Which of These Beautiful Ukrainians Wants to Marry You?

[Larry1]

That's the title of a recent slate.com article that might be of interest to some of you:

Ukrainian women are often considered the most beautiful in the world. Even Joe Biden thinks so.

While working in the Ukraine last June, photographer Julie David De Lossy started hearing about Nikolaev, a city known for having the highest concentration of beautiful women in the entire country.

When she arrived in town with her boyfriend, photographer Colin Delfosse, she understood the rumors. There were beautiful women everywhere.

"It is really impressive when you walk in the main street of this town and you have the feeling a super posh party is about to start, but it’s only 10 a.m.," David De Lossy said via email.

But there was also something she didn't expect: wedding agencies—she estimated more than 200 based in one town.

For their series, “My Ukrainian Wedding,” the Brussels-based pair sought to challenge stereotypes about the women who enlist with the agencies by creating diptychs of two women—one from an agency, one not—and letting viewers differentiate between the two.

They contacted dozens of agencies looking for subjects, and were mostly met with suspicion. Finally, two agencies trusted them enough to put them in contact with women who agreed to have their photos taken. For the other half of the diptych, the pair approached women on the main street in town at random.

“Because we are a couple, I think they felt comfortable. Not everyone we asked agreed, of course, but most of them did. They are very proud of their appearance, and it is mostly justified! Usually girls walk down the street in teams, so we split the duty. Colin photographed one, while I did the other,” David De Lossy said.

As they worked, they learned more about Nikolaev’s history. Based on a tributary river of the Dniepr, the town was a large shipbuilding center during the Soviet era. After the USSR collapsed, industry sank, and workers found themselves with few employment alternatives. Many of the men moved to nearby Odessa seeking work.

But David De Lossy said the town has plenty to offer. There are several universities, and a number of the young women in Nikolaev are educated there.

“The girls get a good education … but have almost no prospect of finding a husband. So they look abroad,” David De Lossy said.

David De Lossy said that women enrolled in the agencies are generally looking to be matched with men in Western countries. But many don’t advertise their involvement in the agencies to avoid unflattering comparisons to prostitution. As online international dating sites begin to saturate the market, that stigma could begin to lessen.

But David De Lossy says while many women in the agencies may indeed be looking for a way out of the Ukraine and a more stable financial life, there's no single motivation that can be attributed to all the women. However, she found that many of the ones she talked to wanted to fight the impression that they were gold diggers. “[While some women] pretend to be in love, take as much as they can— visa, wedding, money—and suddenly, 'Sorry, but I am not in love anymore, darling.' ” That’s far from universally true. Some brides feel that this stereotype “undermines the sincerity of their will to find true Western love."

http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2013/04/10/julie_david_de_lossy_and_colin_delfosse_my_ukrainian_wedding_looks_at_the.html

The article contains an assortment of pics of the girls.  I attached just this:

[Strider]

So 200 marriage agencies, (I don't believe this number for one city.  The whole country, maybe.)  but only two that actually had girls willing to meet the reporters.  That leaves 198 agencies for women who are getting commissions for answering pay per letter emails.  I was in Kherson, which isn't that far from Nikolaev, last October and there were only two agencies (I think.  I only visited KG) there that I could walk in and talk to the staff.  The offices for others that I found online, only a few, where in communist era apartment buildings and no one would answer the bell or respond to an email.

These girls in Nikolaev may well be looking for a husband, but that doesn't mean that they aren't also making money from writing a lot of emails!

[Shadow]

You forget that there are many wedding agencies that are not interested in foreign clients.

[Strider]

Not all are interested in Western clients now perhaps, but wealthy Russians looking to marry Ukrainian girls are foreigners too.  At the peak of the interest in marrying Westerners, there were only a handful of marriage agencies in Kiev.  The number of 200 marriage agencies actually in Nikolaev is incredible, but if you were to do an Internet search for "marriage agency + Nikolaev" it would lead to the illusion of more agencies than are actually there.  So using the number 200 makes a more dramatic story.   That doesn't make it true.

You forget that there are many wedding agencies that are not interested in foreign clients.

[Shadow]

Not all are interested in Western clients now perhaps, but wealthy Russians looking to marry Ukrainian girls are foreigners too.  At the peak of the interest in marrying Westerners, there were only a handful of marriage agencies in Kiev.  The number of 200 marriage agencies actually in Nikolaev is incredible, but if you were to do an Internet search for "marriage agency + Nikolaev" it would lead to the illusion of more agencies than are actually there.  So using the number 200 makes a more dramatic story.   That doesn't make it true.

However a large amount of the marriage agencies are not on the internet. There are a large number of small-scale operation that represent the women rather than oposite.