Ukrainian marriage agency – Why are the Russian girls looking for a husband abroad?

A Yahoo search for a “Ukraine marriage agency” yields over 1,250,000 results. Let us be frank: these are the surprising results for an FSU country. Ukraine was locked away from the rest of the world for a long period of time and has finally gained its independence 16 years ago, opening great prospectives to cooperation with foreign counties. Ukraine is still a young country, so any way this effect is unexpected. What is the reason for this business to flourish in the FSU countries within the last few years? Are women of these countries hunting rich husbands? Are they raking around for an unforgettable short-term romance? Or do they just want something more profound like true love relationships and someone to make them happy?

Lucky for me, when these questions began swarming in my head, a good girlfriend of mine, who has lived in Italy for a number of years, was in town to visit her family. So, instead of digging through piles of statistics and wracking my brain to get the information so interesting for me, I contacted her and loaded her brain with all the...