This article is reproduced from the St.Petersburg Times..
Toad will be happy about the pre-nups and others have a statistic they have been clamouring for regarding the % of FSU/Western marriages that fail.
Few Hitches in Getting Unhitched
By Stephen Boykewich
First, the charmingly unidiomatic declarations of love, the cautious congratulations from friends and family, the delight at every little reminder that you and your new Russian spouse come not only from different countries, but also from different worlds.
And if the delight gives way to a desire never to share a breakfast table again - as it does for two-thirds of Russian-foreign couples, according to Rossiiskaya Gazeta - there may be some consolation in learning that the slate can be swept clean for about the price of three long-stemmed red roses.
For a no-fault divorce between a childless multinational couple in Russia, the two need only prepare a joint statement declaring their intention to divorce and present it to the registry office, or ZAGS, where they were first married or where the Russian spouse resides. The registry office will then issue an annulment.
"If both parties agree and there are no children involved, it's really that easy," said Yekaterina Kalashnikova, a Russian lawyer who specializes in family and divorce law.
Michele Berdy, a Moscow-based translator and interpreter, was married to a Russian man. In 1996, she and her then-husband went to the ZAGS nearest his Moscow residence to file for a divorce.
"It wasn't an onerous process at all," she said. "We signed something saying we had no material claims against each other, and a month later we came back and picked up the certificates.
"The woman did look at us like we were nuts because we were relatively cheerful about the whole thing."
If the couple has a child under the age of 18, a court appearance is required, Kalashnikova said. But again, barring property or custody disputes, the process tends to be quick and painless. The court will set a hearing date one to two months from the date of application, and a divorce will be granted during the hearing. The presence of lawyers is not required, and the court fee is a mere 200 rubles ($7).
As far as the division of property goes, Kalashnikova said, "The basic rule is that all the items obtained during the marriage can be split 50-50." Property each party owned before the marriage remains separate.
As with divorces anywhere in the world, disputes often arise precisely over this issue, and the greater the amount of money involved, the more bitter the dispute tends to be. In January 2004, during the highly publicized divorce between American millionaire Scott Nicol and Russian former golf star Maya Kucherkova, a Russian court froze the assets of a Russian Nestle subsidiary from which Nicol had netted $52 million.
One way to avoid such disputes, said Vladimir Lissniak, an attorney with the Pericles American Business and Legal Education Project, is a prenuptial agreement.
"It is a good idea approved by years of experience in Western countries," Lissniak said. "[It is] new for Russia, but it is already in use by new families."
Kalashnikova said that in her experience, prenuptial agreements were "quite frequent" in marriages between Russians and foreigners. "They're especially common when one of the parties is a businessperson" who wants to make sure that issues such as spousal and child alimony do not become contested in the event of a divorce, she said.
In the absence of such an agreement, the Family Code recommends the provision of one-fourth of a parent's monthly income for a single child, one-third for two children and half for three or more. Courts can change this amount at their discretion.
Custody and visitation disputes are "quite a complicated issue," Kalashnikova said, especially when a Russian mother has custody and the father is living abroad. In such cases, "Russian courts are normally on the side of the mom," she said.
If it wasn't for the fact that it is more complicated and burdensome to bring a wife instead of a fiance to the US, we'd have be married in Russia, perhaps.
Prenups do not make me happy, even though I support their need 1000%.
Perhaps it was more accurate to say you have support for your position.
I do like the fact that, whatever you bring into the marriage, you keep. In the UK, after 5 years, everything is up for grabs.
It would be useful to read the Rossiiskaya Gazeta article. Is the 2/3rd divorce figure, media exaggeration? What do they attribute the high numbers to?
If they are true, doesn't it drive a coach and horses through the cosy assumptions of those who are under the illusion that all you need do is take one gorgeous, commited Russian female, determined (supposedly) for their marriages to succeed, mix with one western male.. (equally determined never to go through divorce again) and still we have a 75% failure rate..
I'm going to make some assumptions here, but since I've been called a "you know what" before, I'm not risking anything.
I'll assume that the "statistics" being quoted are collected from Russia. How many of these marriages are Western man-Russian woman? I would most likely think they are more heavily slanted to Western woman-Russian man. Perhaps our stereotypical perceptions of Western women and Russian men tuned out to be true and the luster wore off. We could have told them that.
2 + 2 = Media is full of BS angle and/or easily manipulated in FSU.
1. Russian government controls the media.
2. The 'russian women exodus' is an ever increasing event that compares to what I experienced in Argentina in the 70s during the worst years of military dictatorship when the "fuga de cerebros" (brains scape) saw 100,000 of professionals and skilled workers live the country to avoid potential and indiscriminate persecussion.
3. Would governments have a slight incentive to put out false data to alter a current event?...DDuuuhhhhh
4. Should this affect how each individual assesses his or her own situation to make the best possible decision to benefit his or her life? Hell, no!!
Toad
I do agree that you should make your own choices. I also agree with your previous call for 'due diligence'.
Russian manipulation of data? Perhaps. Control of the media? Not total. There are many courageous individuals openly challenging the government through the media. I think 14 died last year. The St.P Times is not government-controlled.
There is a clear distinction between entering the U.S. to work and finding your way in through marriage. In the latter case, some poor sap on Fiance.com is going to get burned.
Here's what the American government (uscis.gov) has to say.. (taken from the agencyscams web site).
'Foreign Marriage Statistics' for the year 2003.
3889 K-1's (fiancée) entered the USA
54.0% left the USA within 6 months
28.2% left between 6 months to one year
17.7% lasted more than one year
1546 K-3 (spouse) entered the USA
70.3% left the USA within 6 months
22.6% left between 6 months to one year
7.1 % lasted more than one year
This data can be downloaded from the web site in excel format. Maybe some kind bean-counter could check it out for us. ;-)
Just a note - those K-1s and K-3s aren't just FSU women.
And they do not neccessarily say anything about the process (I hesitiate to say mail-order but that is how it is sometimes refered to) that we are going through. There are women and men who met via the military, and business associations in there.
So FSU and western relationship may be more successful (or less) than the, admittedly eye-opening figures given.
QuietCharm, Am I reading this correctly? Does the mean that only 17.7% did not get divorced and the rest did? Or does that mean they went back for a visit to home during that time?
I wrote a paragraph of comment and canned it, as it was mainly speculation and would only lead to argument (which is usually tedious). People have to draw their own conclusions.
Them figures speak for themselves. A FSU women/Western marriage will not last...you spend a lot of money to do this, marry one of these girls and more than 90% chance the whole lot will be down the gurgler in a year or less and you will be on your own again.
Hello!..wake up...this is a crazy idea..you got betta odds in Vegas than one of these marriages lasting!
I point out again aussieman - the figures quoted by QC regard ALL k-1 visas - you cannot draw any specific conclusion about the success or lack of success of a relationship with an FSU woman compared to all other nationalities based on those statistics.
I grant you that it looks bad for any foreign relationship - but to put a negative mark exclusively on relationshps with FSU women? There is nothing there that says that.
For most men in the US, this will be their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th marriage. 2nd marriages with an American woman who has no language barrier or cultural differences has only a 25 % success rate. The odds are generally against everyone no matter who you marry. Hopefully you can remember what caused the collapse of a previous marriage and try to avoid another one.
Not knowing us law. I have a question, the k1/k3 are a kind of 90 day visa in wich both parties decide to get married or not? If they do not get married it is not a visa or marriage scam, it just didn't klik. (Maybe a holiday scam ;-) ). Also maybe possible for the same two multiple k1/k3 are issued? In that case especially not knowing the consequences i can not draw any conclusions from this data.
well maybe i can draw two conclussions
1) only 700 stay longer than a year! I would have thoght much higher numbers.
2) women with kids are very difficult.
*1 --> then the cccp is not losing its women to americans.
A lot of discussion goes into this forum about will she stay or go and some more goes into quoting nebulas statistics. However, we seem to be losing focus. Even the best statistics we can get are many times misleading. It is like the statistics on the artificial sweeteners that came out some years ago. They said the sweeteners caused abnormal health problems in rats but then it came out that they were feeding an equivalent to 300lbs of the crap to them.
Careful planning and preparations coupled with a through knowledge of each other’s persona can reduce the failure rate. Toad and QC both have good ideas but we must remember that getting a wife and life mate should require a lot of research. Would any of us buy a used car with out investigating it first? How much more should we investigate a bride? In addition, we are not a bunch of sailors looking for the one nightstand or the virgin in the whorehouse.
A 93% failure rate within 1 year sounds too incredible to be true. But then Dale's numbers say it may be. I would like more info.
You can relax boys. Jet is right. The 7.1% are all Russians ;-))
Perhaps it's not such a bad stat as it may at first seem. If you choose a woman that has already been divorced and has a child, your odds of success (IMHO) increase. Oh yes.. ditch the mother-in-law.
<You can relax boys. Jet is right. The 7.1% are all Russians >
I never said thatthe 7.1% were all Russians. I simply indicated that we don't know, from the data given, how women of the FSU stack up - whether our odds with them are better, worse or the same as the 7.1%
EVERY k-1 visa is between two people of different countries and cultures. And there are ALWAYS some problems as far as persoanlity mach is concerned.
WHATEVER QC is, for example, he obviously speaks English so it is reasonable to assume that a woman from wherever he is from and an American might have better chances. Yet QCs culture is clearly different from what I am used to and I dare say - I would find a female version of him to be just as annoying, I am sure, as I find him. And a K-1 visa from whatever that would be would be as likely or more likely to fail that with ANY woman from the FSU. That's just my point.
Jet. There you go again. You are a touchy bugger. I know you never said the 7.1% were all Russians and I didn't say you said that. Your point is clear.
Lighten up. It wasn't a barb but an acknowledgement of your point and an attempt at wry humour.
Your paranoid fixation with me is flattering but uncalled for.