Even today, there are more than 100 official nationalities in Russia, and 27 languages are considered official languages.

All this mix has boiled in Slavic countries for centuries, and here is the result, a lovely combination of the East and the West: high cheekbones and round face, softness of lines, light skin, green or blue or gray eyes, and light or dark brown hair.

The majority of the women listed in the twentieth-century and twenty-first-century services are from Southeast Asia, countries of the former Eastern Bloc and (to a lesser extent) from Latin America.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union large numbers of eastern European women have advertised themselves in such a way, primarily from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova.

Men who list themselves in such publications are referred to as "mail-order husbands," although this is much less common.

The term "mail-order bride" is both criticized by owners (and customers) of international marriage agencies and used by them as an easily recognizable term.

In the twentieth century, the trend was towards women living in developing countries seeking men in more developed nations.

Ladies must apply to be in our agency and be interviewed.

A mail-order bride is a woman who lists herself in catalogs and is selected by a man for marriage.

In nineteenth-century America, mail-order brides came from well-developed areas on the Eastern seaboard to marry men in Western frontier lands.

The secret of this special beauty lies in the wild mix of the East and the West.

"Beauty will save the world" said Dostoïevski, a master of Russian classic literature.