VLADIVOSTOK, Russia -- Yelena Sokolova was in a deep depression after she divorced her husband, and some friends decided to lift her spirits. They scanned a picture of her and placed it with a personal ad on an Internet site for those seeking marriage.

Over the next month, Sokolova, who is 36, received more than 50 e-mail messages from men all over the world, including a mountain climber who conquered Everest and a participant in an Olympic marathon. But a letter from a modest computer programmer from Las Vegas caught her attention, and soon she found herself writing to him every day.

This summer Sokolova will leave Russia to marry Phillip and start a new life, and she will take her 14-year-old son Vladimir with her.