They drove it mainly in the American direction: US immigration law, for all its harshness, is more loyal to those arriving for permanent residence than European law. Over the past 12 years, according to the US Department of Justice, more than 100 thousand residents of CIS countries have left there on fiancée visas. The same number of women, according to experts' estimates, immigrated on other types of visas, but ultimately with the same goal.
It is believed that demand for "Russian" brides on the part of Western, so to speak, consumers was to a certain extent shaped by beauty contests. They created among American grooms a fashion for "Russian" appearance, replacing the fashion for "colored" appearance - previously Filipinas and other Asian women were especially popular in the USA. If you study any wedding portal, it also becomes clear that in addition to external data, Russian women were favorably distinguished by their family orientation.
Now that life in our country has become somewhat more prosperous than ten years ago, the motivation of women leaving abroad in search of a groom has changed. According to Olga Makhovskaya, executive director of the program for social and psychological support of migrant families, the main reason for the desire of our compatriots to marry abroad is the crisis of the domestic family model. However, whatever the motivation, the set of problems pursuing Russian brides abroad has remained the same.
The first danger for those wishing to marry a foreigner is related to marriage agencies. Olga Makhovskaya, referred to by Izvestia, says: about 600 marriage Internet agencies on the American side and about 200 on ours currently specialize in the "Russian assortment." The average age of Russian brides is 19.5 years, that is, girls without education and profession go to distant countries in search of their other half.
It is quite logical that the problem of marriage migration is closely connected with the problem of trafficking in women - one can imagine how young and not sufficiently educated girls are able to defend their rights when they find themselves abroad in a difficult situation. Of course, people more often end up in dens of vice when they go abroad to earn money as dancers or nannies. However, as Olga Makhovskaya rightly notes, "a marriage agent differs from a pimp only in that he places a woman not as a prostitute, but as a kept woman - and for many women this is the ultimate dream." Those who dream so, obviously, are easier to tempt.
The second danger is related to grooms. Among Americans wishing to marry Russians, there are quite a lot of divorced men aged 40 and older - that is, people who, to say the least, have not succeeded as head of the family. In recent years, both American and Russian newspapers from time to time publish heartbreaking stories about female citizens of the former republics of the former USSR who, to put it mildly, were unlucky in such marriages. Some are beaten by their husbands, some are deprived of the opportunity to see their child, and some are even killed, after which the corpse is buried in the forest.
Agencies, as a rule, do not inform their clients who wish to marry a foreigner about the grooms' bad background - it is unprofitable. In Washington State, for example, a law was recently passed according to which marriage agencies are obliged to inform potential brides in their native language that they have the right to demand from their grooms an official document on the existence of a criminal record and previous marriages with foreign women - precisely because of the increasing cases of a criminal nature with emigrant brides.
The third danger lies in the women themselves who dream of marrying a foreigner. Within two years, up to 90% of marriages concluded through agencies fall apart, mainly on the initiative of women. They are not stopped even by having a child: our women are accustomed to the tradition of raising children alone. In fact, this turns into big problems. If, after divorcing her husband, a woman wants to return to her homeland, she is usually not allowed to take the child out. Western legislation tries to ensure men equal rights with women to the younger generation. The only way to leave the child with the mother is a court. But our women lose these cases very quickly: they have no legal consciousness, but they have a desire to put psychological pressure on the judge with hysterics and tears, explains Makhovskaya. This, as a rule, gives the opposite result to the expected.
Moreover, our women are so constituted that they are unlikely, armed with protective American laws, to demand an official biography from suitors. It is not customary for us to ask future grooms about a criminal record. Well, the desire to become a kept woman of a rich (by local standards) American is also a reality, no matter what arguments it is covered with. As well as the desire to use a spouse as a "means of transportation" to a country more pleasant for life.
Actually, there is nothing reprehensible in improving living conditions. It is just that the methods for this are often chosen unsafe. Of course, marrying a foreigner found on the Internet and then having no worries at all - that is a beautiful dream, a little naive and quite in the national, damn it, spirit. Like a self-propelled stove, seven-league boots, and a pike that grants wishes. Only such phenomena are more often found in folk tales than in the States.
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