Russian Women a Fast-Growing Market
November 28, 1998 By DEBORAH
HASTINGS^NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) -- On the matchmaker’s
video, a young Russian woman saunters across a bridge in
historic St. Petersburg. She wears a clinging T- shirt,
skintight pedal pushers and stiletto heels. ``I really
like big cities such as New York or Los Angeles,’’ she
tells the camera, in heavily accented English. ``So I
would be very glad to see you.’’ Her goal is a ticket out
of Russia’s eroding economy and forbidding future. For at
least 20 years, Filipinas have dominated the international
mail-order bride business. But since 1991, when the Soviet
Union’s fall unleashed capitalism and unrest, Russian
women have become the industry’s fastest- growing
commodity. Men pay up to $10,000 to travel to Moscow and
St. Petersburg to meet women they have picked from
catalogues and videos. More than 65 U.S. companies
advertise such services on the Internet. They even offer
to send flowers to prospective brides, and to put men in
touch with women via e-mail. In the United States and
Russia, these businesses are unmonitored. Reports of white
slavery, domestic violence and the 1995 case of a Seattle
husband who shot to death his pregnant mail-order bride
have prompted legislators and women’s groups to demand
industry rules. In 1996, Congress asked the Immigration
and Naturalization Service to draft regulations forcing
agencies to inform women about marriage fraud, legal
residency and domestic violence. The INS also was asked to
document immigration fraud and physical abuse involving
mail-order brides. Congress is still waiting. ``We asked
the INS to give us a report on an issue that’s enormously
important and they’ve dragged their feet,’’ said attorney
Jon Leibowitz, whose boss, Sen. Herbert Kohl, D-Wis.,
helped carry the legislation. INS spokeswoman Elaine
Komis said officials have been slowed by uncooperative
mail-order bride clients. ``We got nothing that was very
helpful in the way of how to improve the situation or what
could be done in the way of regulations,’’ she said. No
one knows the number of American-Russian marriages sparked
by matchmaking services. The INS doesn’t keep records on
how couples meet. Its legal responsibility is to determine
whether marriages between foreigners and U.S. citizens are
legitimate. Americans often obtain so-called fiance visas
for their intended mates. The document allows an immigrant
to live and work in the U.S. for two years. After that, if
the foreigner is still married and living in America, he
or she gets permanent residency. In 1991, there were 17
fiance visas issued to Russian women. In 1997, there were
1,012. A social worker with Atlanta’s Refugee Family
Violence Project said she received several phone calls
from battered mail-order brides after writing an article
about domestic violence in a tiny, Russian-language
newspaper. The women didn’t know their rights under U.S.
law, said the social worker, who said she has been
threatened by clients’ husbands and asked that her name be
withheld. None of her clients wanted to be interviewed,
she said. The St. Petersburg-based Svetlana Agency says
it is a legitimate international matchmaking service. Two
months ago, it opened a satellite office in opulent
Newport Beach, about 60 miles south of Los Angeles.
Svetlana Novikova, 29, began her human brokerage house
four years ago. Her company is one of the most expensive.
Men are charged a $2,500 membership fee which allows them
to see videos and photographs. A trip to St. Petersburg,
where men can meet as many as 10 women a day -- including
the student on the bridge -- can cost another $2,500.
Like many of her colleagues, Novikova says she doesn’t
keep track of her clients’ marriages or divorces. She says
she doesn’t know how many clients she has. ``We provide
our services to very serious people who want a very
serious relationship,’’ she said. Newport Beach salesman
Aldo Almodovar, 28, traveled to St. Petersburg this month
on one of her package tours. ``I’m just basically going
to have a good time,’’ he said before departure. ``I’ve
never been to Russia before and the girls are gorgeous. ‘’ Paul and Galina Finkelman of Huntington Beach, Calif.,
were married four months ago. They met last December in
Moscow, where she had graduated medical school and he had
come looking for a wife. Both were clients of
Russian-American Matchmakers, a Virginia-based service
started by an American who found his own wife through a
mail-order bride service. Finkelman, 41, said he had
tired of American women who ``seem interested in only one
thing -- how big is your bank account.’’ Mrs. Finkelman,
27, said she was weary of alcoholism. ``The problem with
Russian men is that they drink vodka,’’ she said. ``It’s
not good, you know.’’ He proposed on their third date.
She knew some English. He knew no Russian. ``Language is
not a problem. I understand her,’’ said Finkelman, who is
studying to become a computer programmer. ``Look, I know
it’s kind of weird. Life is a crapshoot. You just have to
be in that space where you’re ready to make that
commitment,’’ he said. In 1996 Mark Amspoker met a Moscow
doctor 14 years his junior through a matchmaking service,
proposed to her a week later, and married her last year.
Although he found a wife, the 44-year-old technology
writer didn’t like the service he used. So he started his
own. Since opening last year, Russian-American
Matchmakers has signed 60 male clients, each paying $1,500
in membership fees. The agency lists about 350 women and
claims seven marriages. Most agencies charge women a
small fee of about $20. Amspoker says he wants his
countrymen to discover what he did. ``I went to Russia
and I could feel close to these women. I could connect
with them,’’ he said. American women, he complained,
``just don’t seem to have time to think of settling down
and having a family.’’ Like other matchmakers, Amspoker
doesn’t discuss safe sex or HIV testing. ``I don’t get
into the personal details,’’ he says. ``We have this
membership fee that is fairly stiff and it filters out the
fellows who aren’t serious.’’ Amspoker says he welcomes
industry regulations. He has heard stories of Russian
women being sold into prostitution and has often listened
to men complain they were cheated by matchmaking
services. ``I think this business has always attracted
not the best people,’’ Amspoker said. ``It’s so easy to
dangle sex in front of a man and get him all excited and
take his money.’’
