Before I, Elena Petrova, left Russia.

Let me tell you about myself,

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, Elena Petrova 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 Elena Petrova 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 Elena Petrova 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 Elena Petrova! 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.

Too good to be true? This was exactly my feeling from all those photos and letters 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. .

You probably get the same feeling when you read ads of Russian women on the Internet, well - Russian mail order brides, that is! 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 do 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 publishers 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.

Copyright 2004 Elena Petrova

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Elena Petrova is the creator of Russian Brides Cyber Guide an informational source about Russia and Russian women. She holds master's degree in philosophy and authored several highly successful books about Internet dating.

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