The term «mail brides» describes the phenomenon of mass emigration of young women abroad through marriage, which was widespread in Russia during the 1990s and 2000s.
In my video essay, I explore this phenomenon through the lens of the female experience, raising questions about the context of time, the contrast between home and a foreign country, strategies for connecting with a stranger, and the tension between sincerity and mercenary concerns. I aim to answer: why did young women leave, how did they do it, and what were the outcomes of these stories?
The auditory portion of the essay is built upon the real words of women found in blogs, interviews, articles, and relatives' testimonials. Based on these sources, I create a pseudo-macro-story—alleged excerpts from conversations belonging to different young women—who were witnesses to those events.
The visual aspect is built upon two parallel lines. The first consists of excerpts from films and advertisements of that era, which convey the temporal context. The second is composed of footage I personally shot—a kind of reconstruction of events: a young woman receives a mailing address from an American and writes him a love letter. The video sequence frequently contrasts with the audio track: in the captured clips, everything is joyful, and the young woman is only anticipating a future abroad, while the narrative text describes events from a distance in time.
