March 28 When Nick Wilsdon met his Russian wife, Anna, on the Internet, friends teased him about his mail- order bride. Turns out, he was a mail-order husband. Three years after first exchanging e-mails with Anna on an online dating site, the Web designer from England's south coast made the 2,200-mile trek to Ivanovo , Russia's ``City of Brides.'' He and Anna are now expecting their first child.
The Ivanovo region has the highest ratio of women to men in Russia, a legacy of the Soviet textile mills that imported female workers from across the country. The city, which once helped marriage bureaus recruit young women for foreign spouses, is now enticing residents to stay and raise families. That's fuelling a baby boom as Russia struggles to stem a population decline .
``When I get in the lift of our building, I'm surrounded by so many kids it makes me think of rabbits,'' Wilsdon, 32, says at the 12th floor apartment he shares with Anna, 29, in Ivanovo.
Since the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, Russia's population has dwindled 4.1 percent to 142.2 million. Unless fertility rates improve, the population may plunge to 128 million by 2025, the Washington-based World Bank said in November.
By contrast, births in the Ivanovo region jumped 7.8 percent last year, four times the pace of 2006, according to national statistics. The number of second children in families rose by a record 24 percent, more than double the Russian average.
With the death rate declining and the outflow of people reversed, city officials expect the population will stop shrinking this year for the first time since the Soviet era.
Female Assets
Ivanovo achieved the turnaround by making the most of its biggest asset: women. According to Russian government statistics , 56 percent of the city's 432,000 people are women.
To encourage them to stay and raise children, the city has doubled the number of subsidized home loans for families, added 1,000 kindergarten spaces in two years, and built a new maternity hospital, says Deputy Mayor Igor Svetushkov.
``We're not calling ourselves the `City of Women,''' Svetushkov says. A bride is a ``partner for life, a symbol of the family. We'd like to tell people to come here to find their happiness.'' Other Russian regions have had less success in boosting their birth rates.
In Ulyanovsk, south of Moscow, the local government gave mothers and fathers...
Source: http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Russia-s--City-of-Brides--triggers-baby-boom-after-love-quests/289814/
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