Enzo Bellini traveled to Moscow in 1992, to help refit the decor for a new Italian restaurant, and met Yelena, and now have been married 8 years.

Enzo's male friends upon seeing Yelena, encouraged Enzo and Yelena act as Cupids. What started out as a hobby, blossomed into a matchmaking business, which has led to 30 marriages between Russians and Italians over the last five years, and will would result in the same number of marriages this year.

To Bellini, women back home in Italy had lost their femininity. "They are good work colleagues, you can go and play billiards with them, like with your mates," he said. "They've become more like men, no longer women in the traditional sense."

"Russian women have a great talent," Bellini said in almost impeccable Russian. "When they are close to you, a man feels like a king. Because he does not want to lose this beautiful feeling, he will do his best so that the woman feels like a queen too."

Comparing Italian to Russian men, Yelena said now she would not be able to live with a Russian. "Italian men are more hot-tempered and more jealous, but this is well balanced by their attention and care for a woman," she said. "Russian men are not that attentive."

One of the greatest concerns of the Russian women was:
"Many women who haven't been to Italy think it is all like the Mafia.

Now where do you imagine they got that idea?? The Movies/TV perhaps??
But don't they know it's only Movies/TV???  Only Entertainment??   :(
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MEN FROM ITALY, WOMEN FROM ROSTOV

Moscow Times
By Lyuba Pronina
Staff Writer
Wednesday, Apr. 14, 2004.

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Southern Russia -- Enzo Bellini is sure he knows what Russian women want: an Italian husband.

As well as selling sugar in his hometown of Cesenatico in northeast Italy, Bellini is now setting up a marriage agency in Rostov-on-Don.

In May, he plans to shoot videos of up to 200 women from Rostov that will be shown on a new regional television program in Italy.

"A photograph is not enough," said Bellini, 50, in an interview. "If a woman is charming and has good manners, you cannot see it from a photograph."

After eight years of marriage to a Russian, Bellini said he has first-hand knowledge of how charming Russian women can be.

"Russian women have a great talent," Bellini said in almost impeccable Russian. "When they are close to you, a man feels like a king. Because he does not want to lose this beautiful feeling, he will do his best so that the woman feels like a queen too."

On his first visit to Moscow in 1992, to help refit the decor for a new Italian restaurant, Bellini met Yelena, then a store assistant in Sokolniki. After asking for her phone number through a translator, Bellini offered her a job in the restaurant. His heart and an offer of marriage followed later, along with many bouquets of roses.

"She was tall, blond, blue-eyed, so beautiful, drop dead gorgeous, you could see her from afar," Bellini said.

Bellini shut up shop in Cesenatico and moved to Moscow, to get to know his wife-to-be and Russia better. Over the next four years he set up a laundry business, while she studied to become a Russian-Italian translator.

When in 1996 they got married and moved to Italy, Bellini's friends asked him whether Yelena had any sisters or friends as beautiful as her.

After three of Yelena's friends also married Italians, a friend who ran a marriage agency in Moscow suggested she could pool his efforts with Bellini.

What started as a hobby gradually turned into a business, he said.

"I suddenly thought that I was not only helping Russian women who wanted to live in Italy, but some Italian men too," he said.

Bellini said he would be happy if his Moscow matchmaking experience, which has led to 30 marriages between Russians and Italians over the last five years, would result in the same number of women from Rostov finding Italian husbands this year.

Bellini said he picked Rostov purely by chance, after helping a local woman left stranded in Italy without papers and money get back home and later marry an Italian.

"In Rostov, there are many women and few men," he said. "Half of the men are drunks and those who aren't, are married and have three lovers on the side."

To Bellini, women back home in Italy had lost their femininity. "They are good work colleagues, you can go and play billiards with them, like with your mates," he said. "They've become more like men, no longer women in the traditional sense."

One of Bellini's clients who visited Rostov, Andrea Gambaiani, said he was looking for a woman who would care about her family and husband, something he could not find back home.

"I have looked at my friends' experience, and I did not like it," he said. "The problem is that Italian women think of themselves first, and only then of the family and their husband."

Bellini said he will travel to Rostov at least once a month to meet would-be clients, women aged between 20 and 40.

"I talk to them for 15 minutes over a cup of tea," Bellini said. "I get a picture of who they are and what they want, because in Italy the guys ask me 'Enzo, have you seen that woman?'"

In the same way he talks to prospective husbands, and tries to dispel stereotypes.

"Many women who haven't been to Italy think it is all like the Mafia. And Italian men who do not know Russian women can think they are prostitutes."

"Our job is to be a shock absorber for both sides," he said.

His partner in the Rostov agency, Zemfira Zaitseva, runs a hairdressing salon and is new to the matchmaking game.

But she was excited about her joint venture with Bellini, and said it was sure to work, as she knew a lot of single, beautiful young women in the city.

"I come from Dagestan, where if a man sees a beautiful woman, he will try to talk to her, get her interested and treat her very well," Zaitseva said. "That simply doesn't happen here in Rostov, and I have lived here for five years."

"Many women, my friends and clients, in their late 20s and 30s, cannot find a husband. They say he does not have to be rich financially, but rich in his soul and interesting," she said.

Zaitseva said she had qualms at first, given the many reports of fake marriage agencies that force women into the sex trade.

"I told Enzo, 'You're afraid Russian women will use the agency to just come to Italy, and I worry they will be stranded there,'" she recalled saying to Bellini during their first meeting.

"But he assured me that everything would be OK. He is married to a Russian and has already helped to marry off a few dozen women," she said. "Girls now have a good impression about Enzo and feel calm and confident."

Yelena agreed.

"We have helped 30 Russo-Italian couples and they are still happily married," she said. "They are still as much in love as they were on the day they met."

And for Yelena the magic still exists, it appears. "There are still roses in my life," she said, referring to the first days of their courtship.

She said that before she met Bellini, she would never have imagined marrying an Italian, or any other foreigner.

"They were like people from another planet," she said.

Comparing Italian to Russian men, Yelena said now she would not be able to live with a Russian. "Italian men are more hot-tempered and more jealous, but this is well balanced by their attention and care for a woman," she said. "Russian men are not that attentive."

Men From Italy, Women From Rostov
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/04/14/003.html