The City of Brides
Paris Match ran a story this week about Ivanovo, a Russian town of 410,000 situated 160 miles outside of Moscow that has the distinction of being known as the “City of Brides”.
The moniker is derived from the overwhelming mismatch in Ivanovo — due to its history as a textile town — between the number of female and male residents. Though the textile industry has suffered in Ivanovo in recent years, women still outnumber men to a great degree.
As such, there are brides but no grooms. Thus prospective fiancés for these traditionally minded Russian women need to be found, and many of those husbands to be hunted come from abroad via online and traditional marriage agencies.
And, one gathers from the Paris Match article, the preferred nationality of potential Prince Charmings for the ladies of Ivanovo is French.
