ROSTOV, Russia, April 14 (UPI) -- Italian men and Russian women are natural combinations, according to Enzo Bellini and his wife Yelena, partners in a new marriage agency.
The venture comes after eight years of apparent nuptial bliss.
"Russian women have a great talent," coos Bellini, a 50-year-old Italian who speaks 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, along with many bouquets of roses.
In the next few years they informally -- and successfully -- matched other Russian women and Italian men, 30 couples in all.
Now they hope to make money on marriage.
"A photograph is not enough," said Bellini, who plans to launch the agency with videos of 200 Russian women. "If a woman is charming and has good manners, you cannot see it from a photograph."
