January 25, 2024

Tinder Breaks Up with Belarus


Tinder Breaks Up with Belarus
The Tinder app open on a phone. Focal Foto, Flickr.

On January 16, the American company Match Group took Belarus by surprise when it announced that its dating apps Tinder, Hinge, and OkCupid will exit the country on February 15, the day after Valentine's Day.

Tinder notified its users that, "As of February 15, if you’re located in Belarus, you won’t be able to use Tinder services or sign into your account." The app suggests that Belarussian love-seekers delete their accounts. Subscriptions that expire before Valentine's Day will not be renewable. Bachelors and bachelorettes will be eligible for a refund if their plans extend past February 15. Tinder encouraged its customers to use purchased features before the app departs, especially "Super Likes," which tells a potential match that a user is very interested in them.

Tinder did not say why it is leaving Belarus. Cultural expert and editor of Belarussian Yearbook Vadim Mozheyko told Deutsche Welle (DW) that operating in a "problematic region" is risky for the dating app's reputation. In addition, issues with payments, due to sanctions on Belarussian banks by the US, may have contributed to the decision to leave. Another red flag for Tinder was how Belarus's security forces has used the app to dig up dirt on its citizens and open criminal cases. 

In February 2023, Alexandra Rybchik was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for a picture of her at a protest found on her Tinder profile. Another man was fined for featuring a picture of the Lithuanian Pahonya emblem. "I don't think Tinder wants to see in the news that someone was arrested for a picture in their service," Mozheyko said, "and it is not entirely clear how the company should act correctly in this case: should they cooperate with authorities, human rights activists? In this case, it is easier to just walk away from the market."

So, how will Belarussians find love now? 

DW spoke to Belarussian Tinder users to get their reactions. Inessa, 27, recently found love on Tinder. She said she did not particularly care about Tinder leaving, but was hopeful local alternatives would soon emerge.

A 33-year-old man from Minsk disagreed. He was upset by Tinder's decision, because the platform made it easy for him to meet girls. But he saw a silver lining: "I saw that Russian celebrities were advertising some new application, just in time." Russian dating apps, such as Mamba, Tabor, and the Ukrainian-founded Pure, are popular in Belarus. But, if not, there's always good-old-fashioned real life.

Tinder and its sister apps left the Russian market on June 30, 2023.

You Might Also Like

Long, Long Repair
  • December 17, 2023

Long, Long Repair

It can take up to a year to get auto parts in Russia, due to Western sanctions.
Repression Impacts Lawyers
  • October 17, 2023

Repression Impacts Lawyers

A court in Moscow has ordered the arrest of lawyers representing Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, charging them with participation in an "extremist community."
Taken from Home to Belarus
  • July 24, 2023

Taken from Home to Belarus

Children from Russian-annexed Ukraine are being sent to camps in Belarus. Many don't return.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.
Moscow and Muscovites

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 
Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.
The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.
Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

The Life Stories collection is a nice introduction to contemporary Russian fiction: many of the 19 authors featured here have won major Russian literary prizes and/or become bestsellers. These are life-affirming stories of love, family, hope, rebirth, mystery and imagination, masterfully translated by some of the best Russian-English translators working today. The selections reassert the power of Russian literature to affect readers of all cultures in profound and lasting ways. Best of all, 100% of the profits from the sale of this book are going to benefit Russian hospice—not-for-profit care for fellow human beings who are nearing the end of their own life stories.
A Taste of Russia

A Taste of Russia

The definitive modern cookbook on Russian cuisine has been totally updated and redesigned in a 30th Anniversary Edition. Layering superbly researched recipes with informative essays on the dishes' rich historical and cultural context, A Taste of Russia includes over 200 recipes on everything from borshch to blini, from Salmon Coulibiac to Beef Stew with Rum, from Marinated Mushrooms to Walnut-honey Filled Pies. A Taste of Russia shows off the best that Russian cooking has to offer. Full of great quotes from Russian literature about Russian food and designed in a convenient wide format that stays open during use.
Survival Russian

Survival Russian

Survival Russian is an intensely practical guide to conversational, colloquial and culture-rich Russian. It uses humor, current events and thematically-driven essays to deepen readers’ understanding of Russian language and culture. This enlarged Second Edition of Survival Russian includes over 90 essays and illuminates over 2000 invaluable Russian phrases and words.
Fearful Majesty

Fearful Majesty

This acclaimed biography of one of Russia’s most important and tyrannical rulers is not only a rich, readable biography, it is also surprisingly timely, revealing how many of the issues Russia faces today have their roots in Ivan’s reign.
Murder and the Muse

Murder and the Muse

KGB Chief Andropov has tapped Matyushkin to solve a brazen jewel heist from Picasso’s wife at the posh Metropole Hotel. But when the case bleeds over into murder, machinations, and international intrigue, not everyone is eager to see where the clues might lead.
Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod is a mid-sized provincial city that exists only in Russian metaphorical space. It has its roots in Gogol, and Ilf and Petrov, and is a place far from Moscow, but close to Russian hearts. It is a place of mystery and normality, of provincial innocence and Black Earth wisdom. Strange, inexplicable things happen in Stargorod. So do good things. And bad things. A lot like life everywhere, one might say. Only with a heavy dose of vodka, longing and mystery.
The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955