You're reading: Business of love takes off for many Ukraine agencies

Despite an economically lackluster 2012 and 2013 starting in recession, one industry continues to buck the trend.

The business of love is booming in Ukraine. Marriage agencies here are seeing increases in income, foreign male clients and single women eager to meet them.

Anna Chernenko, owner of Annabel Marriage Agency in Kyiv, said that since starting her agency in 2002, business has been steady, although in the past year or so she’s seen an uptick in men and women coming to her for help in finding a partner.

“I’m not fearing for my business right now,” she said. “We are busier than the last years.”

Natasha Kotlyarenko, who owns and operates Kiev Encounter Marriage Agency, said she doesn’t like to think of her business in terms of numbers, but agreed that these are good times for matchmakers.

After cutting her chops in the ‘90s, working for then-marriage agency giant European Connections, Kotlyarenko set out on her own in 2006. She owes much of her success, she said, to the proliferation of the Internet.



While the Ukrainian economy has sunk back into a recession, the business of love is booming, with dating services around the country, but in Kyiv especially, seeing increases in memberships and income (Dreamstime.com).

“In the ‘90s we would create catalogues with the girls’ photos and information in them, and then we would send them in the mail to men (in America and Europe),” she said. “It would take three weeks to send them, and another three weeks for them to respond with a list of women they liked.”

Besides the increase in Internet users, Chernenko said advertisements, which she hadn’t used until last year, might also account for the increase in business.

Another reason for the popularity of such services could be the West’s recovering economy.

Couples hunkered down and endured relationship problems during the global financial crisis of 2008-09, divorcing at rates slower than in years past.  Now, however, with things looking up, divorce rates are on the rise. That means the number of single men are, too.

Economic prospects in Ukraine, however, are still dim, which might explain the number of single women looking for men elsewhere. That, and the fact that the ratio of males to females here is .92 men for every one woman between the ages of 15 and 64, according to the State Statistics Committee of Ukraine.

Chernenko’s Annabel Marriage Agency, unlike many dating services, does not offer pen pal services, group social events or Skype dates between foreign men and prospective female partners, but instead charges men $100 for a six-month membership on AnnabelDate.com to view profiles of young Ukrainian women and “help meet your destiny.”

Kotlyarenko didn’t disclose the prices of her services.

Chernenko said she helps more than a dozen male clients on average each month, the majority of whom hail from America and Europe.

Chernenko admits that her $100 membership fee is less expensive than most agencies, but she prefers to keep her operation on the small and personable side. This also helps convince foreign men that her business is a legitimate one, she said. “They believe they can trust me, because I am not asking for a lot of money, like other (Internet dating services).”

That’s a point Kotlyarenko reiterated.

“Smaller is better,” she said. “When it is only me (connecting the men to prospective female partners and not many people), they will know it is an honest company.”

Online marriage agencies in Ukraine, which came about shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but grew significantly with the rise of Internet access in Eastern Europe in the past decade, have often been called mail-order-bride businesses and thought to be highly exploitative.

Despite the apprehension by many toward such businesses, it seems the Internet, trying economic times and online dating is a match made in heaven.

Kyiv Post staff writer Christopher Miller can be reached at [email protected]