邮件媒人为俄罗斯，乌克兰女子成为美国新娘做嫁衣

Mail-Order Matchmaker Pairs Russian and Ukrainian Brides with U.S. Spouses¹

邮件媒人为俄罗斯，乌克兰女子成为美国新娘做嫁衣

 

Arranging the courtship and marriage of two eligible² singles is an ancient custom commonly known as matchmaking. Today on New American Voices you meet Natasha Spivack, a modern-day matchmaker who arranges marriages between American men and Russian and Ukrainian women.

 

Natasha Spivack, a tall, statuesque blonde, works out of a cramped³ apartment in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. The shelves in her small living room-office are lined with photo albums filled with pictures of the 300 or so couples that she has brought together. Ms. Spivack says her mail-order matchmaking business, Encounters International, grew out of her own experiences, and her own misfortune. Not long after she immigrated⁴ to the United States from Russia with her family in 1985, her husband was killed in an automobile⁵ accident.

 

Natasha Spivack: All of a sudden I found myself single, a single mom, with little children, in a different country, with a different language, and without any support around. And I guess I went through the roller-coaster of all kinds of experiences, trying to establish myself here as a professional, as a breadwinner, and as a person who wanted to have a role model for my children and a lifetime partner for myself.

 

For several years, Ms. Spivack, a linguist⁶ by training, supported herself and her two young sons by teaching Russian at a local university. She married for a second time. But on a visit to Russia she was struck by how miserable⁷ and lonely some of her former girlfriends were. That sparked an inspiration: a matchmaking service that would bring these women together with American men.

 

Natasha Spivack: Primarily I know that women by definition are looking for stability. For many American men, family is sacred. So American men can provide Russian women the stability, the stability for them as women, for their children, for their future children - so that's probably what Russian women appreciate the most in such marriages.

 

As for the American men who are her clients, Ms. Spivack says they generally fall into four categories.

 

Natasha Spivack: One group, these are men who are divorced, who have been married all their lives and basically lost their dating skills. They're used to family life and they want to continue that. The second group of men are never married, they're probably in their late forties, early fifties. They are very picky. They probably are not married because all their lives they had this ideal, dreaming of somebody that they never found, and now they're trying Encounters International as something different. Typically, we find the woman of their dreams. And these are the happiest men, because if we cannot find [a match], nobody can find it for them.

 

Another group of clients are men who have Slavic roots, and are seeking a Russian or Ukrainian wife as a way of re-connecting with their heritage and culture. The final group includes what Ms. Spivack calls the neediest men - the hardship cases, men who are either handicapped or scarred or deformed⁸. Natasha Spivack says she has been able to find matches for all her clients, no matter what their situation. And the divorce rate among her former clients is about 13 percent - as she points out, considerably⁹ lower than the divorce rate for the United States in general. Most of the divorces happen because of unrealistic expectations, she says. She herself is very clear-eyed about the matches she arranges.

 

Natasha Spivack: I try my best to really be a matchmaker, try to match people as best as I can, but very often, you know, people just want to ignore my advice. Say, if the age difference is huge, then there should be some motivating factor for the woman to marry a man. Typically, it's money. Why would a young, beautiful woman love to marry a very old person?  Well, because he can provide for her a very good life. If this man believes that she is in love with him, then he deceives himself. He just needs to be in touch with reality. So if the woman comes, and he withdraws money from her, and says, 'No, go to work, I'm not going to give you a good life,' then it is like a broken expectation, a broken agreement.

 

Encounters International has offices in Moscow, Yaroslavl - a smaller city in Russia, and Kiev, Ukraine. For the women who sign up, Natasha Spivack's matchmaking services are free. The men pay eighteen hundred dollars, and receive the address of a woman whose photos - and sometimes video - they can view on the Internet.

 

The couple is obliged to correspond, with at least five letters per month. If the relationship clicks, the man usually pays around three thousand dollars for a trip to Russia or Ukraine to meet his prospective¹⁰ bride, so that she can apply for a 90-day so-called fiancée visa to visit the United States. During this 3-month stay, Ms. Spivack provides informal counseling, if needed -- especially to the women, as they try to cope with unfamiliar¹¹ and sometimes bewildering circumstances. But after the couples are married, she avoids getting involved.

 

Natasha Spivack: That's their life. That's their life. I brought them together, but they're adults, let them live their own lives. Still, on the last Saturday of every month, Ms. Spivack holds a social for all her clients, at which they can mingle¹² and share their unique experiences as mail-order couples, and re-connect with the woman who brought them together.

 

New American Voices, I’m Oksana Dragan.

 

注释：

courtship [5kC:tFIp] n. 求爱

statuesque [7stAtju5esk] adj. 轮廓清晰的

inspiration [7inspE5reiFEn] n. 灵感

handicapped [5hAndikApt] adj. 残废的

considerably [kEn5sidErEbEli] adv. 相当地

bewildering [bi5wildEriN] adj. 令人困惑的

1 spouses   

n.配偶，夫或妻( spouse的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Jobs are available for spouses on campus and in the community. 校园里和社区里有配偶可做的工作。 来自辞典例句
• An astonishing number of spouses-most particularly in the upper-income brackets-have no close notion of their husbands'paychecks. 相当大一部分妇女——特别在高收入阶层——并不很了解他们丈夫的薪金。 来自辞典例句

2 eligible   

adj.有条件被选中的；(尤指婚姻等)合适(意)的

参考例句：

• He is an eligible young man.他是一个合格的年轻人。
• Helen married an eligible bachelor.海伦嫁给了一个中意的单身汉。

3 cramped   

a.狭窄的

参考例句：

• The house was terribly small and cramped, but the agent described it as a bijou residence. 房子十分狭小拥挤，但经纪人却把它说成是小巧别致的住宅。
• working in cramped conditions 在拥挤的环境里工作

4 immigrated   

v.移入( immigrate的过去式和过去分词 )；移民

参考例句：

• He immigrated from Ulster in 1848. 他1848年从阿尔斯特移民到这里。 来自辞典例句
• Many Pakistanis have immigrated to Britain. 许多巴基斯坦人移居到了英国。 来自辞典例句

5 automobile   

n.汽车，机动车

参考例句：

• He is repairing the brake lever of an automobile.他正在修理汽车的刹车杆。
• The automobile slowed down to go around the curves in the road.汽车在路上转弯时放慢了速度。

6 linguist   

n.语言学家；精通数种外国语言者

参考例句：

• I used to be a linguist till I become a writer.过去我是个语言学家，后来成了作家。
• Professor Cui has a high reputation as a linguist.崔教授作为语言学家名声很高。

7 miserable   

adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的

参考例句：

• It was miserable of you to make fun of him.你取笑他，这是可耻的。
• Her past life was miserable.她过去的生活很苦。

8 deformed   

adj.畸形的；变形的；丑的，破相了的

参考例句：

• He was born with a deformed right leg.他出生时右腿畸形。
• His body was deformed by leprosy.他的身体因为麻风病变形了。

9 considerably   

adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上

参考例句：

• The economic situation has changed considerably.经济形势已发生了相当大的变化。
• The gap has narrowed considerably.分歧大大缩小了。

10 prospective   

adj.预期的，未来的，前瞻性的

参考例句：

• The story should act as a warning to other prospective buyers.这篇报道应该对其他潜在的购买者起到警示作用。
• They have all these great activities for prospective freshmen.这会举办各种各样的活动来招待未来的新人。

11 unfamiliar   

adj.陌生的，不熟悉的

参考例句：

• I am unfamiliar with the place and the people here.我在这儿人地生疏。
• The man seemed unfamiliar to me.这人很面生。

12 mingle   

vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往

参考例句：

• If we mingle with the crowd,we should not be noticed.如果我们混在人群中，就不会被注意到。
• Oil will not mingle with water.油和水不相融。