Will the Ukrainian Bride Business give up the ghost in 2026?

Will the Ukrainian Bride Business give up the ghost in 2026?

Dra greetings from Odessa Mama here on the shores of the Black Sea. Right behind me, we’ve got the iconic Odessa Opera House. You can see it’s a really autumn at the moment. Maybe you can see the colors there in the trees. They got those browns and oranges. People walking around in some probably a jacket at this point. The seasons have definitely changed. I was looking at all the leaves, brown leaves here in the ground. and welcome to an impromptu live stream. I hadn’t planned to shoot outdoors again for the foreseeable future for these live streams. Was actually going to take a break from them for at least a month. But I brought forward this live stream because as you can see behind me, it’s quite a nice time to film in Ukraine. I’m here in Odessa still. I actually had intended to be in Kushtow this weekend in near Muldova, but for some reason, so what kind of reason should I say? It’s the truth. I hurt myself in the gym. So, I’m actually down here still for another few days until I am back to full 100% capacity and I’ll probably go up to Krishna next week. So today we’re going to talk about we’re going to have a little bit of discussion about the Ukrainian bride business because this channel in the last few months have talked a lot more about business especially here with you in Ukraine. Obviously we’re at the time of the Russ Ukrainian war. I will shoot my live stream for the geopolitics channel. There’s a link to that down below in the description this live stream later today. We got a lot going on in Pros in the east of Ukraine in the war. And since I’ve started to talk more about business, the opportunities that there are in spite of the war and because of the war in some in some shapes and forms, a lot of guys have reached out to me who have already invested in Ukraine or are thinking investing in Ukraine. So, I’m actually going to launch a program very soon, similar to the programs I had for moving to Ukraine back in the day. And make sure you’re on my mailing list for that to be notified. There is a link down below. You’ll see there’s I think I call it planners hotspots for Kisha, Kev, and Kazakhstan down there. Anyways, that free gift and also get you on my mailing list. That’s where I launch my products. So, this will be an online program. So, if you are interested in business in Ukraine, you would want to be aware of that. Just make sure that you’re on the the main list that will be launched pretty soon. So, we’re going to talk about another business on this live stream, which is Ukrainian bride business. So for people maybe stumbled across this without really knowing too much about Ukraine and maybe the whole marriage agency business. We’re not talking about some sort of bride market where families bring their daughters to be wed off. I I’ve seen that in some other parts of Europe especially with the Roma. Whether that’s really true or not or just a bit of a myth that’s not where we’re talking. We’re not talking about male order brides cuz as far as I know one was actually mailed over anywhere. That would be human trafficking. So we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about the huge industry that had this country really as one of its centers at least in terms of marketing for many many years and that has been on the decline and now gone into a steep steep reversal in terms of the interest. So I’m going to talk about that. I did make a video back in 2022 where I predicted that it would go the way of the Estonian bribe business. There is a mockumentary from the early 2000s. It is called Screwed in Talic is the English translation. I wasn’t able to find it with English subtitles. So, and my Swedish isn’t the best, but I could get the gist of it because in parts they speak in Russian and in in English. So that used to also be a phenomenon in other parts of Europe that I now go to with my clients like Estonia, but no one has even heard of it for 25 years more or less and kind of disappeared in the late 90s early 2000s right around the time when Estonia and its economy and its its access to European Union that later became a member state in 2004. That all changed and the industry completely disappeared. But it’s a great mockumentary to go and take a look at. uh you will see a lot of similarities to what actually used to happen here in Ukraine with these romance stores if you go and watch that. So some housekeeping before I get into the presentation part of today’s live stream. You can write your comments and your questions down below as I go through it. And for those of you who don’t know me, I am Connor Klene and I help high level men with living their dream lifestyles in this part of Europe new Europe in general. So includes Ukraine inspired the war. I used to have the biggest channel for lifestyle and relocation to Ukraine before 2022. I had been here for the entire period of the CO um shenanigans and yeah that was over 2 years. So I basically documented most of this country. I shot vlogs in almost every city but actually the this invasion happened maybe 6 months later. I think I would have covered everywhere in Ukraine but there are a few cities that I didn’t get to cover. And now I help my clients mainly with the alternatives to Ukraine. So going to cities and well cities like Kishau and Muldova just up the road. I’ve mentioned Estonian and Talin. You got Rian Lapia, Venice in Lithuine also counted as a second city. Warso Poland and Alati and Aana in Kazakhstan. I was recently in Kazakhstan with a client and I will be going back there in January, end of January. That is the current plan. and also probably at the end of March with clients. So, if you’re interested in those alternatives, I have a lot of links down below that will be of interest to you. There’s a consulting if you want to get my in-depth knowledge, my over 10 years of encyclopedic knowledge of this region, then that’s a possibility down below. Or you can apply for the inerson premium immersion and that’s when I go with clients to a city in the region. Also have Lynn started bringing some clients back to Ukraine and we actually went to Chennai and Leiv through Kishnau Moldova down here to Odessa back in August. So there’s all the other things. I also have guides and stuff like that if you’re coming to Moldova and Ukraine. There’s a guide book down there. It will save you loads of time in terms of finding the best spots. My hospitality guide is really something that’s unmatched there. And again, cuz I started use these AIs a lot more. The AI can help you figure out where to go in these cities. At least not yet. Not sure if they can really find a solution unless they buy my guide and then they they feed that into the AI, I guess. That’ll be the only way to do it and things change all the time. So, all that good stuff is down below. As I said, I’m going to have the new program pretty soon. And yeah, that’s all I have for housekeeping. I want to get into this presentation as quickly as possible because there’s a lot I could talk about. I wanted to give it a little bit more of a business angle in this live stream because I’ve made lots of reaction videos to the Ukrainian private. I’ve also interviewed and given interviews to channels that deal with this, especially over the last few years. And I even have a playlist down below. I should probably add in my interviews, but they’re in French, so you have to speak French or and I guess nowadays you can probably figure out a way to get it to dub my voice or something. Maybe there’s an option to have automatic subtitles in English. Anyways, if I remember later, I will put that also on the playlist where I gave interviews to a matchmaking channel in French, Seu, and me. I enjoy watching their content. It’s the only It’s the only people I actually watch from Antoine is the only person I’ve watched from this kind of sphere really anymore. Obviously, in preparation for this live stream when I had a look at many of the videos from the Ukrainian bride business just to see what they’re all up to, the ones that still survive. Uh, so we are interested in just a lot more information about this whole industry. Maybe you’ve been tempted to use a matchmaker or you only using one or you just got some curiosity. Down below I had put it together in a playlist so you can go watch that and then you have probably a few hours of content that you can go and get more in depth in the topic. So what am I talking about when I say the Ukrainian bride business? I think we need to go back to the origins which would have been post communist central and eastern Europe. So we had the cold war. It was very hard to travel to countries like well Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union at the time but now obviously independent Ukraine or go to the other parts of the say Warsaw pack. So countries like Poland was hard to go to Hungary, Estonia, Latin Lithuania part of the Soviet Union. So you couldn’t go there easily either. It was very hard to leave. So there wasn’t much communication between these two parts of Europe or this part of Europe and say North America or Australia or say the core angles the collective west right they were in two different blocks during the cold war that ended and subun dissolved in 1991 and we had all these new 15 constitu uh constituent republics that became independent states. And there was widespread economic turmoil in central and eastern Europe. They had had command economies. They been communist. And when they changed to become capitalist there was yeah a lot of disruption in the society and the economies basically suffered a lot in let’s say the ’90s and then that started to recover we’ll say from the 2000s and parts of the region decided that they saw their future not with Moscow but with Brussels and with Washington. So they made a beline to join Euro Atlantic institutions like European Union and NATO. So countries like Poland, newly independent Latafia, Lithuania and Estonia, Hungary, Czecha, Slovakia. Actually they split up into two countries, Czechos, Slovakia became Czecha and Slovakia and so forth. So you had situation where people here there have been major disruption to the societies. Male mortality skyrocketed. So many men died young in the 1990s in countries like Ukraine, Russia, Barus, also in we’ll say the Baltic states and it was very hard still to travel even though the iron curtain come down you needed a visa to go to the United States even as a tourist and to Western Europe. So that’s the backdrop is very very poor here. A lot of men have, you know, alcoholism was rife. The economy had collapsed. A lot of men were unemployed or undermployed, died young, and it was hard to leave. Also, tourism wasn’t so widespread here. Obviously, more than during the Soviet times, but still pretty limited. Communication back then. We had the internet existed, but we didn’t really have well, we didn’t have dating apps to the halt to start with, but we also didn’t really have that much connectivity. Facebook would have started. Let me think. When did it become popular? When did I first have one? I’d have to think about. It was probably It’s probably after I finished even grad school. Probably mid 2000s even. Or is it early 2000? Sometime around then, I guess. Yeah, maybe. It’s It’s probably almost is Facebook even 20 years old. So, we’re talking about the ’90s none of that existed. So, you had a huge discrepancy. You have still television and the movies showing people in this region how prosperous it is in countries like the US. That’s why I always say America, you know, I kind of dream to go there or even to go to Paris or London and not many ways to get there. So this is kind of the backdrop where this started. And as a result, you had an lots of women here who would want to leave country like Ukraine, a country like Estonia, a country like Hungary because the economic situation and just in general a lot of men uh having died early and they would want to go and start a life in say Paris, New York, Toronto, wherever it happens to be. So how are they going to get there? Because even getting a student vis visa or a tourist visa is very very hard to even go visit. Plus people here here had no money. How could they afford to go there? Uh how would they get it be able to sustain themselves get a work visa? This was extremely difficult in the ’90s and 2000s when you started become a bit easier say the 2010s for a lot of people in this region. So there weren’t many ways. So in steps a what started I guess as a cottage industry where agencies would set up tours for local women here to meet Captain America I don’t know to meet an American gentleman who is single who’s come here they would have organized tours or they had brochures I think they used to send off people would go through the cataloges see who they wanted to probably converse with maybe they sent letters in the beginning level. English was very low here. Not too many people speak Russian and Ukrainian. Obviously in US or or France any of these guys. So they would need translators. You had this kind of cottage industry. I guess it started as sprung up to help these guys. So they were they were providing a service. They were matching women who were interested primarily leaving. Let’s be frank about it for you know hypergamy is a cross-cultural phenomenon where women tend to date across and up on social economic hierarchies. So that’s, you know, something they were trying to satisfy by really dating up by getting to go to America or maybe it was somewhere else. And how could they meet men who would be interested in them? Very hard. Didn’t have uh Instagram. You didn’t have uh Tinder or a dating app where you know it’s possible nowadays obviously just do that and talk to people pretty easily. So they were matching these American or Swedish or German men with these women. and they’re organizing tours. I guess they came or they were sending cataloges and helping facilitating the communication back and forth. And I think probably when they started off they were generally helping people here were considered uh more beautiful and for guys who were looking you know obviously you have that mismatch of soio economic opportunity with um local beauty and maybe there’s something about the values I don’t think that was advertised as much back then in the beginning as it is now by the marketing. So I also think don’t think radical feminism was such a as big in say in the ‘9s as it is today. I think that’s clearly the case is over 30 years has gone by. So mainly it was these opportunities to meet and they were able to facilitate it. This then grew because you have translators, guys are paying sign amount of money to come on tours. You got the hotels they stay at, they go to restaurants. So you won’t as a business you have lots of ways to make money, right? So the guy’s going to go to a restaurant. he’s going to bring the woman. Maybe he’s going to offer her a gift, flowers, maybe go and buy her um I don’t know, a handbag or something, I don’t know, as a gift. Not that I recommend doing any of that in general for someone that you don’t know very well before you’re in a relationship, a real relationship, not an emotional one. So, there were just lots of people along the the chain that could make money. And obviously there will be a way for the person who facilitated it, the agency owner, uh I guess is how we describe them to take a percentage along the way. So kind of normal business and it was probably pretty small, I would guess, and pretty simplistic. And there was a real we’ll say there was a real demand, a genuine demand. women really here wanted to flee whether wherever it was whether it was Ukraine or Romania or Estonia or Russia right so it also wasn’t centered on one country in particular it was kind of the general region you have a lot of these cult industries then in like the 2000s the internet starts to get better right we still don’t have dating apps as competition for services like this and people start to travel a bit more still pretty hard to get a visa in most of the region however 2004 most central and parts of Eastern Europe actually join the European Union that means that they can travel freely and actually move and if they want to meet a German or French guy well they can move to Paris or to Frankfurt or wherever it happens to be and meet them right so there’s the ease of travel like transforms in the region and you see that bride business basically disappear in countries like Estonia just because I know about the mockumentary and also a Swedish guy of mine he told me that it used to be a phenomenon in the mid to late 90s all these romance stores to Estonia by Swedish men. That also disappeared and was kind of seen the same vein as what we had here in Ukraine. However, some countries didn’t get so much access. One of them being Ukraine here. But then what they did change is they I think it would have been after the orange revolution 2004. They gave visa-free for North Americans and Western Europeans actually come here without a visa because remember the other side of the coin is it was actually hard for us to come to a country like Ukia. You used to have to get a visa and there weren’t I remember even myself I think it would have been 2001 maybe 2002 some of my friends said I was in the Netherlands studying and they said ah let’s go to St. Petersburg and trip so okay don’t know much about it and then they were like oh we need visas and I was like visa I need to get a visa to do this it’s I got to go to the embassy give an application form and I’ve done that later to go to uh St. but it was many years later and it was a lot of hustle. So that all changed here in Ukraine. You didn’t need a visa anymore and that made a lot easier for guys to come here and also with the internet everything started to get turbocharged and I think that’s probably when it started to become a mass industry and also involve a lot of scamming because as you see there are a lot of people on the in the um business scheme who can make money. You got the translators, you got the restaurants, you know where this is going. And then you’ve got actually the matchmaking itself where women going on dates, going shopping. So basically as things I guess became more efficient, they started figuring out what guys were reacting to on this side. you and this became the center of it in a sense because it didn’t have the access to western Europe and North America for the locals and but it was easier to come here than say going further east going to Barus or Russia so seemed like there was a bit of a switch and it became very focused on this country Ukraine as you can see well if you’re paying a translator there’s an incentive for the translator to be involved what does that mean all the girls will say they don’t speak English that’s an incentive They bring you to a restaurant. Of course, you’re going to go on a date. Well, what you going to order from the restaurant? Is it going to be the lobster and champagne? Is the bill going to be the local price or is it going to be suddenly a price four times higher? There’s an incentive for them to have scam restaurants. So, scam translator, scam restaurants, and yeah, the shopping scam as well where they just bring the guy scam to shopping and you know, she picks out something and probably doesn’t even returns the next day and takes a percentage on the sale and all that kind of stuff. you had an incentive for a lot of scamming and I think that’s why it burgunded into such a disruptable general industry. We’re talking about the whole thing in general. Then you had online where there was a switch to charge guys to talk, right? So basically they would have we’ll say something brides and then you were talking to these women but of course you wouldn’t be speaking on video you’ be doing chat and of course you can’t see if it’s you know dima from or even the guy could be I don’t know Emanuel in in Mexico to be frank you wouldn’t know where he is or someone sitting in the Philippines or in Siberia doesn’t even have to be one female even in Ukraine at all and they were basically just writing I remember I dated a girl briefly in it was summer maybe 2017 already I don’t know it was many years ago and she had done that even though she didn’t even speak English she basically been doing the messages uh as a student for like a summer even though she didn’t speak English cuz she was doing copy paste and she would figure out the guys would react to the most and then be able to keep them on the chat as long so you had this huge uh growing industry where they’re basically doing pay what we call pay-per letter or ppl you’re paying per message and that obviously is a huge incentive for scamming because well the longer they keep you to stay on the more money they make. If you exchange two messages and meet the middle of your life they don’t make any money so they don’t have an incentive to do that. So you have all these bad incentives. Everything became kind of turbocharged. And we’ll say probably around the late 20, let’s see, yeah, in the 2010s, even in Ukraine, things started to change. By the mid2010s, they even had visa-free to go to, at least as a tourist, to Western Europe. still pretty hard to go to the US. But we also had dating apps come in. That means why would you need to be paying for a service to connect you with a woman in Odessa? If you want to speak to someone for this, you can go into Tinder, pay the premium, swipe, and you can meet women in Odessa. And in general, just the technology evolved to kind of render this a little bit obsolete, even if it’s genuine, which most of the industry seem to have deteriorated something that wasn’t very genuine. and travel became a lot more frequent. A lot more guys were coming. I remember when I used to first come to Ukraine, I think it was 2009, it was like, “Wow, you’re going to Ukraine. That’s so obscure.” I think by 2015, 2016, definitely by the late 201s, it was kind of normal. It wasn’t that shocking a thing for at least someone from Western Europe to go to Ukraine. Maybe from the US it was or Canada would be a bit more obscure. So, yeah, just all the dynamics changed. Now you do have I would say a few a small part of the industry that is kind of trying to generate match people but they have to compete with all this disingenuous stuff. So you got all the scamming in person, you got all the scamming online. Plus then you have the photos where they would obviously just in the beginning seem to steal women’s photos and then at a certain point probably because of the credit card companies and them insisting that it’s actually a person who has agreed to be on the site, they would start to send messages to attract the women here in say Odessa or somewhere else uh for the rights to use their photos. a bit like a modeling gig almost like you just sell the rights to the photos and then they they pretend to be you online do all the messages and that’s how they would scam uh even further so you have real person then it evolved even to doing paying girls to do little video messages hey hi John thanks for all the flowers thanks for the phone and then she would do 10 of those in a row and collect your check right so just a huge ability to scam and deceive a lot of guys who are obviously naive about what’s going on same time you do have a small part of the industry that is genuinely trying to match people. However, as that evolves, there’s less and less a pool of eligible women to choose from. So, yeah, because it’s not the 1990s, they they can speak to guys from the west. A lot of guys in the west come here. I mean, Ukraine and 2035 is basically part of the west and it’s de facto. But we’ll say it was a little bit more of a distinction 10 years ago. And why would they need a matchmaker to connect them? They can meet foreign guys. Foreign guys come here. The foreign guys can meet them. They can meet them online. They can meet them in person. Uh they can travel afterwards. Plus you got other countries that become super wealthy and attract like Dubai for example. How many Ukrainian women have gone to Dubai at least on a trip also for a lot of other viceful reasons I I can imagine as well. So just the world is not like in 1995. So that is why I think as it’s gone from a cottage industry to a huge predominantly scam industry. I think there was some crazy number at some point. They were going at 300 um million in as a business, the scam part of the business. But that was not just Ukraine, but also using other nationalities was one stat I think we had from back in there when we’re talking about the scams. Fast forward and we have the 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Moscow. And yeah, that’s changed things even further because up in that point, whilst Ukrainians have visa free to access the European Union or or Shenhen, actually didn’t have visa free to access Ireland, but they changed that the day after the invasion. I think the UK, they may still need a visa even. But overnight because this horrific invasion, I mean the war started in 2014 with the invasion of Crimea and the occupation of parts of Dumbas by Russia. This meant that Ukrainian citizens who can leave the country, which is basically women and children and old people, but we’re talking about single women here, they can leave Ukraine and live in the European Union. So they’re kind of like de facto EU citizens, at least up until I think it’s March 2027 for now. So they’re they’re already in Western Europe. So they basically can meet as many French, German, Spanish, Italian, British guys as they want. If they go to war, so they can probably meet so many American guys because there’s so many Americans there nowadays. Or they can meet Asians, they can meet Africans, they can meet basically anyone they want. So so many of them have left. They basically can travel. There was even a time they could just go to America at the beginning with the Biden administration’s Unite for Ukraine program that’s been cancelled since or suspended. It’s actually pretty hard to get to America. I think probably now as a as an immigrant and also to Canada. They had for about a year or maybe two they even could just move to Canada. They got a visa. So basically the dynamics have changed even further away from a pool of eligible women who really genuinely want to go to matchmaker because who really wants to go to a matchmaker if the you already have lots of options? Well, no one. So that is a short synopsis. It still took me 20 minutes as you can see. So to talk about the business part because I actually got a a call from a Ukrainian guy who was asking me about this because he thought it’d be a great idea because there’s so few of them left. Let’s he was saying that he wanted to start a business where he tours. Obviously we have a war here so not going to be too many guys who want to come to Ukraine. We’re just looking for a wife to export back to the United States. It’s another issue with exporting like just meeting someone and bringing them to your home country. First of all, they’re going to live there and they’re going to figure out what family law is like in the US or the UK and that’s going to create very bad incentives for the longevity of your marriage. You can try a prenup, might work, might not work, but you have to realize that just because here family law is not set up against normally the man or the socioeconomic superior partner in a in in a marriage. normally, but they’re going to figure that out. They’re going to be cackling down with the other girls from their region, probably at the beauty salon, no matter where it is, whether it’s Washington. Uh probably there’s even one in rural place like Idaho these days where have a lot of Ukrainian Russian or Barusian women and they will figure all that out. Plus, you have the effect where if you bring a woman from here, here the competition for beauty is super high. Overall, if we take the generation, the place I think on average women are the most beautiful in the world. If we take that scale of 1 to 10, whether that’s great or not as a a metric, but most guys understand it. And you take a woman who say an eight here, you bring let’s start with a five, just the average person, then five here, and then you bring her to somewhere in the US, maybe in a big city, maybe she’s a seven, she already comes, you bring her to rural area, now she’s an eight. So you can see what the issue might be once she has residency in that country through the marriage with the guy who brought her there is that the incentive for her to stay with her is going to be nothing like it was when she needed to leave because at that point she’ll have residency her value in that local earmark is going to be so much higher than it was here in say Ukraine or somewhere else in the region and she’ll probably figure out family law at that point and realize she can make a lot of money and get a partner who’s a lot higher value and that’s a huge incentive doesn’t mean everybody does that but I did have one climb the past who had been married to a Russian woman in the 2000s in Canada and he told me he hung out with a group of Canadian men that were married to women from Poland from Ukraine from Barus from Russia and he said that 80% of those marriages failed once the woman had residency or maybe even citizenship but probably usually get perm residency first they obviously have a different system in Canada US but green card most people understand what I mean? So that is the big I guess other issue and risk with the whole industry is that yeah how effective is it going to be? Does it really make sense in 2025 going into 2026? I understand it probably made a lot of sense and it was probably legitimate business back in the 1990s probably started to get corrupted in the 2000s hit its heyday in terms of making money in the 2010s and now is on a decline. You see that with so few of the former participants in the in that industry um being making content even nowadays on YouTube, you still have a few of them. I still get questions from guys and obviously this Ukrainian guy even he even called me about it. But yeah, the thing is how many guys are going to come during the war. I see there was one company organized a romance tour and their hotel which is around here was almost hit by a rocket. Can you imagine? So yeah, probably not the best for advertising coming here, but at least they put it in the video. They were they were transparent about that they’re their tour group almost got hit by a rocket. So not too many guys going to be as interested before. The other thing is they a lot of money was spent normally by the scammers. The scam part of the industry. They figured out that a lot of guys respond to this traditional Ukrainian bride uh stereotype which is basically a fetish and they would you know when they’re doing the the whatever PP ppl the fake chat and stuff they would just he pretend to be this like submissive type of housewife who just wants to cook and clean and do all this stuff for the guy I guess and uh whatever whatever he wants to hear they basically tell him they just finesse him because they want to keep him on the chat for as long as possible make as much money and obviously they have some photo where she looks like a supermodel and that even evolved from what I heard from some guys cuz a lot of guys pay me for consulting to find out if they’ve been scammed or not especially back in the day and they’d even evolve to have women who would be 40 and yeah above average looking but not some scam vlad 20-year-old and still it would be a scam right because even the guys who think okay I’m 55 overweight not really Brad Pit but maybe a 40-year-old might be interested me in Ukraine right uh but often no they’re even scamming there and the whole thing is just a charade to them on the the chat or to scam them in person. I could probably speak for three hours about the scam part, but I think you get the message. So, as I’ve seen it, the client I talk a lot with at times with these um owners of the industry uh of the Ukrainian bride businesses more and more tell me that they’re thinking of just closing down. And the question is, does it have much of a future? And I’m going to go into the alternatives what you should be doing if you are someone who’s been considering this. I was asked in the interview I gave another channel. It’s actually kind of a men’s uh help channel that aims at Asian men. I gave an interview and uh yeah, they asked me lots about this cuz they seem to think it was a bit more likely to work than has been my experience advising guys over the year years. Uh is there anything else? Cuz I actually looked at all these things beforehand. No, I think I’ve I’ve spoken enough at Lent about this, about the the troubles they have and I did make that video in 2022 where I predicted it would basically go the way of the Estonian bride business. Was it completely correct? Well, it’s it’s gone as a mass industry. I think it’s just a lot of them seem to be talking about Filipino women or women in Latin America to other places. And you know with the war here the Ukrainian women on mass basically having left to a certain extent although a lot of them have come back and say the last two two years what I see around here but they’re not women who are probably going to go to look for additional help. A lot of the women who would go would be women who will be probably not as attractive and probably over 35 and have children from a previous relationship because here the divorce rate is over 50%. I know they’re supposed to be traditional brides, but yeah, divorce is over 50% higher than in the US. And in general, they are less eman um financially emancipated. That is true. But I’m not I don’t really see them as traditional in any real sense. Um not saying that’s good or bad, but that’s the way they’ve been built up into this kind of fetish online. And it doesn’t correspond with with reality, especially the younger that the woman is. Maybe women over 50 maybe are more traditional but that makes sense anywhere even in Ireland to be more traditional in the British. Um yeah so that is what I see and I don’t think I actually put into jq I said what is the chances it will completely disappear in 2026 it said it’s 15% chance it will be gone 100% it will be like the Estonian bride business will not exist so that’s giving it and I it’s a statistic significant but pretty low chance of evaporating but it will continue to decline that quite probably it will become back to where it started and a cottage industry. Real real real real niche uh industry. If you are someone who’s interested in that, drop a comment or write me a message if you for some reason want to drop a comment. Connor connor.com. My email is also down below and tell me why you are interested in matchmaking as an option and why you wouldn’t use the alternatives which I will go into in a minute here. So you can see it behind me. Actually, the sun is almost gone behind the building over there. So, we’re going to lose it pretty soon. Got the last rays on this beautiful Sunday evening. I just go through and see there’s nothing substantial. Yeah, I just wanted to comment that once was back in 2021, I made a video about where there actually are more traditional inverted commas Christian women because one of the replies I get is if I say, “Well, hey, go to the caucuses.” and they go, “Oh, they’re Muslim there.” Like for example, right? um in say Chetchna or Aabjan or somewhere. Uh but you do have Georgia and Armenia, in particular, Armenia, you know, definitely way more traditional vertic than they are here in Ukraine. And but that also means they’re not as likely to get divorced and not as likely to want to marry a foreigner because even I went and looked today there is still no channel talking about traditional Armenian women and I’ve been to Armenia definitely more traditional verticist than here. But still even though I said in the video no one has has gone there and tried to create a marriage agency because well I guess they probably have to invest in a new brand. It’s just it’s easy for them to keep pretending that Ukrainian women are are traditional and vertical commerce and interested in job from Idaho um than the reality. But I I’m still a little bit surprised because there they definitely are more traditional at least or maybe they have matchmaking already amongst Armenians. I know there are a lot of Armenians in in California. Maybe they just don’t advertise in English. They only advertise in Armenian. Anyways, that is what I wanted to talk about in terms of its demise. I think it will further retract as an industry. And as I said, I’ve been talking more and more about business here in Ukraine in spite of the war and because of the war because some industries like the defense industry are obviously going to do well. And yeah, that’s if you are thinking of business here in Ukraine. I don’t think that the Ukraine priv foreign owners that person I’m aware of for men who own these kind of businesses and all all five of them they met their partners you know how they met them they didn’t meet them through mar and they met them by coming here and being a local business owner so definitely one of business I rank their business was being part of the Ukrainian bride business back in the day but I find it kind of amazing that the five that I’m aware of all are with their partners that they met in person here normally through social circles and met randomly in their stories about how they met but they didn’t meet through matchmaking so kind of ironic that that’s the business they they use but what they actually did to be successful because they do have a partner if you want to use that as a metric is they came here and they start a business which is what I also encourage you to do going forward but just not that business I’m uh not really I don’t believe it’s going to be that profitable going forward considering how many of them are leaving the market. They’re also doing kind of this virtual speed dating concept. Seems the only thing that’s working for them at the moment. They all seem to be doing it. So, I guess that’s some of them are making money from it, which makes a bit more sense to me because basically you don’t have to fly here to go to do the speed dating. You can do it online. But personally, I can’t really see why that would be a huge value. You could also do speed dating in your own hometown. That’s a little bit more realistic. I would say in general if you really want to meet someone the number one way to do it I’m not saying the only way is to come here in person to the region doesn’t have to be Ukraine if you’re not okay with coming during the war but it can be in Poland or in I mean there’s many single women probably in Poland as there is in Ukraine uh Ukrainian women and you got the Barusians as well as well as the polls or you go to somewhere like Regan Lapio or you can even go up the road to Kishal Moldova if you want I bring in clients a lot to Kazakhstan it’s one of my favorite places, but that’s obviously a lot of further out the way and you have to like Asians to a certain extent because it’s 85% Asian. So those are some of the alternatives and the main way is through social social circle has made a comeback even though the stats in the US say like 50% of relationships now start online. I gave I did a went on a live stream with a guy was born in Barus. I always forget his last name. All right, Alex is his first name. I think it was I’m thinking of um yeah something with Chuck at the end very belating apps in general especially attractive women they don’t meet men and he was a bit skeptical but then afterwards I saw that he went and he did a video in Miami the best part of Miami and he stopped and he he stopped women he thought were very attractive and asked him hey you know where did you meet your boyfriend and it was like really low the percentage that met on dating apps are online. Obviously, none of them met through a matchmaker to be clear, but most of them met through yeah through social circle or doing a going to an event or something like that. It was like super high. Some I met on Instagram and a few have met on dating apps, but it was like it was definitely less than 20%. It might even less than 10%. I can’t remember how many said at the end. So, even though in general 50% of people according to me online, it seems that the more attractive women for sure they they just basically don’t use these kind of apps. Most, as you probably aware, most of these apps now are very heavily full of men. Very few women go on to them. And yeah, men are not very selective compared to women as we know. There’s most men would want to at least for sexual access. Um, men, you know, there’s the adage that men are the gatekeepers of a relationship, but women are the gatekeepers of sex. So, and basically a commitment nowadays for most people, they’re going to have to have a sexual relationship first. So that means that women are going to be in a position to be selective at the beginning. So all that means that Jenny apps in general, especially if you are look I mean if you’re in the top 1% as profiles, maybe it still makes sense to be on them because then you would have still probably decent options depending where you are. But if you’re outside a very narrow top band and it’s also very timeconuming I find on these apps you probably have to outsource it. there’s a lot of you wanted to save time and now we have AI coming in where probably would be just lots of bots on these things pretty soon. So all that means that dating apps nowadays compared to even 5 6 years ago are not as attractive. You are a single guy and especially if you’re looking for someone who’s above average in terms of attractiveness. We’ll say above a five. I think it’s pretty pretty hard unless you’re like in the top 1% and probably if you are in that high percentile you could probably do even better if you just go to events and socialize in person that’s why I always emphasize coming here uh to the region geomaxing as it said said three months or so in a city it shouldn’t be any reason you come somewhere should have other things to do actually and create a social circle actually play a role in society even contribute in some shape or form provide value And that just makes it a lot easier to meet women as kind of a byproduct of being there in the first place. That’s why I see also my clients when we went to Kazan in particular, we were there for an event and uh yeah, just meet so many interesting people in general and obviously some of them are women who are single. So it all kind of just flows from that. It’s not something that you have to really even think so much about. But a lot of these guys who give advice are kind of obsessed with trying to optimize the top of a dating funnel or something like that. But once you have so many options uh from the way you live your lifestyle and being in the right place and being a guy who’s able to demonstrate his value, another way to do that is online, especially Instagram. Nowadays, Instagram is like a dating CV. That’s another thing these um matchmakers will never talk about. They they they kind of tried to target people who are scared of social media or something. I guess older guys maybe are not as fay with it, but you need to have an Instagram where you’re able to display your value. You do that through the photos and the videos you have there, but also through the stories and most women are on Instagram in this region for better or worse. But it’s a great way to display your value. So, you need to get that set up if you want to. I do have clients at times who just don’t want to be on it for because they have such a big public profile, they don’t want to use it and that makes it harder. So we found some alternatives like having a telegram group for example uh where they can you know share the candid snaps and what they’re up to with a more select number of people where it’s not going to be even searchable online. So because they’re more concerned about their privacy. So that is something else that you need to dial in these days is to make sure that you have a strong social media presence if you are open to that. Again there are some exceptions. build a social circle. Uh we have this concept like familiar and unfamiliar settings. So like if you’re on a dating app, the reason why I think it’s like I have a video where it’s about how men and women uh perceive beauty here and also abroad. I I’ll go in I think it’s already down in the description of this video. You can go watch it afterwards and if you’re if you’re interested. But women in general, like men, when we see women, we basically have a bell curve, right? Most women are in the center, we kind of are pretty good at saying a five is a five, a six is a six, seven is a seven. Women at hand think a guy who’s a five and the average is probably like a two. But that is if it’s on a dating app, cuz that’s where we take this the research from because it’s an unfamiliar environment. Well, once it becomes a familiar environment, then women in general start to see guys who are fives as fives, guys are sevens and sevens. So they in general they will push their valuation higher once they’re familiar with the guy. So they met him in the context of been introduced by a friend for example. So there’s a really big difference when you’re meeting someone without that familiar environment versus when you meet them in that familiar environment in for women. Like us guys, we don’t really respond the same way. If we see a hot chick, whether it’s online or in person, we’re we’re we’re cool with that, right? they’re going to probably assess her in the same way. But women, they assess more in context. So that is very important. That is why having a social circle, playing a function, going to events, being social is so important. If you’re someone who struggles with that, you do definitely need to work on your social skills and work on your communication because that is what is holding you back and that’s probably why you ended up lying in things like dating apps or even even a matchmaker or something like that. Um, other things to mention, yeah, a lot of these matchmakers, but this is just in general, it’s a a comment. It’s not just matchmakers. They talk about love languages. There’s no scientific basis for any of that. So, I would just pretty much ignore it. It’s kind of a very simple schema to explain how people communicate their attraction or desire. But it’s they’re way better theories if you if you start to read about psychology explaining like attachment theory or communication theory. So, I advise you to just go and read about those. But if someone is talking about their love languages all the time, it’s a bit like astrology. Yeah, I think that’s something more women are interested in than men in average. Uh but I see a lot of match, they talk about your love language. Yeah, I don’t I would ignore that. I would actually be suspicious of someone who’s trying to persuade me that what other uh snake oil are they trying to sell me. Um because if you read into it, you realize there isn’t much correlation with reality. I’ve always thought that but I went and took a look um about behind about it in preparation here and yeah that’s basically what I advise and I don’t know you know you need to be able to speak to strangers but not be the weirdo who walks around in the shopping mall for 8 hours and stopping everybody with canned lines acting awkward and being a minor public nuisance which is you know if you look at the two main business models I’d say to that have been trying to help guys in this is on a practical level it’s matchmakers and the ones teaching the day game stuff where they walk around the train station and outside Warsaw and annoying women. So neither of those do I recommend. You need to think about more strategically where you’re going to be first of all the geographic locations what we call geomaxing obviously what you can work on for yourself to raise your own value. So, your communication skills, some people call it game, but it’s basically communication skills. You know, are you obese? Go to the gym. They’re an easy solution to a lot, even if a lot of people don’t want to do them. Uh, you know, what’s your style like? Is it something that’s going to make you more or less attractive to the kind of women you’re interested in? Where are you going to go and hang out? What’s your social circle like? Does it correspond with the type of women that you want to meet or the type of guys you want to meet for to have guy friends? As I always say, there’s um one of my former clients who was on my programs who met in person a few times. He bought some commercial real estate in in Ukraine, also some uh residential afterwards. And he had a model girlfriend from Ukraine, but he said, “Connor, the thing is I’m Billy no mates. I don’t have any guy friends.” I mean, yeah, dating is not not my big issue, but you want to be able to meet people. you’re going to form that social circle with. We’re social creatures and it’s not good for your mental health if you don’t have friends. No matter where you are, no matter how good the dating is, you want to have cool guy friends to hang out with as well. Shoot the breeze with. So, that’s something that’s very important for your mental health as a man. That’s what the studies show. And that’s why a lad’s night out is considered quite important for your mental health. And yeah, go out and socialize. That could mean going to bars and clubs. doesn’t have to be for everybody, but it is a place where people are coralled to be in a social environment and you don’t have to drink alcohol if you don’t want to drink alcohol when you go there. I don’t think that’s really that taboo nowadays not to drink alcohol in a place like Ukraine. I used to think that 10 10 years ago, but of course, if you like to drink, just don’t drink to excess obviously. And yeah, that’s what I’ll say in 2025. The real thing is to have a proper strategy about where you’re going to be, kind of people that you’re going to socialize with, how you’re going to improve your own perception of value, whether that’s that can that’s going to be jewel, how they perceive you on an app, right? Uh something like Instagram, how your public profile looks like. Um I think it should display your value. Think of it like a CV. You don’t want to lie in your CV cuz you’re not going to be the the the goods that arrive are not going to be what’s in the the bill of bill of bleeding is what they call it. But you know, you want to present yourself in a positive light so you display your value. And maybe even you’ve thrown the things that would put people off. Well, maybe they’ll put off the people who are not a good match with you. So there two ways of thinking about that. You shouldn’t try and that’s why I think the the candid clips on Instagram are really good because then you can show what you’re really up to a lot of the time. And maybe for some women that’s not a good fit. For others it is. So also you can risk being a little bit polarizing. work on your your finances because soio economic status is as important as a guy. More important than it is for us when we choose women on average. It’s called hypergamy. And yeah, basically working your fitness and your other aesthetics. You can think about the looks maxing and all these procedures. I haven’t invested too much into it, but I understand for some other guys, you know, if you have something significantly wrong with you, you might want to think about a way to to have that corrected. And yeah, that’s it. But I think the most value for a guy comes from where you are, who you socialize with, and your communication skills. I think that’s the real way. And that’s definitely been the most successful way that I see overall. Not exclusively, but overall for my clients, uh, for my friends, for myself, and even for the guys who run the the matchmaking services. So, I’ll leave that as the little bow tie at the end and go and look at your questions and your comments on this beautiful autumn evening here. And just to emphasize it again, I will have a program for guys who want to come here and invest in Ukraine and thinking of business that will be coming very soon. Cetra says, “Hello, man. You’re super energetic. What is the temperature in Celsius?” Wo, not sure. I’ll have to look on this spare phone. I didn’t have a I don’t know if I have the SIM card on. I think I have a foreign sim card in it and so it’s not going to tell me. I would say today it’s definitely over 10°. So, I’m actually a little bit warm in this. I just put it on just in case my um winter park has been cleaned at the moment. I actually brought it to Kazakhstan. Uh but then when I got back was like a well, it needs to be cleaned. There’s an oversight over the winter is that it cleaned and now is definitely the time to do that considering it’s not that cold. But I would say it’s probably in the teens here. Uh 20° Wayne says. I’m not sure. I think you’re in Bucharest. Yeah, it’s probably not far off it today. So, it’s quite nice temperature. We’re not going to have that for that much longer. It’s going to get cold here in Ukraine pretty soon. Uh Roy says there he’s currently in Warsaw. Hey, what’s up, man? Everything looks like Soviet made buildings, hotels, upas, casinos. Everything looks like apartments, windows, graffiti everywhere. Yeah, most of Warso was rebuilt after World War II. It got completely smashed in the second world war. First you had the the Nazis coming through. They took Warsaw which I think how the war started. Then they went further during operation Barbar Roa invaded the Soviet Union. You know Soviet Union. Moscow and Berlin were allies at the time and then obviously in the second part of the of World War II Soviets came through crashed Warsaw again. Just before that you had the Warsaw uprising and then the Nazis basically destroyed more of the city and killed so many of its residents uh whilst the Soviets hooked on because for them it was kind of convenient to see the Nazis and the locals kill each other so that when they eventually came in they had even less resistance to controlling the place. So yeah, unfortunately a lot of it’s been rebuilt. I think given the historical old town is basically just a restored old town. So not a super historic city. I think Warso makes sense if you are a guy who wants to be in a big city in the region and um yeah cuz that’s about 2 to 3 million otherwise you can go to Prague is another alternative it’s a bit smaller actually alati where it was in Kazakhstan is also that size and we have Kiev which is like 5 million is even bigger here but obviously the downside is the Ukrainian war and Russia firing rockets that is um definitely a ke almost definitely it’s basically on a daily basis is and well Kev is a big city. If you if you’re more interested in coming here to Ukraine, I have lots of live streams I’ve done in the last few months and statistically the chances of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s like one in a million per day per capita in a major city in Ukraine. So yeah, you’re more likely to get run over by a car get a serious car accident in any US city than you are to get hit by something here. Uh but it’s not comfortable. It’s more the psychological effect of living with this terrorism threat on a daily basis over time that’s really a lot more painful and hurtful I think to the people detrimental than actually the chance in the wrong time wrong place at the wrong time and being woken up in the middle by you know anti-aircraft fire and explosions and all that stuff it’s not the best for your nerves although you get used to it uh which is good and bad because then you don’t go to shelters as often once you you start to stay out for them unless it’s really really dangerous. So there are the options. So I still understand why guys go to war. So I think it’s an interesting city and if you’re a single guy, it’s better than the average European city and definitely better than the average city in North America. But yeah, I if that were my only reason that you’re on this live stream watching me, I would not be going there for that reason. Ria way better in my experience. And actually most cities in the region are way better than Warsaw. Also because Wars has so many foreign guys. You got the whole debacle outside the train station and the shopping center. There’s like spread along to the shopping center across from it now outside it just pestering girls and stuff. So yeah, I just have a lot of guys in general there who are foreigners chasing girls basically. It’s like the center in Europe for it. It’s where all these um coaches go as well to teach this day game malarkey. I did do it as a social experiment many years ago and it wasn’t that bad, but I never did it again. I realized this is like why would I walk around doing this when there’s so many more time to efficient and better ways to meet women. Anyways, um let’s see. He says, “I would live love to hear about the best place you think would be good for West looking for a serious relation in or nearness.” Um, well, any relationship like starts with getting to know a woman, having intimacy, and then deciding whether you want to continue a relationship, right? That’s basically way it works. We don’t like almost no one in western society includes here like believes in no sex before marriage. So women being the gatekeepers to gatekeepers to sex in general. It’s kind of going to be the same process even if you just want a one night stand as opposed to a serious relationship. you’re basically going to have to get to know someone um either very briefly or but obviously better the how long you get to know them and then there’s going to be some intimacy and then a relationship and then you kind of decide if it’s you know you have to be able to maintain it if you want to or you’re going to have to decide to move on. So as a yeah for western man in this region as I said I think with clients like where have we brought clients we’ll say since 2022 Ria Villas Kness Talin Warso Kishau Almati Aana also the Ukraine although it’s more for relocation and yeah we did party a bit uh but very little actually in China so where do I think is the best place. And there’s there’s kind of a dichotomy that I described a few times. It’s like if you go up to the Baltics or even Warsaw, the weather is different. People look different. It’s way blonder and taller. Especially when you get into Lithuania, Lafia, Estonia. So, if that’s what you’re attracted to, then I also think the food isn’t as good and the climate isn’t as good cuz it’s it’s way grayer and the the soil isn’t as good. The climate is good. Plus, if you come down here towards the south in Europe in this region, then women tend to be more brown hair, a little bit darker, I would say, than I mean, everybody is white and everyone’s European. So, I’m not talking about people suddenly than like from Africa or from Asian, but they definitely have more of these kind of uh traits that are a little bit less blonde. They’re a little bit shorter on average, although you still have super tall people, you know, here as well. And the food, in my opinion, is a lot better. the climate is warmer, you have a lot more sun. So, um, okay, I see the question I’ll come to in a sec. So, that’s kind of the dichconomy I see. So, if you are really into to leggy blondes, I say, well, then you should go to the the Baltic states. And if you are more inches of girls who are a bit shorter, maybe a bit more brown brown hair, then probably somewhere like Romania, Moldova, this region will probably have more of that. It does have more than that. So, I think you got first the aesthetics. In terms of values, you’re going to have to come and see if it’s really for you or not. Being from, when you say western, you mean North American. Well, here it’s an allied state. You’re in a war. You probably have more value just for the fact that you’re American or Canadian depending on what Donald Trump has said in the last 24 hours. Of course, sometimes probably better not to be American, but you can be a Canadian for sure or a Brit uh for sure all the time here and have, you know, people are going to be interested in chatting to you just because there’s a war. It’s obviously a very special situation. Other than that and you don’t have there’s no foreigner factor, right? It’s not like the early 90s when we had this probably legitimate cottage industry of matchmaking where being from America, people were like, “Wow, you know, everybody would want to talk to you because more or less because they were so fascinated, right? There’s so many Americans who go to a place like Warsaw like no one cares if you’re American. Like it’s better than being from other places in the world.” That’s true, but you don’t really have that much of an of an advantage just because of your passport. That’s why I made the video about passport go shouldn’t come to this region at all. Definitely not to the Baltics and Poland. I just don’t know why they would because their passport is actually weaker probably than a Polish passport and a Latafian passport nowadays. So, and the prices are a lot higher than say in Malddova or here or in Kazakhstan. So, yeah, you can have that economy. It sounds like we’d probably have to talk in a in a consulting call, giving a shameless uh pitch there. Book one down below because there’s just so many factors that go into figuring out where’s going to be the best place for you. And of course, you can go to all them by yourself and DIY up and watch my content. But I probably direct you quicker to go to the right places as I did with a client recently. It’s actually he’s not even that recent anymore, but I’ve talked about bit recently on the live streams because he was going to go to Warsaw and then he he went to Ria. There’s Roy. Let me know what how you find Warsaw otherwise in addition to the aesthetics which are obviously not to your liking. Uh Wayne says Armenian Brides Cooperative sounds like another business to underwrite. Well, we can talk about it in due course. Maybe that is the business to start. Maybe I should stop giving these um dodgy matchmakers that watch my channel free business ideas. I should just head to Armenia, head to Yavan. I’m initious. That’s that was actually something that was asked a lot in 2018. Would I set up a a marriage agency? I was like no. I’m just not interested in running one. But I would have probably made more money in the short. I don’t even think so to be frank. But uh I would have made my money in a different way. And going forward, I definitely don’t want to be in that business. Um, Barry says, “I’m too old for your service. 65 like Brooklyn, but love your content.” Yet man from Yeah, that’s Yelina. Barry, how is she doing? How’s the season when we do? I think we will only do an interview next year. We normally do an interview once a year with a little bit of a gap, I think, at the beginning after the invasion. But I don’t really see much value in doing more than one. I want to talk about other things in this channel in general. There’s just a lot more interesting stuff. I think especially in the business side and I see that I’ve the last six weeks I’ve gotten so many comments from guys who watch the live streams about doing business here and moving here that yeah, this is more interesting. Of course, some of them are single and also interested in the dating side, but it’s it’s kind of you I have a hunch you’d be even more successful. That’s not the main reason to be here. If you’re here to do business and actually set up your life, then as long as you, you know, there’s obviously things, bottlenecks to figure out for for guys, especially in their communication, uh, if they struggle with that and building the social circle and all that stuff. Uh, but in general, yeah, if you’re coming here and actually going to play a role in society, it’s already makes you stand out. Um, let’s see. Barry says you, “What about interviewing the founders of Heart Rocket?” H interesting proposition, but the last comment that Striker made to me uh in a messenger, not so sure I’m going to give them my platform considering the language used. I’ll leave it at that. It was many years ago. Uh but they actually are doing better from what I can see on YouTube than Match Guarantee. you actually seem to be the only one that’s kind of a this maybe their only is about the same as it was before if you look at the views while all the others you had hops every year from what I can see on all the other channels. I think that’s just overall uh about the region if that’s the topic you’re talking about because Ukraine in general I mean the content that talks about the war obviously does very well but if you’re talking about lifestyle obviously here there’s a very niche market to that and that’s fine I’ll just help that niche market. Um, Barry says he was in Russia 1987. Wow, that you should write some more about what your experience was like then. That’s pretty interesting. And Wayne says you are barely older than I am, but it helps to be closer to the target countries kind of. Yeah, you need to be in the region. uh you’re in Brooklyn and it can it can work matchmaking and just as a business with this Ukrainian traditional bride fetish I mean the age demographic of the women who fall into that even anywhere close to that stereotype is like every passing year it’s older and older right it’s it’s not the it’s not a 20-year-old Ukrainian hottie that’s and she’s probably been living for the last four years in Germany or in France France or Ireland and she has Instagram. Like I understand for older guys, when I say older guys, older than me, but I even think some guys my age cuz I’m 47. Like they kind of live under a bit of a rock if they’re not on social media and what the access of information and images that girls have. Like I remember there’s time was really trending for Ukrainian girls to want to go to Norway because some influencers were posting. That’s not even that extreme. Obviously, you can go to Maldives or, you know, the whole Dubai thing. Well, when I was in Ireland, when I was 19, the people didn’t even talk about going to Maldives. They didn’t even talk about going to Norway. That’s how much has changed. And, you know, Ireland wasn’t talking about 19, it wasn’t as as wealthy as it is today, but it wasn’t that poor and we had visa free access. So, yeah, it’s just the ease of travel has changed as well. just don’t see how this has much staying power in this region. I just see it going the way of Estonia, but I’m sure they will so much money put into the brand. So, that couple wanted to show you some upbeat Odessa spirit in spite of everything that’s been going on here. Uh Barry is going to say his picture is very wild. Every city had a London museum. I’m sure that would have been interesting to have seen. I did not come to this region back then. I guess two I mean how do you want to describe this region but I have been in Poland I think be no actually I only went to Poland I think first time in 2008 2008. So that’s already 17 years now. Wow. Um, what are you seeing as the most popular businesses the west are starting in? Well, Eastern Europe, you know, I don’t I mean that for me is just Russia and stuff. So, who knows what they’re if they I don’t outside of the work. I’m not sure there’s much business going being created there. popular businesses here. Uh obviously guys investing in real estate is a big thing and here in Ukraine defense industry enormous I mean so many I mean defense you know defense uh defense industry CEOs i.e. arm dealers. It would be the layman’s term for them that come here because this is one of the results of the of the invasion is that Ukraine and to a certain extent Russia is going to be as well the cutting edge for new weapons. You know, it’s terrible. That’s the industry that’s growing here, but you know, Moscow wants to leave us alone. We go back to doing other things. But that’s basically what Ukraine is going to continue with after this war is over because they’re going to have so much knowledge and expertise and it’s going to be so valuable and they’re going to be able to sell it and there’s going to be lots of jobs with it. So yeah, it’s a huge investment industry at the moment for obvious reasons and investors from Western Europe in particular that I met here. Also agricultural industryy’s always been huge here. This is a bright blast of Europe and I think post well it depends what happens with the European Union in terms of how they deal with the common agricultural policy and giving access without tariffs to Ukrainian produce because obviously there are huge competitors here for a lot of producers in central Europe like Hungary or Slovakia or Polish farmers because the soil here is just better in this region and the climate so they can produce a huge mountain. flat. So it’s just great agricultural uh terrain and as said it’s been known as the bread basket of the Soviet Union. It was really the bread basket of Europe to a certain extent. So that is an enormous industry. I also get queries about that from guys who actually have legitimate big businesses in it. So yeah, if you want to do there’s lots of things and I’ll be this is what I’ll be discussing in my program. So, just make sure that you’re on my mailing list for that and I’ll be sending out an email probably at the end of next week and once I worked a bit more on it and then I’ll do a launch probably the week after. That’s my current timetable. Uh, other business I did have a client who opened like he bought up some coffee kiosks but then he exited that. He also then wanted to start like a cool cocktail bar cuz that’s very highly profitable. This is pre2022. It’s like 2021 2020. And then he had issues with the neighbors. He actually had it I he was cleaning it out and renovating it and then it never got launched. He just said he wasn’t able to do it or maybe Yeah, that’s that’s what he told me it was. Whether there’s some other issue, I don’t know. Uh but yeah, otherwise he renovated it was quite popular to take historic buildings, apartments in historic buildings in Kev, renovate them and then put them on Airbnb. the rental yields were insane, like over 15% if I remember at the time. So 15 to 20% rental yield, which is like phenomenal. Uh yeah, and presumably the same after the war, but there’s a lot of factors that go into real estate in wartime situation like here, the price property is the same as in 2021. Basically, as a generalization, it’s not it’s not that different in the big cities like Keefe. It’s actually higher in places like Leviv, Chernovi, Usher, the cities where further in the west where people moved to more proportionally uh and they’ve basically rebounded in places here. Uh if Ukraine were to liberate all of the occupied territory presumably a lot of people well well first of all they come back from Western Europe a certain number of them. So that would obviously push the prices up but then they would leave presumably to go back to Dunetsk or to Crimea or to somewhere else um that’s currently occupied or close to the front line. So yeah, that would then put downward pressure on prices here in Adessa or Kev for example or western Ukraine and then foreign investors will come in on mass presumably as well because then they’ll be feel very comfortable with their investment. Um but yeah, it depends on how the war ends of course. So there’s just a lot of uncertainty. Uh but there are definitely if you are more risk-taking and you your calculation is that Ukraine will well let’s let’s take Girkin the Russian n ultra nationalist from prison’s calculations like he said basically Russia has almost no chance of winning at this point and the best they can hope for is some sort of protracted impass and it’s just as likely that they’ll lose completely and you’re going to liberate everything eventually. So that’s his assessment. So if you go for the Girkin assessment, then you’re probably pretty comfortable investing in a place like Odessa. Of course, you know, your building might be might be hit by something that is an additional risk that you’re going to have to take. And some of my none of my friends have had their apartments or clients have had their apartments destroyed. Actually, I think the striker from Hard Rocket, I think his apartment might have been damaged. Someone sent me a a clip from Telegram way, but this is a couple years ago that I think they had an apartment near there’s a business center on the way out to Arcadia from the center. I think it’s on Shipchenko Avenue maybe. And yeah, I think my understanding is that oh, if I’m wrong about that, you can always write in the comments here. But he was the only person I think I know who had apartment that was really damaged. One of my friends. Yes, when they hit the Bristol Hotel, which is here in the center historic hotel, his apartment’s across the streets, he had some damage to the roof, but you know, at the end of the day, nothing catastrophic, but that’s obviously another risk uh of investing here. Uh yes, Josh Odessa does look really nice in November. Yeah, it’s a fantastic November. I’m not sure I could go swimming. You could. Depends how sure how cold the water is. Um Barry says he was in Moscow. Give Yalto Lengrad is now St. Petersburg. Yeah, beautiful city. And wish Trump would have said they would give Tom a missile, but yeah, I just like I have a geopolitics channel where I can get all that stuff off my chest. I just ignore almost everything Don Drum says at this stage because he keeps flip-flopping in his rhetorics. One day he’s shouting at uh Zalinsky apparently in his to surrender in his office next time he’s he’s warning Putin so and threatening to give tomahawks. Wayne says there were surfers and fishermen out there last week. Yeah, in Odessa. I will be definitely changing my content going forward. I’m going to film a lot more going into next year about life here. I think I think the time has come for that. And we will see. I I still have to make video from Warsaw vlog, from Ria vlog, my three fashion show vlog, summer Kishau vlog, and yeah, I actually made a video for traveling here as well. I guess we can call it vlog as well, vlog style. That’s five videos. And yeah, we’ll have some more vlog interviews with interesting people. Uh, Ba Moldova here. And anything else you got planned? [Music] Well, I’m going to make some sort of winter vlog when I go to Alati because we’re going to be there to ski season. So, I think it’ll be an interesting variation. So, but I’m also curious to see which parts of the region you guys are most interested in. I feel like Ukraine is rebounding for guys who want to spend time here in spite of everything and interest investing in business, buying real estate. Yeah. So probably the topics are a bit different and obviously geographical location me talking about Alati is maybe not as interesting although I have demand to go there. So super cool city. I love Kazakhstan. It’s uh well I love everywhere I go. That’s why that’s why I go there. Like if like for example, I don’t like Sophia in Bulgaria. Went twice, didn’t enjoy it. But I’m sure if I was open to it, I could find clients who want to go there, but it’s not really what I want to do. That said, I will uh interview Lena Mloud again. I spoke to her during the week and she is based there. And actually the the taxes are interesting in Bulgaria at the moment, the tax situation. So it is one option. Another one is Albania, but I’ve been to Albania. I just Yeah, it’s not terrible or anything, but it’s it’s not for me personally. And um yeah, I’m already spread pretty thin, I think, to talk about these things. I will maybe I mentioned the start of the live stream in addition to the program about um coming here. It’s going to be Ukraine from destruction to opportunity is not the name. I agreed with the guys who I spoke with about who are interested in it. Uh yeah, destruction opportunity. That’s what we agreed. It was like a almost unanimous bar one um what’s the word objector to to the title. I am considering a business here focused on Ukraine. But I’m going to reveal that in due course cuz I uh yeah I have a certain steps I need to take to set it up. But it’s something that’s been suggested to me by three entrepreneurs here who are foreigners and also by some other people who are just not here. They’ve asked me why I haven’t done it. So I guess I should go and do it if that many people are telling me. Plus I’ve investigated a little bit and the um yeah the profit margins are are pretty big. So yeah that’s the thing. And there are a lot of opportunities um that arise cuz so few people have been willing because of the war which is understandable to invest and build stuff but that leaves a gap especially for postwar where yeah when business comes back then suddenly everyone will try to come back in right but that apartment that you wanted that might have cost 100k 6 months a year before hopefully it’s not 10 years before if the war goes on that long then it’ll be what 150 200,000 So yeah, the early early bird catches the worm, but there’s a lot of factors that go into that. So have to find with your risk profile, the right opportunities. Uh, and it might necessarily be real estate, even if that’s the most popular. Um, I see a lot of other things that are definitely extremely profitable. The obvious one being the defense industry. So other questions and comments. If you are interested in what I had to say about the Ukrainian bride business, go and check out the playlist down below. There’s all the content there, but I think I gave you a pretty good overview of the whole the whole business model what they use. I didn’t make it super technical going into granular detail, but just an overview why is a business and why it doesn’t make sense to me going forward that it’ll be a big massive business anymore. Uh, but maybe maybe it’s going to make a comeback. I’m not really sure how um because so many of the single women left and moved to Western Europe that even with the tragic loss of so many Ukrainian men during the war, it’s not unbalanced. Even with a lot of guys at the front, it’s kind of like 50/50 here when I go out. May maybe slightly more women. It’s true. In if you go to certain cafes, yeah, go to cafes day, it’s probably more women. Probably you go to bar, slightly more men, but yeah, it’s close to 50/50. And yeah, because there’s like almost 1 million men in the armed forces. So presumably most of those are away at the moment. But so many of the women left and the ones who are like on average the women who are more likely to stay sing unmarried more likely to marry if their husbands are not there with them. And then if they speak speak English also more likely to adapt to being abroad and if they’re interested in foreign guys more likely to find them there. So yeah, I think for the typical marriage agency wife hunter, like doesn’t make sense to me. I think they should if they’re they don’t have options back home, they should be going to the Philippines or somewhere to a small island. There’s a YouTuber, I’ve forgotten his name, but I I took some of these B-roll to put in my videos maybe a year or two ago. And he has some wife who’s more than 20 years younger than him or something. And uh he documents that and he’s overweight. So that’s kind of an American. So yeah, we met her on some island, some small island somewhere from what I understood. But that’s the that’s where your um your advant competitive advantages if your wife hunting. It’s not going to be in Odessa. It’s going to be in a Filipino island or somewhere else. Could be in Central America. Could be Latin. It just depends where your preference is. I guess in Europe because I was kind of asked that where to go as a western guy. Again, it depends on your preferences and what where you are in terms of perceived value because some countries obviously a certain look will do better than others. Uh certain values will do better than others. Like if you’re one of these guys who supports Russia in the war and you’re going to hang out in Warsaw, like you must be well, you’re delusional if you think Poles and in general or even you and Ukrainians, too many of them are going to be interesting when they find out that’s who you support. But you will be amazed. At least I’m amazed how many of them are there because they make this content so many of them or they show up in other people’s content. I was watching a YouTuber the other day and um he’s kind of in the dating sphere I guess and he was walking around Warsaw and then this guy he was walking around I don’t know where he knew him from. It didn’t seem he knew him very well. And he suddenly he started talking about basically make it clear he supported Putin. And then he’s like talking to girls who had I don’t know it looked like Ukrainian name like long term I mean of course he can lie about it in the the short term but what’s going to happen and why is he in Warsaw? Why is he in Warsaw? It’s like the most hostile country to Russia almost in the entire continent other than Ukraine. So for 90% of polls, that’s going to be like a deal breaker when they find it out. So I don’t know why he’s there, but I guess he has his reasons. Why doesn’t he just go live in Moscow? At least that would be congruent. Um, okay. Having rambled about that a little bit. Uh, Donald says, “Hey buddy, I hope you and uh Shel are okay. It’s cold here. It’s 52° Fahrenheit. Not really. Of I don’t really remember what Fahrenheit is in Celsius anymore. We used to maybe have an Ireland when it was really small, but just the US uses it. But it sounds pretty cold. All right. It’s 52 degrees. That must be less than 10 Celsius. Uh, avoid H. So Josh says, “Avoid Bulgary talks. Terrible place.” No. Go ahead. For sure. Josh doesn’t want other foreigners going there. I think that’s why he’s writing that. Um, a British fell. Ah, okay. Yeah. Well, you can be thankful that on my live stream I I don’t say much good about Bulgaria other than the uh personal income taxes and the business taxes are actually pretty good. British fellow says, “I heard the border with Barus is now closed with Lithuania.” Yeah, yes, that is the current situation. The border with Barus is closed.

Insider’s Guide to Ukraine During the War 👉🏻 https://conorclyne.com/ukraineguide
Insider’s Guide to Magical Moldova 👉🏻 https://conorclyne.com/moldovaguide
Consigliere Conor Consulting Calls 👉🏻 https://conorclyne.com/consulting
New Europe Experience Application Form 👉🏻 https://conorclyne.com/applicationform

Steal my FREE ‘Conor’s Hotspots in Kyiv, Chișinău & Kazakhstan’ PDF 👉🏻 https://secretplacesneweurope.conorclyne.com
Ukraine Geopolitics channel 👉🏻 https://www.youtube.com/@ConorClyneGeopolitics
Buy “Bloodlands” by Timothy Snyder 👉🏻 https://amzn.to/3Y2tkqv

Why are some American Men still Seeking Ukrainian Brides in 2025? | Vodka Vodkast 138 👉🏻 https://youtu.be/XTXFU0eOTJY
Why do some Ukrainian women still hunt for American husbands in 2024? | Vodka Vodkast 134 👉🏻 https://youtu.be/XQ1Lqe0Lrww
Ukrainian Bride Business playlist 👉🏻 https://conorclyne.com/ukrainianbridebusiness
Move to Poland playlist 👉🏻 https://conorclyne.com/movepoland
Move to Latvia playlist 👉🏻 https://conorclyne.com/movelatvia
Move to Kazakhstan playlist 👉🏻 https://conorclyne.com/movekazakhstan
Move to Moldova playlist 👉🏻 https://conorclyne.com/movemoldova
Move to Ukraine playlist 👉🏻 https://conorclyne.com/moveukraine

Where can you find the most ‘TRADITIONAL’ women in Europe? | Vodka Vodkast 106 👉🏻 https://youtu.be/rvdo3rVJmqg
This killed the Ukrainian bride business … 🇺🇦👸🏼🚫 | Vodka Vodkast 116 👉🏻 https://youtu.be/gJi2GluIGI0
Understanding Value Gap in Dating in Ukraine | Vodka Vodkast 084 👉🏻 https://youtu.be/wy17pAKuHoM
What is a 9 or 10 female beauty benchmark in New Europe? 👉🏻 https://youtu.be/6ulyp4ShwqM
Post-War Ukraine: One American’s Plan to Return and Invest in Odesa 🇺🇸🇺🇦 | Vodka Vodkast 140 👉🏻 https://youtu.be/MdPX7fdbdsY
Odesa, Ukraine: Life Under Military Administration 🇺🇦 👉🏻 https://youtube.com/live/R6KA1uxd0Vs
Get Ahead of the Post-War Boom: Beauty, Spirit and Opportunity in Odesa, Ukraine 🇺🇦 👉🏻 https://youtube.com/live/y3ir3YaAFe0
Is NOW the time to travel or even relocate to Ukraine? 🇺🇦 👉🏻 https://youtube.com/live/rVHF0lVxrQ4

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00:00 Greetings from Odesa, Ukraine
01:45 New program – Ukraine: From Destruction to Opportunity
02:36 What is the Ukrainian Bride Business?
04:38 New Europe Experience links
07:11 History of the Ukrainian Bride Business
24:47 Post-2022 invasion changes
26:48 Issues once Ukrainian wife lives in the core Anglosphere
29:35 Timeline of industry
30:39 ‘Traditional bride’ fetish
32:49 2022 video prediction
34:09 ChatGPT prediction for 2026
34:38 Armenian ‘traditional brides’
36:39 The real secret to meet women in Ukraine
38:05 Virtual speed dating
39:07 Social circle has made a comeback
40:25 Dynamics on dating apps
42:45 Value on Instagram
43:54 Familiar v unfamiliar settings
45:40 The absurdity of ‘love languages’
46:46 No daygaming
47:17 Holistic strategy
50:52 Q&A: what’s the current temperature in Odesa?
52:07 Q&A: why is Warsaw modern and grey?
53:26 Q&A: what’s the risk in Ukraine now?
54:42 Q&A: what are the alternatives to Warsaw?
55:53 Q&A: where is best for a Western man in the region?
1:00:45 Q&A: would I set up a marriage agency?
1:01:33 Q&A: when will do another interview with Elena?
1:02:49 Q&A: would I do a collaboration with Heart Rocket?
1:03:51 Q&A: can matchmaking ever work?
1:05:00 Changes in the region since 1990s
1:06:23 Q&A: what are the most popular businesses in Ukraine?
1:13:17 Upcoming new content
1:14:47 Q&A: why don’t I go to Bulgaria?
1:15:25 New business upcoming
1:17:25 Ukrainian bride business in 2026
1:19:49 Q&A: who shouldn’t come to Central Europe?
1:22:15 Q&A: why is the Lithuanian border with Belarus closed?