her version of events in court. The court ruled in her favour.

Now husbands abuse wives all the time. It is terrible and awful and a criminal act and should be treated as such. But of course the facts of this case made it a major media event in the way a more common case would not. Big splash in the local papers, and as you can well imagine, a lot of dinner table conversations with people with no facts and lots of opinions. A lot of the things I just said above about people who use these agencies, and the agencies themselves, got tossed around. And if those things were all true, you would left wondering why anyone would consider such a thing. And yet clearly it happens, and even occasionally works out well. One friend from the Eastern Shore of Maryland talked about a neighbor who met and married a Russian woman and they were a wonderful and happy couple together. But mostly you heard the standard apocryphal stories of men who were serial abusers and kept going over to get new women to beat, or vice versa women who came here solely to get a green card, "faked" affection, and the day they were eligible for a green card, ran to the authorities with fabricated stories of abuse to get a divorce and trade up for a better guy on their own terms, visa in hand.

The other thing that happened was a major street protest in Ukraine after rigged elections. Ultimately the Orange Revolution led to new closely monitored elections and the overturning of the government. The Washington Post of course covered the events, but also not too long afterwards, there was a large inset in the Sunday paper with more general information about Ukraine. It was quite interesting and left me thinking about the idea of visiting that spring. In the process of investigating, I stumbled across dating services specializing in introducing western men to women looking to meet and marry from Ukraine, Russia, and other former Soviet republics.

Between my budding interest in Ukraine, the court case, and a whole lot of links, not to mention considerable curiosity and years of lukewarm experiences with online dating of the more traditional sense, I decided to look into the whole thing and understand what's really going on.

As I write today, it is roughly a year later. I've traveled three times to Russia and met two fascinating women, one who is right for someone, but not me. Another with whom we are talking about a serious relationship and ultimately, if all goes well, marriage. Along the way, I've wrestled with acceptance and rejection from well-meaning friends, some wonderful and animated discussion about the perils and problems of international online introductions, and made some colossal mistakes of which most were humorous and all educational. I've learned to read and speak a little Russian, got bawled out by a Ministry of the Interior office for not having a tourist voucher (in Russian for fifteen minutes: I have no idea what he was talked about, but he registered the visa anyway), got thrown off the beach by the police, responded to "Do you have a light?" by telling the guy what time it was, and learning (unintentionally) my first swear word in Russian from an upset UVIR officer (not the one chewing me out: I think UVIR must be at least as bad a place to work as it is to visit to get service), and advice I will share about one gift I gave you should never ever give a Russian.

This is my story.

And for all that, I never did make it to Kiev.

posted by Anonymous Jack @ 8:30 PM