Editor’s Note: International marriage agencies in Kyiv connect men and women from different countries via webchats and Skype calls. However, on many websites, foreign men are communicating with seductive strangers hiding behind the photographs of a Ukrainian beauty. This Kyiv Post journalist went undercover as a translator for one such agency.
The website looks legitimate. The women are beautiful. And the money paid by male clients looking for a bride from Ukraine or Russia is paid in good faith.
But instead of chatting with, say, Olga, a sexy 25-year-old blonde from Kyiv, clients of international dating websites may be, in reality, talking to Oleg, a bearded 21-year-old computer science student who’s impersonating their dream girl for $200 a month.
The scheme is simple – male clients from the United States, Australia or Europe pay 10-12 cents per 10 minutes of online chat and $1.50 for a personal letter to an international dating website to link up with a gorgeous woman whom clients believe is a prospect for romance and marriage.
But all too often the person replying to the heterosexual male seeking love is a translator, sometimes a male one, operating the profile of a real woman. Worse than that, the chances are the translator is “cheating” on their client already, typing sweet nothings to a dozen other men at the same time.
The internet can be a corrupt swamp for those looking for a soulmate. It pays to be skeptical of the pictures and messengers in online dating agencies. (pixabay.com)
A portion of the money male clients pay for chats is transferred at the end of every month from the international dating portals to the smaller dating websites located in Ukraine that have provided them with verified profiles of real women.
One profile of a young beauty can earn $600-$2,000 per month, and the translator gets 40 percent of the earnings from each profile they operate.
Lucky Marriage agency is one such matchmaking company, connecting foreign men with Ukrainian women who want to get married, providing the profiles and photographs of real Ukrainian women to the international dating agencies.
It has no website, but is always searching for professional translators. Numerous job offers for the agency can be found on Ukrainian headhunting websites.
A Kyiv Post reporter attended a job interview day on Sept. 23 at the Lucky Marriage office, located in a renovated apartment on the first floor of an old building in the center of Kyiv, along with eight more job seekers – three of whom were young men. The job is popular among students and freelancers because of the flexible working schedule, the chance to improve one’s English skills and the relatively high wages.
Ivan Yakovenko, the Lucky Marriage agency administrator told the undercover Kyiv Post reporter during the job interview that from the end of 2013 the dating business was extremely quiet, as many foreigners were afraid to come to Kyiv to meet with brides because of the EuroMaidan street protests. But since 2015 the situation has been improving, and many more foreigners are coming to Ukraine to meet women.
According to Yakovenko, the capital’s marriage agencies expect a good year in 2017, as Kyiv is hosting the Eurovision Song Contest, which should bring not just new tourists and music, but also lots of wealthy foreign bride seekers.
And Yakovenko said that with the start of Russia’s war in the Donbas, more women were registering their profiles with the dating agencies in the hope of getting married to a foreigner and leaving Ukraine.
The Kyiv Post contacted a Lucky Marriage representative for an official response, but the agency refused comment.
Professional flirting
The job of marriage website translator has strict rules and a lot of duties, and administrators monitor the language and topics visitors discuss online. The word “sex” and explicit language may not be used by the translators, at the risk of incurring fines. Translators must chat with as many men as possible; a special spam program helps them send letters to dozens and dozens of men inviting them to chat.
Yakovenko said that, according to the rules of dating portals, the woman is obliged to chat with her admirer by herself, but female clients have no time to spend 4-6 hours at night chatting with potential grooms. Furthermore, although they want to marry a foreigner, many of them don’t have good enough language skills to chat to potential marriage partners.
The male clients, who are usually from 20 to 40 years older than an average woman, have a wide range of potential chat partners. So translators must work hard to attract a male client’s attention and maintain their interest for as long as possible, being flirtatious and seductive, so that the men spend more money on the paid chat. Time is money, said Yakovenko.
NEWS ITEM: Anybody who blindly trusts dating agencies is making a mistake, as a Kyiv Post journalist discovered when working undercover for one online agency. (Courtesy)
Asked if it is hard for heterosexual men to flirt with other men while pretending to be a woman, Yakovenko said this was not a problem. Every translator is given the chance to take a free course in professional online flirting, he said.
As part of their selection process, translators take a special imagination test – they have to create a fake personality, describe her looks and character, write a fake biography and be able to explain why they have decided to search for a husband abroad, and how they can impress older and more experienced men.
If translators pass the test, the agency invites the candidate to work for a week on probation, during which the translator has to earn a minimum of $50 from the paid online chat.
If a male client decides he wants to meet in person with the woman with whom he believes he has been chatting, the woman who owns the profile is obliged to attend at least one date. The man pays the agency between $300 and $500 for the date, and he will have to pay for travel to Ukraine, as well as accommodation. This can run to thousands of dollars.
Love is possible
Nataliya Koval, the owner of the international matchmaking company MarriageByNatalie, which, she says, does not use translators, instead connecting clients directly via Skype video chats, told the Kyiv Post that since 2014 her female clients base had increased by 25 percent.
“But I would not connect this fact with women’s desire to move from Ukraine. Most likely it is related to the fact that Ukraine has become more open to the Western world,” said Koval.
Koval said happy marriages between web lovers do happen. According to MarriageByNatalie statistics, every year from five to seven couples who met via the agency get married.
An experienced matchmaker, Koval said foreigners usually pick Ukrainian women because they are in general more feminine than Western women.
“In the West women are too independent, they don’t want to be protected, and they are more social climbers,” Koval said.
“Our women are more old-fashioned – they don’t mind being wives and home keepers.”
In turn, Ukrainian women look for husbands from abroad for a range of reasons, such as the desire to have better and secure life in a new country, and have a new start in life.
Koval says she tries to be honest with her clients, and encourage them to be realistic about their expectations.
“I once had a 65-year-old male client who came to me in search of a 25-year-old wife,” she recalls.“He wanted her to be able to give birth to at least three children. I asked him what he could offer to such girl with his $35,000 yearly income. His answer was ‘personality and love.’”
However, Koval said it is possible to find a wife through a marriage agency, but the man must be careful. To make sure that he is actually communicating with the woman pictured in a profile, a man should not use web chat, but arrange a video meeting via Skype.
Koval also said that more and more of her website’s male clients are choosing older women, from 30 to 35 years old.
The average age disparity in a couple is 5-13 years. For a face-to-face meeting, Koval’s agency charges men 150 euros.
“I’m very glad that foreigners have finally realized that Ukrainian women are not fancy toys. This is an investment in their future family, with a beautiful mother.”
