A group of Russians has bid farewell to dating app Tinder on Friday with a beachfront funeral in the resort city of Sochi.
Tinder owner Match Group last month announced it will leave Russia on June 30, citing its commitment “to protecting human rights.”
Mourners clad in black shared stories of how Tinder helped them find love — or introduced them to “a large number of women” — and laid red carnations at a mock tombstone shaped like a smartphone.
Attendees also performed a “farewell swipe,” a gesture used by Tinder users to indicate their interest in another user.
The event organizers encouraged those in attendance to start dating in real life.
“When we saw that Tinder was leaving Russia on June 30, we decided without hesitation to hold a party,” the event’s organizer Shura Shirmagina-Silkina told the Podyom news outlet. “We decided to say goodbye like this: read some eulogies to [the app] about how dear it is to us.”
Tinder’s competitors such as Bumble and Badoo have already exited Russia following the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The apps are no longer available for download from the App Store and Google Play in Russia and Belarus.
According to the Vedomosti business daily, Russian social media site VKontakte is developing an analog dating application.
