A Friend's Experience Marrying a Russian Mail-Order Bride

In December 1992 a good friend of mine - we'll call him Bob - culminated 18 months of a pen-pal relationship with a Russian mail-order bride, when he agreed to meet the girl somewhere on the Polish border and bring her back to Italy with him. It was just "Phase I" of his plan. In Italy he would process the paperwork to get her a visa back to United States. And they'd all live happily ever after. That he'd already sent her in the neighborhood of $8,000.00 dollars up to that point, is just a coincidence. Anyway, for all I know he may still be waiting for her, because I don't believe she ever showed up.

Bob may be an exception and not the rule, but I doubt it. There are probably hundreds of men - maybe more - who get bilked out of money or suckered into the false pretense of marriage with a Russian mail-order bride or a woman from one of a dozen other countries. Now there may well be dozens of Russian women who actually want to marry a well-to-do westerner, but statistics don't bear this out. The majority of women who pose as mail-order brides could probably care less about developing a meaningful relationship. Many of these girls are looking for a green card or at the very least searching for an opportunity to bring the rest of their extended families back to the United States, Canada or Australia.

Mail-order brides were big business back in the 18th and 19th century. Lots of women not - not just the Russian ones - were swayed to come to the United States only to find themselves in a covered wagon heading out to the still-undiscovered West. The locations may have changed a bit over the last 200 years but the business proposition is still as valid (well, as valid as a mail order contract can be anyway) as it was at the turn-of-the-century.

The Russian mail-order bride business is just an off-shoot of the Russian female pen pal business. Which is a distant cousin of the Ukraine girl pen pal business and who knows how many other nationalities. These pen pal agencies are not for free. They can cost anywhere from $50.00 to a $100.00 dollars or more. They serve a purpose, as many create the first contact with the mail-order bride and the potential husband.

Many of these meet and greet agencies will offer package deals. For example, for a specific price the agency will send client photos of 5 or 6 girls. Then the agency will coordinate a face-to-face meeting and an opportunity to meet the nice girl's parents. One-stop shopping if ever there was one. The agency may even offer services that will acquire a visa for the woman of your dreams. It all costs money. And the dollars add up.

Apparently someone out there is doing more than just writing these girls letters, because the mail-order bride business is bigger than ever. There are quite a few middle-aged, overweight businessmen out there who are taken with the idea of a girl will dote over them and cater to their every whim. The face-to-face package tours pull in hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Many times, these are thinly veiled prostitution scams. And often the scam takes a turn for the worse. My friend Bob never made it to Russia to meet his future wife or her parents. He pinned his dreams on a photograph and bi-weekly letters that may not have even been written by Bob's potential Russian bride. But he got hooked. Promises of a devoted wife, someone who will cook and iron and provide sex every day or week or whenever was all it took. And oh by the way - can you send me $100.00 dollars to help by groceries for my family. Or perhaps it was money to pay for a doctor for the girl's sick grandmother. The excuses for money added up as quickly as the wire transfers themselves.

At the end of the day what did Bob and many other scam victims have to show for it? A long wait in a rental car at some non-descript point on the Polish border or worse. Waiting for a girl who never showed or may never have existed in the first place.