DOUBLE EXPOSURE: Old-fashioned love song (10/22/06)

DOUBLE EXPOSURE

by Khristina Lew

Old-fashioned love song

Being Ukrainian is its own sort of calling card. You can visit any city in the world that has a Ukrainian population and find a friendly face. (Ask anyone who was in Germany for this year's World Cup.)

For many of us, finding a Ukrainian spouse or partner is important. (Certainly our mothers find it so.) But my own informal survey has found that eligible Ukrainians are in short supply and that many Ukrainian singles have changed the way they look for one another.

The methods are definitely generational. Ask 20-somethings how they meet single Ukrainians and they'll tell you, "On line." Ask 30-somethings (O.K., 40-somethings) how they meet available Ukrainians and they'll say "I drove up to Toronto for the Bloor West Village Ukrainian Festival."

There are many online Ukrainian dating services. In fact, if you Google "Ukrainian dating service" you will get 4,720,000 hits. There are websites that call themselves "marriage agencies," "dating services" and "mail order brides." They will provide you with pictures of your intended or make arrangements for you to travel to Ukraine (this service includes a tour of Kyiv).

There is also something called strilka.com., a site that since its launch in April 2005 has attracted 689 members. "Strilka," or arrow, "is simply another tool in your toolbox" for meeting single Ukrainians, said William Szuch, who designed and maintains the site's content.

Strilka.com is run out of Toronto by Mr. Szuch and sisters Natalia Nemyliwska and Maria Koszarny. The trio feels strongly about creating an open and transparent space for single Ukrainians on the web and has put pictures of themselves and personal data on the site. "We wanted to inspire confidence and trust in strilka.com, so we put ourselves out there," said Mr. Szuch.

Strilka allows you to e-mail, IM or chat with other Ukrainians in the Ukrainian, English, Russian or Polish languages after creating your personal profile and setting preferences for the type of person you'd like to meet. Strilka members are Ukrainian-Polish, Ukrainian-Russian, Ukrainian-Jewish, Ukrainian-Brazilian, Ukrainian-French, Ukrainian-Italian, Ukrainian-Greek, Ukrainian-Portuguese, Ukrainian Mulatto and Ukrainian American. They live in six Canadian provinces, 19 U.S. states, 10 Ukrainian oblasts and in over a dozen countries.

There's no cost to join strilka.com, but after one month of free messaging fees apply: $4.99 for one month, $9.99 for three months or $19.99 for 12 months. A year and a half after its launch, strilka.com pays for itself through its subscriptions.

Strilka and other sites like it are certainly busy, but online dating is not for everybody. One Ukrainian single in New York told me that meeting people online was not his thing. "I'm not on Multiply. I'm 38, not 22," he said. He has a more traditional approach - going to "Soyuzivka, Karpaty pub, zabavas, debs."

Another single Ukrainian New Yorker (both asked not to be identified) said that, as you get older, finding a Ukrainian mate becomes more tricky. "Going to Soyuzivka is not what it used to be. There are fewer singles. But it's a role of the dice - you never know when that person who's been hiding in Texas for the past six years will show up."

She said that careers often pull people out of the social calendar and can limit exposure to other Ukrainians, but that events like art exhibits and the "Yalynka" at the Ukrainian Institute of America are good places to meet singles.

She has tried Ukrainian dating online but says it's a bit embarrassing. "There's a kind of stigma to it - as if someone were saying 'What - you can't find anyone so you're going online?'"

Mr. Szuch concedes that people are hesitant to admit to using strilka.com, which is why if you go on the site you won't find any success stories listed there. He too cites the Ukrainian shame factor, but says that he has heard through word of mouth that some half-dozen people have "met up" on Strilka. "I'm not surprised [by the lack of success stories]. You're dealing with people's hearts and emotions - I don't know of a more delicate part of the human condition," he said.

Yet Ukrainians somehow manage to find each other all over the world, and success stories do happen. Look at my friends Lida and Nestor. Both American-born, they met on the maidan in Kyiv during the Orange Revolution of 2004 and just got engaged. Congratulations to them. And, to single New Yorkers: the Yalynka is right around the corner.

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