For Better or for Worse


Moscow Wedding Palace Number 4 is the only agency in Moscow that registers marriages between Russian citizens and foreigners. We recently spoke to the director, K. Bruyeva:


"The overwhelming majority of Russians marrying foreigners are women, and virtually all of them emigrate. While in Soviet times most of the husbands were from the former socialist countries, now they are usually Americans who come here through international match-making services.


"I have noticed that many of our beautiful women are not drawn abroad by love, but by the prospect of money. It is just terrible to see these brides communicating with gestures to their husbands, not even bothering to begin learning the husband's language.


"Of course, there are all kinds of cases. I remember one woman who was about 60 who came in to arrange for her marriage to an Italian. It was obvious that she was no aristocrat, but when she came in with her fiance the second time I was surprised to see that she spoke Italian pretty well and that they were taking the matter seriously.


"But the majority of these brides really surprise me. They don't even try to hide their main goal -- getting out at any cost. For example, one American found his bride through a service. She was young and beautiful. Later he sent me a letter. He said that he had fulfilled all her desires: He had taken her on a Mediterranean cruise and bought her everything she wanted. But she did not appreciate this and was constantly fighting with his relatives. He said he had already filed for divorce.


I remember another interesting couple. The bride was 25 years old and the groom was at least 40 years older. Whenever nothing was happening, he would literally doze off on his bride's shoulder.


These marriages with foreigners are like commercial deals. And most often the price of such deals is counted in broken lives."


Moskovskaya Pravda, Nov. 23