Mail Order Bride Syndrome

[kievstar]

Boethius, come clean you never go to Ukraine and your husband was not treated as bad as you think.  Maybe the Internet is away for you to express your dreams and fantasies. 

Why would people I know claim to not be Jewish and said they did this - no benefit for anybody.  Regarding western sucker just admit your wrong and your husband does know not what goes on.  You husband seems to be a fool and would love to meet him to face to face if you want. I live Houston but will travel. 

[Boethius]

Yes, I do go to Ukraine, usually about 3 times a year, and it is usually related to business.  I have been once this year, likely will only be twice, as the economy is down.  In my office sits a picture with Kuchma, my clients, and our legal team signing a major contract, which is in place to today.  I also speak to relatives all the time.  Further, my husband, despite saying he would "never return" did go back last year.  We will see if he goes back again, as his visit was for personal reasons.

You have absolutely no clue how my husband, or my relatives, for that matter, lived, kiev.  The fact  you would even suggest it "couldn't be so bad" is evidence of your absolute cluelessness.  My husband's grandfather was arrested and he knows he was beaten daily.  He was supposed to be sent to a gulag.  Lucky for him, Stalin died.  He was under a gag order, as was my FIL, so we don't know exactly what happened.  My husband's father had the same fate.  My husband was arrested several times but, by that time, they needed real "evidence", which they didn't have.  I am not going to go into the times he was stopped by police for nothing, or how they always stole his money when they stopped him (he stopped carrying cash, only a ruble and a bus pass), or ripped a silver cross a friend made for him off his neck, or put him in dangerous situations, or what they asked him when he was sent for questioning by the KGB.  I remember very well the fear in his eyes, not for himself, but for what would happen to me.  He said he had tried to conform to their society, that he paid for it and in the end, decided he had to be true to himself, even if it meant death.  All of that before the age of 25.

You have zero knowledge of what life was like for someone who was viewed as from the "wrong class".  I have a relative, a peasant, who was jailed for nothing, and was raped daily by prison guards for 6 years.  My Godfather's family was deported to Siberia after WWII because he had been taken as a slave labourer.  There, at ages 10 and 12, they were forced to cut a certain quota of wood daily.  Failure to do so meant being beaten with one of those pieces of wood.  

I am not going to post specifics from many of my husband's stories because he does not wish me to do so.  But if I heard them, I would not believe many things, and I am fully aware of yes, how bad it was, under the commies.

I'm not going to start justifying myself, other than to say if you really understood Ukraine, you would know all these things.  You are a foreigner, with a limited understanding of the life that was around you.
  
Why would people lie?  Who knows? There is an American named Roman Zvarych who lied his way into a cabinet position in Ukraine.   There is a famous woman with a fake braid who denied her Jewish roots too.

Sorry, but they did take you as a sucker.  You evidently don't like being contradicted, and I do know what I am talking about.  I lived in a region that was then called "Zhovtevnoye".  It has since been renamed, but I won't bother going into the details.  No metro downtown, but two trolley buses, with a transfer directly across the street from the circus.  Perhaps one of your myriad contacts can confirm this for you.  

People lie for all sorts of reasons, kiev.  An astute business advisor would know this.  You were played for a fool and didn't even know it.

[tfcrew]

a study in the Russian press about six months ago that said 96% of such marriages end in divorce.

Conjecture, no one could possibly know this.
However, the realistic divorce rate is still sadly around 50%.
I believe there is a slightly better success rate for foreign national examples.

http://www.nyu.edu/classes/keefer/com/corm.html

http://www.stat-aholics.com/(S(uztqfam1iuvvj02z4kwptoa3))/people/divorce/divorce-rates-causes-stats.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

The success rate is dependent on many of the conditions found on the forums here...age differences, religious values, economic realities etc.

Most happily married men and married FSU women do not participate at forums like this. They are busy living their lives.

VisaJourney has some 66,300 active registered members and from time to time there are as many as 300 guests at RWD.
I feel pretty sure that most of these individuals have a life. 

[Markus]

Why would people I know claim to not be Jewish and said they did this - no benefit for anybody.  Regarding western sucker just admit your wrong and your husband does know not what goes on.  You husband seems to be a fool and would love to meet him to face to face if you want. I live Houston but will travel. 

kievstar,

Your reference to her husband as a fool is a somewhat overboard IMO. Usually when a person has no substance in a debate, personal attacks follow. After your fool comment you talk about
meeting him in person and willing to travel; Perhaps my interpretation is off base here, but this meeting doesn't have the tone of "Hey, how are you doing?" I would think a rebuttal to opinion would suffice.
I'm not a Jew physically, but I am a Jew inwardly (the words of Paul). If Obama doesn't mess up things, the Jews are our friends (in the U.S.).

Now, if people were "bribing", officials to "become" Jewish, they would have needed to bribe the individuals at the local passport office.  They would further have needed to bribe officials at the MVD (Министрство внутренних дел), which is at the republic level.  Then, they would have had to have bribed the OVIR officer who was going to process the exit visa, plus the staff at the OVIR office, and the OVIR officer who would sign off on the application.   They would have had to have bribed officials in Moscow who reviewed the internal passport and authorized the issuance of an international passport and the exit visa.  And all of this would have happened in a country were about half the population was informing on the other half, and where all those bureaucrats, in particular, held their lofty positions because they were among the very first to squeal on classmates and colleagues to prove fealty to the system.  The number of people who would have had to have been bribed, at a very conservative estimate, would have been no less than 20.  And all of those people would have had to have kept their mouths shut.  Each and every person receiving a cut of the pie would have had to have trusted every other person in the chain, believing none of those people would inform authorities of the bribe.  The consequences of being on the wrong end of the informant were far more serious than anything in the West, and it affected not only that individual, but his/her family.  Plus, the person paying the bribe was subject to a criminal code offence (violation of the passport regime).

Would not this bribe be possible? When money talks the answer is yes. AT the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I brought the 7-day waiting period to get the approval for marriage in
Russia to 15 minutes. I told them my problem and was able to pay for an expedited service. I realize my process was simpler but don't underestimate the mouths that can shut based upon
money. I cannot be explicit, but I know that knowing the right people can help a person circumvent what's obvious to everyone else.

I didn't see a smily that's says "back on topic" but perhaps we should have one.

This person called my wife a Mail Order Bride. Not me. This is what I was upset about. It was an insult to my wife. I could care less what he has to say to me. I know who I am. But to call any Woman a Mail Order Bride is an insult to them.
If you do not see it that way then that is your business.
But for you to claim it was towards me is false. I have yet to see the term BRIDE used to describe a Man. Maybe in some prison some Men have been called brides but I have yet to see that word used towards a Man in the free world.

Let's see, marriage to an MOB is forever I hope. I went this route and will be at 6 years marriage soon. I just went on a quick trip to Hawaii with my wife and I introduced my wife to people
I have never met before. I said she's from Russia. Not one person mentioned the MOB term. If they did, I would not have been offended. Perhaps the professionalism of the people I work
with kept that term coming up. Or, they could have been wondering how a dud like me could get such a beautiful woman. Maybe it's the beginning stages of marriage and possible insecurities of Raven that cause him to think a person is
insulting his wife. She probably doesn't even care. I would tend to believe, being married via the MOB process, that Raven doesn't know how to respond and then becomes angry. Marriage to
an MOB is forever so Raven has a choice of continual anger or he can learn to live with it. My hair has been receding for so long that I like the attention now when pointed out by workers that I have a "hair island."  In the beginning though, it bothered me. Perhaps Raven is experiencing the receding hairline syndrome and will mature beyond it soon.

[Boethius]

kievstar,

Your reference to her husband as a fool is a somewhat overboard IMO. Usually when a person has no substance in a debate, personal attacks follow. After your fool comment you talk about
meeting him in person and willing to travel; Perhaps my interpretation is off base here, but this meeting doesn't have the tone of "Hey, how are you doing?" I would think a rebuttal to opinion would suffice.
I'm not a Jew physically, but I am a Jew inwardly (the words of Paul). If Obama doesn't mess up things, the Jews are our friends (in the U.S.).

Would not this bribe be possible? When money talks the answer is yes. AT the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I brought the 7-day waiting period to get the approval for marriage in
Russia to 15 minutes. I told them my problem and was able to pay for an expedited service. I realize my process was simpler but don't underestimate the mouths that can shut based upon
money. I cannot be explicit, but I know that knowing the right people can help a person circumvent what's obvious to everyone else.

After the collapse of communism, sure.  But we were discussing the '80's.  This was impossible then.  Remember as well,  that when a citizen left the country, all their papers were examined in a sort of  "reverse" customs.  Even in 1990, when Yeltsin had exposed the secret stores/maids etc. for officials, and there had been attempts on his life (obvious to citizens), when I left the country, all my bags were torn apart.  My MIL had given me gold earrings which could not be taken out of the country.


I understand Raven's perspective.  I think a lot of it had to do with the context.

[Markus]

After the collapse of communism, sure.  But we were discussing the '80's.  This was impossible then.  Remember as well,  that when a citizen left the country, all their papers were examined in a sort of  "reverse" customs.  Even in 1990, when Yeltsin had exposed the secret stores/maids etc. for officials, and there had been attempts on his life (obvious to citizens), when I left the country, all my bags were torn apart.  My MIL had given me gold earrings which could not be taken out of the country.


I understand Raven's perspective.  I think a lot of it had to do with the context.

Good point on the 80s discussion. That was an oversight on my part. It's amazing though to see the difference on total government control versus a democracy. I'm sure you
could expound on the differences through experience and that would be some interesting reading if you ever decide to start a thread on that subject.

[Boethius]

That was the case until the collapse.  On the eve of his departure, my husband's work colleagues were very rosy about the future (all but one, besides him).  My husband told them exactly what would happen, and events have pretty much panned out the way he predicted.  I used to tease him, telling him he should be on CSIS's payroll.  Everything that has occurred is the result of where the society came from. 

[Boethius]

Rather than start a new thread, Markus, I'll give you a mix of my impressions and those of my husband.  

From a consumer perspective, there is absolutely no comparison.  There may be an inability to purchase things because of a lack of cash, and the service industry still has a Soviet mentality, but the goods are available in a way they were not, other than on the black market in the 1970's (at least in Kyiv, that may have been different elsewhere).

In terms of the society, those who were apparatchiks in Soviet times now control the societies.  In Ukraine, that means all the newly wealthy are former commies and they are all in some way related (not by blood, but friendship/former work relationships/etc.).  It is not an easy life for many of them.  My husband knows many personally, one, who I mentioned here, was the host of the dinner at which Yushchenko alleged he was poisoned (a lie), and he was murdered - eveyone at that dinner, other than Yushchenko, is now dead.  My husband also has a cousin who is part of those elite circles.  If you are travelling in those circles, IMHO, you are dealing with scum.  Unfortunately, those are exactly the people I deal with on files.  I always have an interpreter - comes in handy when they think you can't understand what they're saying.

The organs of repressioin are gone, but it is still in many respects a repressive society, it is just that the means of "repression" are different.