Russian Women on Internet Marriage Agencies are Prostitutes

Two myths about women of the former Soviet Union:

1) Russian women appreciate traditional family values, they are serving and sacrificing.

2) Half of the Russian women on internet marriage agencies are prostitutes.  

Both phrases above are of the wildest guesses I've heard in my life.

It may happen that some Russian women featured by internet marriage agencies are prostitutes, though I have never heard about such a case. To be a prostitute in Russia now - it's a thing a woman in her sound mind will never consider as an option.

Russian prostitutes are mostly uneducated girls from small regional towns, who don't even have a place to stay in a big city. Their monthly salary is only about $70-100. High class prostitutes from Moscow or St. Petersburg do get better income but I doubt if they apply to introduction agencies to get rid of this type of life.

If a woman knows English well and has a degree, she can easily find a secretarial work that will be paid better than prostitution. There is also high demand for sales people, who receive considerably good salaries. Being a prostitute is a thing that seems to be completely out of sense for a normal woman without a sexual disorder.

Another thing, a woman will never go into prostitution in her native city, or if she moved with her family. The majority of people in Russia stay in the same city for all their lives, generation by generation. Very seldom a woman moves to a strange city on her own.

What about having married ladies data in databases, it's closer to the truth.

Some marriage agencies don't remove women's data from their catalogs after the ladies are already engaged or even married. A Russian woman whom I know personally was in the database of a famous respectable agency. She received about 150 letters from the men through this agency, though the agency states that they sell address of a woman no more than 15 times.

After she was engaged, she sent a letter to the agency asking to remove her data. Letters continued to arrive. After she had got married she sent another request. This time the agency removed her photo from its catalogue on the Internet but the lady's parents were still receiving letters. Apparently the agency kept selling her address on requests from printed catalogues. The letters were still arriving 2 years after the lady got married!

My colleagues in Russia reported a few similar cases.

On the other hand, many ladies do not inform agencies when they get engaged or married. Sometimes women don't remember which agencies they have signed with, or simply don't think it's a big deal. Nevertheless, the percentage of the ladies successfully completing their search for a foreign husband is so small (not more than 5-10%), that it can't significantly influence the quality of agencies databases.

Another thing that does have a distinct impact is that even ladies who are not married or engaged may be not available after a while, and agencies are not able to gather this information. If a lady has a few correspondents, she is likely to disregard further letters, though she does not want agencies to remove her from databases. Why?

She is not confident that things will work out with the existing correspondents, and doesn't want to start everything from scratch. My estimation is that after being in a database for 2-3 months, most ladies usually will have a few correspondents. They are not married, but they are not available either.

Well, let's discuss the next point. Devotion to traditional family values is the most important factor pushing Western men to look for a Russian wife. Generally, the meaning of "traditional family values" comes to accepting a situation when a husband is busy making a living, and a wife is staying at home taking care of children, making food for the family and so on.

The question of Russian women's interest in making careers was already discussed (Archived News Letter). They consider the situation from a different point of view. In Russia women have to do all house work, and at the same time have a full time job to provide for the family.

Taking into consideration the fact that in this situation many don't have the simplest utilities such as microwave, automatic washing machine and pre-packaged food for cooking, it's clear that being a western housewife is just a peace of cake. If a Russian woman cannot work, for her, it is a natural choice to run a house.

What about being serving and sacrificing? It is definitely not true. Again, all people are different, as are Russian women. But generally, in my opinion, they are the more educated, talented and smart ladies who have managed to find a husband abroad. It's a difficult task that requires serious prolonged efforts, and not any woman can do it.

Russian wives are strong and pretty dominating. They know what they want. The only difference between them and their Western sisters is that they do not try to show "who is the boss of the house". They know that the shortest way is not the fastest. I believe, they get better results not showing off their strength but weakness. The man has steering control but the woman keeps the ship on her palm.

Above was written by Elena Petrova