An Anastasia Date in Odessa

[alex330]

Update - After several trips to Ukraine, rendezvous in VISA friendly countries, hundreds if not thousands of skype hours logged, spine numbing transatlantic flights just to see each other for a couple days
Tatyana and I are going to move forward and get married. It can be done, and you can meet your partner the first flight out there and even from a scandalous agency. I probably had a horseshoe up my arse and I would never attempt this again though to be honest.

Listen to the guys on here with their advice. It takes more time, money and patience than you can imagine.
I have also learned much more than I would like about the marriage agencies and how they work firsthand. I would stay away from them all together.
Good luck guys   

[Jumper]

congrats!

[Gator]

I probably had a horseshoe up my arse and I would never attempt this again though to be honest.

Had?   I hope the horseshoe is still there because there is more unchartered water ahead.  Good luck and congratulations!

[Daveman]

Had?   I hope the horseshoe is still there because there is more unchartered water ahead.  Good luck and congratulations!

LoL, yeah.. better keep it there for a while. This may be this first time that a correlation between "horse" and "ass" in this pursuit may actually be beneficial!

Echoing the good luck wishes, Alex...

[alex330]

Thanks all 
We have concerns and both realize it will not be easy, but I am sure it will work out.
I will be spending lots of time in the immigration section the next year or so i am sure.

[JohnMI]

Congrats, Alex. I also went the Anastasia route, and I experienced the same bumps in the road as you for my first meeting: 8 month/165 letter correspondence with a woman who did not remember anything when we met, insistence on use of agency interpreter, very tired first night and had to leave immediately after dinner, sister cut hand with a knife the second night and my date had to sit bedside at the hospital with her during the remainder of my week in Odessa.

Second attempt about a year later, also through Anastasia and also in Odessa. That woman was the subject of my first and only trip report here .. the taxi scam and the lost telephone scam. It was after that trip report that I received a lot of advice here - and then proceeded to ignore it. Tried a few more times with equally bad results: spent a week alone when my next date never appeared for our meeting; another date, a priest's daughter (ha!), begged me to visit her after a very active 4 month correspondence and then removed her profile after I told her I purchased a ticket to fly to her. I had it with Odessa at that point and tried my hand at Lugansk. After a 6 month correspondence with a woman there, I made arrangements to fly to her. That girl insisted that I stay at an apartment of her choosing (to make certain it is nice and comfortable), she insisted I cancel my airport transfer and ride with a friend of hers who would charge a lower fee, and she further insisted that I use her interpreter, not a woman I selected from the internet. Well, I trusted her to a point and canceled my apartment, transport and interpreter. A week before my flight she informed me she had to go to another city on business during our week, but I should still fly to her city because her friends would show me a great time. I didnt even board the plane, and I left Anastasia for almost 2 years while I dated several US ladies that I was introduced to through friends and also through eHarmony and Yahoo Personals. Word to the wise, the US internet dating sites have their share of oddballs too.

In December 2009 I received an email reminder from Anastasia that I had a lot of letter credits remaining on my account. No refunds are given there, and I decided not to waste the credits. By this time I was very educated in the various crap that can go on there, and there was no way I would fall for anything else again. My expectations were absolutely zero, and I truly intended to chat and write only for the enjoyment of chatting and writing until my credits were exhausted. Fate was kind to me this time, and I met a wonderful woman who had just joined Anastasia through a Nikolaev agency. I could not imagine a sweeter, kinder or more tender woman, and I soon forgot the girls I was dating and/or corresponding with on this side of the Atlantic. She quickly agreed to move our correspondence off Anastasia to Facebook, vkontakte, Yahoo IM, Skype, ICQ and txt messages. Through these media were are never apart for more than a few hours each day for nearly a year now. I have visited her several times already this year, met her friends and family, vacationed in Crimea together and now I am flying to her again in 2 weeks to formally ask her parents for permission to marry her and to collect her signed documents for our visa application.

I guess I just wanted to agree with you that the Anastasia road is not easy, it is not cheap and it can be frustrating as hell, but there are real and sincere women there if a guy is patient and has an eye for sorting the wheat from the chaff. I am sure I deserve scolding and scorn from the veterans here on account of my failure to heed the advice I was given, but to me this experience has been interesting, there have been a lot of fun and funny moments, and I would not trade any of it because, like you, I finally met the woman of my dreams.

Good luck to you, Alex.

John

[knighta]

I also did the Anastasia route and I didn't know about this website until long afterward.  However I did meet my fiance there, maybe one of these days I will post my own experiences with Anastasia. 

[Jumper]

John,
thanks for sharing that!

no scoulding..lol (as i've done similar)
  but i do have to admit i'm surprised after so many bad deals , and you already knowing anastasia agencies  reputation ,that you din't at least try a few other agencies or methods instead.

Glad it all worked out!!

[Donhollio]

 Alex I have just completed reading your TR a few days ago. Nicely done, and to see you pulled it off with A-web . In 2002 I used them , first their postal side, and then on to the internet side. The very first girl I met was from Odessa who was featured on both their sites. Thought things never turned out romantically after spending weeks in her city of the years, I am still to this day friends with her. I miss the city in the summer,it's a great place to visit even if you're not looking for love, maybe one day all those North American packpackers will realise that Europe extends past Vienna.  
 Anyway I'm happy to see you found her. So much for the pond supposedly being fished out  

[Jack]

Congrats, Alex. I also went the Anastasia route, and I experienced the same bumps in the road as you for my first meeting: 8 month/165 letter correspondence with a woman who did not remember anything when we met, insistence on use of agency interpreter, very tired first night and had to leave immediately after dinner, sister cut hand with a knife the second night and my date had to sit bedside at the hospital with her during the remainder of my week in Odessa.

Second attempt about a year later, also through Anastasia and also in Odessa. That woman was the subject of my first and only trip report here .. the taxi scam and the lost telephone scam. It was after that trip report that I received a lot of advice here - and then proceeded to ignore it. Tried a few more times with equally bad results: spent a week alone when my next date never appeared for our meeting; another date, a priest's daughter (ha!), begged me to visit her after a very active 4 month correspondence and then removed her profile after I told her I purchased a ticket to fly to her. I had it with Odessa at that point and tried my hand at Lugansk. After a 6 month correspondence with a woman there, I made arrangements to fly to her. That girl insisted that I stay at an apartment of her choosing (to make certain it is nice and comfortable), she insisted I cancel my airport transfer and ride with a friend of hers who would charge a lower fee, and she further insisted that I use her interpreter, not a woman I selected from the internet. Well, I trusted her to a point and canceled my apartment, transport and interpreter. A week before my flight she informed me she had to go to another city on business during our week, but I should still fly to her city because her friends would show me a great time. I didnt even board the plane, and I left Anastasia for almost 2 years while I dated several US ladies that I was introduced to through friends and also through eHarmony and Yahoo Personals. Word to the wise, the US internet dating sites have their share of oddballs too.

In December 2009 I received an email reminder from Anastasia that I had a lot of letter credits remaining on my account. No refunds are given there, and I decided not to waste the credits. By this time I was very educated in the various crap that can go on there, and there was no way I would fall for anything else again. My expectations were absolutely zero, and I truly intended to chat and write only for the enjoyment of chatting and writing until my credits were exhausted. Fate was kind to me this time, and I met a wonderful woman who had just joined Anastasia through a Nikolaev agency. I could not imagine a sweeter, kinder or more tender woman, and I soon forgot the girls I was dating and/or corresponding with on this side of the Atlantic. She quickly agreed to move our correspondence off Anastasia to Facebook, vkontakte, Yahoo IM, Skype, ICQ and txt messages. Through these media were are never apart for more than a few hours each day for nearly a year now. I have visited her several times already this year, met her friends and family, vacationed in Crimea together and now I am flying to her again in 2 weeks to formally ask her parents for permission to marry her and to collect her signed documents for our visa application.

I guess I just wanted to agree with you that the Anastasia road is not easy, it is not cheap and it can be frustrating as hell, but there are real and sincere women there if a guy is patient and has an eye for sorting the wheat from the chaff. I am sure I deserve scolding and scorn from the veterans here on account of my failure to heed the advice I was given, but to me this experience has been interesting, there have been a lot of fun and funny moments, and I would not trade any of it because, like you, I finally met the woman of my dreams.

Good luck to you, Alex.

John

I know this is an old topic but just saw it for the first time.

Hello John, first congratulations on finding such a beautiful wife.

Your report is a good example as to how good women sign-up with bad agencies.   If anyone reads of your first couple of experiences with Anastasia they should know that what you experienced, all the BS and running around you got at various times is the norm, not the exception. 

Guy's should learn by your example, if your going to play with Anastasia, get involved with Anastasia, you must be able to get the woman away from the agency, as you were able to do.

The pursuit for a Russian/Ukraine bride can be the most wonderful adventure many men will ever take.  Then again many men will experience the same as you with the Anastasia women they meet.

Could you share for the many new men reading this, what you did, how you were able to get your beautiful young lady away from the grips of Anastasia.

Thanks.