GSGP Spring Conference, 6-9 April 2010Clare College, Cambridge University

Ekaterina Bartik, MPhil Candidate Department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen

* Some updates included

Marriage migration – one of the migration flows among others, fuelled by many factors, least but not last, by the imbalances in sex ratio, especially in largest Russia’s cities (23.4 per cent more women than men in St.-Petersburg; 10% per cent – in Ekaterinburg).

vs. Simplistic explanations: impoverished women

exploited by the industry of matchmaking organisations and, subsequently, - by the men (Constable, 2009);

Started en-masse shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, after “exit visas” were banned in 1993;

Destinations: settler societies: the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; a number of Western European countries, i. e. Germany, France, Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Denmark; Northern Europe: Norway, Finland, Sweden; United Arab Emirates, Turkey, South Africa and others;

Facilitated by the international matchmaking organisations, which function on a transnational scale. One variant is a ‘’tandem’’ consisting of an agency in a sending country and an affiliated organisation located in a receiving country (often a family business, it is).

Both from remote areas and central Russian cities; Poorer women from provincial Russia (cf. Luehrmann, 2004; Johnson, 2007);

The ages: the most numerous groups: 25-30, 30-35;(Younger women in the international segment of the Russian marriage market).

Middle-class (including lower middle-class) occupations;

75,5% - with higher education;

Russia and FSU countries – mostly self-identified ethnic Russians;

50 per cent had 1 child; half – childless;

Source: analysis of a Moscow-based international matchmaking website.

Research subject: the phenomenon of marriage migration in and out of Russia since the early 1990s, based on the analysis of the functioning of the matrimonial bureaux in St.-Petersburg (the “cultural capital”), and Ekaterinburg (“the industrial stronghold of the country” – «опорный край державы»); as well as the marriages, created as an outcome of migration: Manchester, UK.

Research methods: participant observation, interviews, analysis of documents;

In Ekaterinburg (population 1,350.355; ageing) women outnumbered men at 10 per cent in 2008;

In St.-Petersburg (population over 5, 000.000, ageing) there were 23.4 per cent more women than men in 2008;

In Sverdlovskaya oblast’ (population over 3,500.000) the number of men decreases starting from 30 y. o. ◦ There are around 300,000 men and women aged 30-35 in the region; at this age there

are 3,000 more women than men (10%); ◦ 35-40: 7,000 more women than men◦ 40-45: 11,000 more women than men◦ 45-50: 27,000 more women than men

In rural areas of the Sverdlovsk region women start to outnumber men at the age of 40-45;

Conclusion: the reasons of such an enormous gender imbalance are the division of labour in Russia inheriting the system of settlement adopted in the Soviet Union, i.e. Around the production sites, often segregated by sex (Kotlyar, 1972), where women have been employed in the modernised sectors of the economy, predominantly in the large and the largest cities of the country, while men – in heavy industries, building, transportation, as well as defense, many of them in unhealthy work conditions; the second reason is the work of the police and judiciary; the third – local wars.

First wave: 1917-1938: 3.5-4.0 million people;

Second wave: 1939-1947: 8.0-10.0 million;

Third wave: 1948-1990: 1.1 million;

Fourth wave: after 1990-2000: 1.1 million (Zajonchkovskaja, 2001).

The major countries of destination are: Germany, Israel, United States, Greece, Canada, Finland and others (Ibid.).

According to some estimates, the numbers of Russians living abroad account for 25 million in 43 countries.

(http://transcomm.ox.ac.uk/traces/iss16pg2.htm)

Function for over 20 years across Russia;

in 2012: 600 bureaux in the territory of the country (source – Internet topical search), app. 150 broker internationally;

The agencies are located in the largest, large and medium-sized cities of Russia (smaller towns do not have such services); border regions will more likely have both domestic and international MAs than the cities in the inner Russia;

Top four cities in Russia by the number of the bureaux: St.Petersburg (over 40), Moscow (over 20), Ekaterinburg and Omsk (7).

Broker on the local, national and international levels

Offer psychological and sexological counseling; arrange outings; “love-tours”, language lessons etc.;

Continuity between the Soviet Dating Services established in the 1970s on the wave of pronatalist campaign, and modern “marriage agencies”. The first Dating Service in the USSR was established in Sverdlovsk in 1979, by the collective (70% female) of the Patent Institute.

Sovereignty and non-intervention into each other’s internal affairs;

Free choice of a marriage partner - one of the basic human rights, declared in the Article 16 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights;

The ban on marriages to foreigners in the Soviet Union of 1947 was lifted in 1953 under the pressure from the United Nations.

Legislative control: ensuring security of the participants of cross-border marriage exchanges through combating forced marriage (in the UK) and avoiding possible abuse, which may occur as a result of power imbalance between the partners (the US);

Non-legislative control: in the UK and the US is usually delegated by the states to non-governmental organisations;

One third of all the immigrants during the decade from 1994 to 2004 have been granted leave to remain in the UK based on marriage;

The top five nationalities granted leave to enter the UK as a spouse or fiancé(e) in 2007 were Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, American and Thai;

In 2007, 490 women from Russia entered the UK as wives or fiancées (55 fiancés/husbands), followed by Turkey (435 wives/fiancées vs. 670 husbands/fiancés), Ukraine (315 wives/fiancées vs. 40 husbands/fiancés) and other countries of the former Soviet Union (260 wives/fiancées vs. 25 husbands/fiancés).

One third of all the immigrants during the decade from 1994 to 2004 have been granted leave to remain in the UK based on marriage;

The top five nationalities granted leave to enter the UK as a spouse or fiancé(e) in 2007 were Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, American and Thai;

In 2007, 490 women from Russia entered the UK as wives or fiancées (55 fiancés/husbands), followed by Turkey (435 wives/fiancées vs. 670 husbands/fiancés), Ukraine (315 wives/fiancées vs. 40 husbands/fiancés) and other countries of the former Soviet Union (260 wives/fiancées vs. 25 husbands/fiancés).

The integration is: 1) cheap, as the communities and/or

(potential) spouses take on them responsibility for these immigrants;

2) fast - because this group of immigrants have either already started a family or might be on their way to doing so, and many states continue to see marriage as a stabilising factor of migration as appears from their overall willingness to accept this category of migrants;

To explore the logic and dynamics of the movement of people between centres and peripheries of the global capitalist economy;

To reconstruct the symbolic meanings of the exchanges taking place in the matrimonial field both on the national and international scenes.

To reconstruct the meanings, ascribed to gender in the contemporary Russian society, in diachrony, based on the study, conducted in matrimonial bureaux in Ekaterinburg and St.-Petersburg, Russia (Strathern, 1988).