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Author Topic: Novosibirsk Doesn't Believe in Tears: TwoBit's Sixteen Days In Novosibirsk  (Read 202554 times)

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Offline TwoBitBandit

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Preface

About me: I’m in my late thirties.  I manage a group of engineers in a technology company in Silicon Valley.  I’ve never been married, no kids.

I speak Russian.  I wouldn’t say that I’m fluent, but I can carry on a conversation and know five thousand words.  My grammar is quite accurate, even when using more complicated grammar concepts like passive participles and verbal adverbs.  My reading and writing is pretty good.  I don’t get the opportunity to speak and listen as much as I’d like, but I have no problem carrying on a conversation.  I chat with Russian girls all the time on the phone in Russian.  It’s not a problem as long as the connection is clear.  I spend several hours a week studying Russian, and not just for the purposes of chasing girls.  I also study French regularly.

I originally developed an interest in this endeavor when I took of the hobby of studying foreign languages.  I was always fascinated by the exoticness of Russian, and after I’d been studying for a few months I decided to enroll in a program at Moscow State University for foreigners study Russian.  When I got to the university I was in shock: hot Slavic girls dressed fashionably wearing high heels.  And they were friggin’ everywhere!  It was a lot different from the college-town university I attended, where when a girl wore a collared shirt instead of a t-shirt she was dressing up.

After that, I made six trips to Russia chasing girls in various ways.  I have some great stories in there, best told in conjunction with a liberal consumption of alcohol.  In retrospect, I clearly underestimated the difficulty of this endeavor.  This is only my second trip in three years.  I have made plenty of mistakes on my trips.  I’ve let a couple of great women slip through my fingers.  On the other hand, I’ve seen and avoided most of the scams.

My biggest mistake is to chase the girl I can keep the interest of but not quite catch.  A foreign guy in good shape with money and confidence can get some attention from hot girls just by being different.  Having a foreign guy come and chase them can be entertaining for girls, and it’s a refreshing break from their normal lives.  So, they’ll lead you on a little even if they don’t have a serious interest.  On this trip I need to be better at detecting this situation and either (a) cutting them loose or (b) kicking up my game a notch.

The problem is now that having had the taste of Russian girls, I just can’t go back.  Every time I go on a date in Silicon Valley, I just sit there thinking, “I had way more interesting prospects than you in the FSU, and I wouldn’t even answer their phone calls because I was so busy.”  So, here I am on the path again.

I created a profile on mamba.ru.  (This site is also known as love.mail.ru and some other portals.)  I put quite a bit of time into writing the profile itself.  Then, I put it in the capable hands of Anastassia Ash at http://www.regaltranslations.com/ who did an exceptional job of editing and translating my profile.  A combination of editing, translation, finesse and appropriate bluntness resulted in a profile I was happy with.  I used this same approach last year, but I improved my profile slightly and also had Anastassia translate some canned answers to questions that the girls normally ask.  (like, “Why do you speak Russian?”)

I picked a city, then targeted girls from 24-30.  I wrote to around six or seven hundred (no, that’s not a typo) girls, out of approximately five thousand profiles in the age range.  I received responses from about 30-35% of them, although a large fraction of those weren’t serious.  (Many just wrote one-word or one-line responses back.)  I have a rule about writing to Russian girls: I don’t write with any girls whose Russian grammar is worse than mine.    I have spent an enormous about of time over the past six weeks writing letters in Russian, I’m absolutely sick of it.  I’m glad I’m finally to the portion when I get on the plane.  On mamba.ru, many of the girls have “abandoned” their accounts and don’t log in.  So, I didn’t write anyone that hadn’t logged on in the past month.

Last year I tried a similar approach and went to Nizhny Novgorod.  I decided to change a few things this time:
1) I’d try to meet more girls toward the beginning of my trip, so that I’d have more free time with girls where there was an obvious connection.  On my last trip I reserved time with girls and then ended up not having a connection with them, which just burned time.
2) I wrote more girls and “staged” when I started writing them, so if some fell through there would always be some interesting prospects to invite on a date.

On my trip last year I figured I would probably have my weekend days free, so I enrolled at a program at the Nizhny Novgorod Linguistic University.  I wasn’t really satisfied with the quality of the instruction that I received, so I decided to skip it on this trip even though they have similar programs in Novosibirsk.  I have some study material with me if I get bored and decide to dive into Russian study.  There’s plenty of interesting stuff to do without lessons.  I’m not worried about being bored.

I’ll be here for 16 days, ending and starting on a weekend, since weekends are usually the best time to meet with the girls.

I’d like to pontificate on my own strategy.  I don’t want to start a debate in this thread, I just want to explain my own position.  (It is my trip report, after all.)  I encourage healthy debate if you want to debate, please go start a thread elsewhere on the board.

On writing: like most guys, I started out writing a lot and focusing on one or a very small number of girls.  The problem is that you can get a very different feeling with a girl when you meet her in person.  Some girls don’t represent themselves honestly, or use pictures that aren’t really representative.  When you’re writing letters, you’re putting your best foot forward.  The other problem is that you build up a large expectation when you write for a long time.  I found a few times that I’d written a girl for a long time, only for there to be disappointment on one end or both upon meeting.

After that, I switched to visit-many, writing no or very few letters.  Yet, I found the opposite problem: many of the girls weren’t compatible for reasons I could have easily filtered out by writing.

So now, I’m somewhere in the middle.  Write for four-to-eight weeks, then get on the plane.  Perhaps the result of this trip will prove if my strategy was right.  I also try to keep my letters “light and fluffy” and not “wet and sloppy.”  (i.e., I try not to be too serious and express undying love if my intent is to meet fifteen girls.)

On visit-one vs. visit-some vs. visit-many: I’ve tried all of the approaches. 

Visit-one: The risk is that you might not have great connection with the person when you actually meet them, for a variety of reasons.  The advantage is that you’ve got her attention and she knows you’re serious.

Visit-many: The risk is that you’ll burn cycles with girls who you could have filtered out if you could have spent the time.  If you like a girl, you might not be able to get enough of her time to move the relationship forward.  And the girls that have been at the receiving end of visit-many get pretty jaded… The advantage is that if you don’t connect with a girl, you just move on to the next one.

On agencies:  (I’m talking about honest and semi-honest agencies here, not outright scams.)  I’ve found it really hard to get the level of service that I need.  Russians, culturally, just don’t get customer service.  You can always pay more money for something, but it often doesn’t translate to better service.  It’s such a strange business.  Who in their right mind would want to run that business?  The answer to that is exactly the problem.  And they’re always trying to insert themselves in the middle in order to profit.  It’s great if they add value doing that, but often they’re just in the way.  I remember one time when I had a great correspondence with a girl, and suddenly she stopped writing me.  When I finally showed up in the city, I had the agency call her arrange a meeting anyways.  When we met, we pieced together that the agency had LOST the letter she wrote.  She assumed I was the one who didn’t respond, and vice versa.  Probably, some 20-year-old ‘terp put it on the wrong pile.

Writing girls with an agency in the middle is just difficult.  The cost adds up fast, and I never get the service that I want.  On mamba, I’m in control of the situation.  There is an advantage to writing: you can get a girl “invested” in you if you connect by text.  At this point in the game, I want to read letters in Russian.  If an interpreter rewrites it, then I lose the ability to see how that girl organizes her thoughts.  In addition, I can’t evaluate her grammar, which I believe is a proxy for measuring intelligence, discipline and education.

The other obvious problem is deciding who we want to get in a relation with is intrinsically very personal.  I’m looking for a very specific type of person.  I know that some of you are out there reading this and thinking, “perhaps that’s your problem.”  In which case, perhaps you’re right.  But I enjoy my single life, I’m not going to chase a girl I’m not into.  My hope is that some combination of kicking my game up a notch and being more persistent will get the result I want.

Agencies can be great for guys who are starting out because they remove a lot of the problems, especially language issues.

On the girls in agencies:  Like people of all flavors, they vary.  I can’t wholly knock them as a group, there are good, sincere, honest, attractive women in agencies.  I know because I’ve met them.  I’ve also met a lot of girls that are just plain weird.  And I’ve met some truly evil chicks.  In the past, I’ve met girls through a handful of methods: agencies, skype, introductions by other Russians, free web sites, etc.  On the whole, I’d say the most sincere women I’ve found aren’t with agencies.  Honestly, I think that agency thing is about done.  In Russia tons of them have died off.  (Ukraine still seems to be holding on, though.)

Of course, one advantage of agency girls is that they’re self-selected to be interested in going to another country.  But they’re also self-selected for an array of other qualities, some of which aren’t all that appetizing…

Contrary to what these MOB web sites are, most of the Russian girls don’t want to leave the motherland.  So, the bar to close one on moving to another country may be a little bit higher, but the general quality of the girls is higher.

Like I said, I don’t want to debate that stuff in this thread, I just want to explain my own reasoning.  There’s some great debates in there on writing, VM/VO/VS and agencies, although most aspects have been beat to death on these forums. 

This trip, I’ve decided to go fish in the “big pond” on the Russian-language sites.  I can make my own arrangements and not have an agency in the middle.  I don’t need an interpreter.  I can exchange letters in Russian for free.  I’ll meet a few girls, and if I have a great mutual connection with one of them, I’ll follow up later this summer and meet only her.  On my last trip two years ago I met a couple of girls off mamba, but I didn’t plan it well.  This is definitely the advanced school of chasing Russian girls: there’s no way I could pull this off without a solid understanding of Russian.  I’ve been studying Russian several hours a week for six years now, so I have a big advantage.

On trip reports:  I always thought that the trip reports were the most interesting part of these boards.  Most real topics on the subject of Russian girls (cultural differences, age differences, VO/VM) have been beat to death.  I was inspired by some of the guys that wrote me private messages after my last trip report (on “some other” board) and said that my trip report helped them with their own situation.  These boards in general helped me a lot early in my search, and I want to do something for the community.

I appreciate and respect honest, constructive feedback.  (TwoBit, you did X when you should have done Y, why didn’t you do Z, etc.)  If you have nothing constructive to add (TwoBit, you’re a sex tourist!) please just zip it.  If the comments get out of hand, I’m just going to ask Dan and the other moderators to lock it down.

On Names: All of the names of girls in this trip report have been changed to protect the innocent (and the guilty.)

Offline ML

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Thanks for posting.  Very interesting.  I note that you and I took a very similar approach in many respects.  Big difference was I have zero (almost) knowledge of English.  Thus, I am restricted to gals with English skills.  I would never use an interpreter.  So with your Russian, you have a bigger pool starting out.  Of course, one drawback is that you also hook up with gals who, as you say, might have zero interest in moving to another country (since they have shown no interest in learning English).

I agree that trip reports can be a great source of info here.  But unfortunately, they are not.  The reason:  You can see by reading the trip reports of ManLooking (myself) and Mars.  Mars gave a very interesting account of the various ladies, but he was hooted off the board.  Seeing the response he got, I decided to tell nothing about my gals.  As a result, my trip report is really not an interesting report about the ladies at all.  But that is all that is allowed here by the gals and WOVO guys.

So you can see that you will have to make a big choice when you start.
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Offline TwoBitBandit

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Mars gave a very interesting account of the various ladies, but he was hooted off the board.  Seeing the response he got, I decided to tell nothing about my gals.  As a result, my trip report is really not an interesting report about the ladies at all.  But that is all that is allowed here by the gals and WOVO guys.

I just hope that this trip report can just stay in a civilized frame and not degenerate into a VO vs. VM thread.  Hasn't that topic been beat to death?

Offline TwoBitBandit

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Day 1: Saturday, June 26

I arrive in Novosibirsk at 6:50 am on a red-eye flight from Moscow.  Somehow, I managed to catch a couple of hours of sleep on the way.  I’m glad, it will keep me going through the day.  I end up waiting about half an hour for my luggage.  I brought one carry-on and one small duffel bag.

If you haven’t travelled in Russia much before, you should know this: the Russian airlines are tightwads about baggage limits.  The limits are absurdly low and they enforce them.  My carry-on was over the weight limit.  I refused to check it.  (My carry on has everything I “really” need: decent clothes, dress shoes, notebook computer, little gadgets, etc.)  If S7 lost my checked bag I’d be OK.  However, since it was over the limit I had to pay for 5kg of over-weight, which was 2100 roubles (about $70).  It was worth $70 not to trust a Russian airline.  God, these people make the unionized pricks at United Airlines look pleasant.

In any event, my checked bag eventually shows up and the flat rental agency owner is there to pick me up.  We get to the flat and get the internet up and running.  (Apparently, they had to have me plug my notebook in and “approve” my MAC address for everything to work.)  The owner bought me a Novosibirsk SIM card at my request and has it ready.  I pay her for everything and she leaves.  I like her: she just started her agency a few months ago and she’s trying to build up her business.  The flat is modern, very clean, and centrally located.  It’s only a couple of blocks from Lenin Square, one of the hot spots in Novosibirsk.

I spend a little while reading my email and other stuff.  I was hoping to meet Jooky (from this board) in Novosibirsk: he said he’d be here at that time.  However, he just sent me a message saying that due to unforeseen circumstances he won’t be here.  We keep crossing paths: when I wanted to visit him in the United States, he was in Novosibirsk.  Now I’m in Novosibirsk, and he’s in the United States.  Jooky and I are always like two ships crossing in the night.  It’s unfortunate, because Jooky is a cool cat and I’d like to catch up with him and down some beer with him on some free evening.

Anyways, the plan for today is to meet Lena at 2 pm, Anna at 5 pm, and Anastassia at 8 pm.  (As I said before, all names in this trip report have been changed… to protect both the innocent and the guilty.)  At around 11 am I start sending out SMS messages to confirm the meetings.  Lena and Anna reply within a couple of hours, but Anastassia never replied.  No worries, she’s probably sleeping or something, I’ll catch her later.  At 1 pm I get dressed.  The weather in Novosibirsk is pleasant: it’s not too hot to dress well.  I wear black slacks and a dark blue linen shirt.  Linen is great for this kind of weather since it breathes.  It’s possible to stay cool and look good at the same time.

At 2 pm I go to meet Lena at Lenin Square.  Thanks to Google Maps, I found it on time.  She was a few minutes late.  Lena is 28.  She got her undergraduate degree in some sort of IT-related field, and now she’s working on her master’s degree (аспирантура).  I liked Lena because she was clearly very intelligent and I had a great conversation with her on the phone.  There’s some sort of big event in Novosibirsk tomorrow.  In preparation, there’s a bunch of street vendors with booths on the square selling all kinds of stuff.  Russian wood carvings, matroshka dolls, scented soap, etc.  Lena appears a few minutes late, and I recognize her immediately from across the square.  She’s dressed pretty well in a white polka-dot dress.  My impression of her is pretty much unchanged: she’s cute a girl-next-door sort of way but she’s not what you’d call “hot.”  She’s about 5’4” and thin with hazel eyes and slightly lightened hair.  (Her natural hair color is light brown, which her roots make obvious.)  We walk to a café she knows about (since I’m dead tired from the red-eye flight and need a caffeine jolt.)  We have good chemistry: she’s touching me a lot.  We talk about all kinds of stuff… literature, art, ballroom dancing, work, etc.  We have a pretty good rapport.  After we leave the café she grabs my hand.  We go down to the metro and ride it to the river embankment and then walk around there for awhile while we talk.

I’m trying not to advertise that I have a lot of meetings planned, so I have to be careful about when I look at my watch.  (My philosophy is not to hide that I’m meeting other girls but not to advertise it either: sort of a don’t ask, don’t tell policy.)  We still have good chemistry: she plays with her hair a lot and touches my arm a lot, and she occasionally grabs my arm or my hand.  At around 4:15 I suggest going back.  My cell phone is buzzing in my pocket occasionally to tell me that I have an SMS message but I don’t pull it out to check it.  At around 4:30 we get back to Lenin Square and she offers to walk me home.  Under the don’t ask, don’t tell policy I agree, and at 4:45 we get to the door of my building.  I go for the kiss but she turns her head.  (My theory is this: you miss all the shots you don’t take.)  As she gets out of sight I breathe a sigh of relief: I have just enough time to get back to the square and meet Anna at 5:00.

I check my SMS message: It’s from Anna, saying she’ll be late.  I call her and she says she’s about 20 minutes late.  So, I have 20 minutes to kill when I get to the square at 5:00.  I start looking at all the booths to kill time.  Oh, no!  I walk right by Lena, who apparently also returned to Lenin square.  I recognize her from behind by her dress and haircut.  I hurriedly walk away and I don’t think she saw me.  I go to the other side of the square by a statue of Lenin and send Anna an SMS to meet me there instead of by the theater.  

I call Anastassia since she never replied to my SMS message.  She said she never got it, and that she’s out of town and can’t meet me at 8pm.  I’m kind of surprised by this, since I thought we already agreed.  I can’t sort it out now, so I just let it go and express my desire to meet her and tell her I’ll contact her again soon.  

Eventually Anna shows up.  Anna is much cuter.  She’s probably a 7.5 in Russia, but she’d be an 8.5 or a 9 in the United States.  She’s about 5’7” or 5’8” with (seemingly) natural blonde hair and blue eyes.  We have some good chemistry right off the bat, and she holds onto my hand and arm for a long time when we first meet.  We start walking and talking, and I suggest we go to a café.  (I’m really hungry since I haven’t eaten much and could use another jolt of caffeine.)  We go to one that she knows of, but there is loud music so I suggest another.  At the other café the noise level is better and we grab a table.

We have a pretty good conversation.  She talks sort of fast and I get about 90% of the content, but I occasionally have to ask her to repeat.  We have pretty good chemistry and good eye contact.  She keeps playing with her compact mirror and spinning it around on the table, so she’s a little bit nervous.  Apparently I’m a little bit nervous too: I ordered sushi and lost control of one of the rolls and it fell in the soy sauce dish.  She laughs and suggests that I use a fork.  I eat Asian food all the time and I’m pretty good with chopsticks, so I’m more nervous than I realize.  I’m really attracted to this girl.  I have a thing for tall, thin blondes with blue eyes.  Go figure.  We have a pretty good conversation about various topics ranging from literature to psychology and ballroom dancing.  I pay the tab and we leave.

I have no idea about what’s fun to do in Novosibirsk.  Anna suggests we go the zoo.  Since my 8pm date with Anastassia is off, I agree.  So, we get in a taxi and go.  I went to the zoo in Nizhny Novgorod last year, and by any standards of zoos it was, well, completely gay.  I expected the zoo in Novosibirsk to be also, well, gay.  So, I was pleasantly surprised when it was clean, diverse and interesting.  We also rode the ferris wheel there.  Anna and I have some chemistry: she occasionally grabs my arm to walk arm in arm.  We occasionally hold hands for a short time.  A couple of times she pulled those white puffy things from birch trees off my shirt.  She’s studied English for a long time but speaks it poorly, and I help her improve. That works good when we run out of topics and it makes her laugh.  She confuses articles a lot, mixing up “a”, “an”, and “the” a lot.  We ride the Ferris Wheel and get a good view of Novosibirsk.  She closes her eyes because she’s afraid of heights, but riding was her idea.   I tease her a little bit and she laughs.

It’s starting to get late and the mosquitoes are in full force: every time we stop moving there is a herd of them on us.  We get on the bus and then the metro back to Lenin Square.  We have occasionally light contact like holding hands or sitting with shoulders and legs touching on the metro.  When I have to get off, I go for the kiss and she turns her head.  But, she smiles and lightly grips my hand as I walk off the metro to go home.

Later, both girls send me SMS messages saying they enjoyed being with me and want to see me again.  I don’t reply to either one: it’s good to keep them guessing a little.

The plan for tomorrow is a little up in the air.  I’m meeting Elena at around 7.  Yulia, who I really want to meet, says she can’t meet me before 6, so I have to either have a short date or put it off.  I can probably meet Lena or Anna again during the day since it is Sunday. I’ll sort it out in the morning.

As I write this it’s past 1:00 am.  It’s time for TwoBit to go get some sleep.  I’m satisfied with the day.
« Last Edit: June 26, 2010, 08:04:44 PM by TwoBitBandit »

Offline Misha

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Of course, one drawback is that you also hook up with gals who, as you say, might have zero interest in moving to another country (since they have shown no interest in learning English).

That is a bit simplistic. A woman could simply have studied other languages such as German. Or the thought of meeting a foreigner and moving to another country may simply have never crossed her mind or was not q priority.
« Last Edit: June 26, 2010, 11:21:42 AM by Misha »

Offline ML

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Day 1: Saturday, June 27

I have a thing for tall, petite blondes with blue eyes.  


Ooooppps, I don't know if you can have both in one woman:  tall and petite that is.

But, she smiles and lightly grips my end as I walk off the metro to go home.

Did you mean to say 'hand' rather than 'end' ?  If it were really your end, then it would be pretty exciting, I would think!

Later, both girls send me SMS messages saying they enjoyed being with me and want to see me again.  I don’t reply to either one: it’s good to keep them guessing a little.

Don't know about that.  Seems a little rude to not reply.


Good report; but you are going to get killed on this board at some point.
The bit about having to hide from gal one at the square and move your meeting place for gal two will get the blood of some boiling; they pointing out how this is just symptomatic of problems with WMVM.  Now maybe I have taken away their fire on this point; which will make their blood boil even more.
« Last Edit: June 26, 2010, 11:35:32 AM by ManLooking »
A beautiful woman is pleasant to look at, but it is easier to live with a pleasant acting one.

Offline TwoBitBandit

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Quote from: ManLooking
Of course, one drawback is that you also hook up with gals who, as you say, might have zero interest in moving to another country (since they have shown no interest in learning English).

That is a bit simplistic. A woman could simply have studied other languages such as German. Or the thought of meeting a foreigner and moving to another country may simply have never crossed her mind or was not q priority.

I agree with you, Misha.  If a quality guy shows up with a clear path in life and confident frame, he'll get interest.  Honestly, I'd rather find a woman who didn't want to leave her country and "sell" her on the idea of getting on my train rather than find a woman that was desperate to leave her country.

Offline ML

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Yes, I understand the point that you and Misha make.  However, isn't it a big jump from my idea of zero interesting in moving to the words of desperate to leave?  :-)
A beautiful woman is pleasant to look at, but it is easier to live with a pleasant acting one.

Offline TwoBitBandit

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ManLooking, thanks for pointing out those typos.  I changed "end" to "hand" and "petite" to "thin".

As far as the hiding thing goes, well, it's what happened.  So, if you go visit-one on your trip, you obviously won't have that problem.  However, there's plenty of trip reports of the form "guy goes to FSU, meets girl, on first day there's no chemistry, guy spends eight days staring at walls in flat."  Pick your poison.

On the topic of SMS messages: I'll respond to them tomorrow.  Part of dealing with women is keeping control of the frame.  You need to express the frame "I'm the great catch, and I'm of higher market value then you."  But it has to be subtle.  If you always do the perfectly polite thing, you're expressing "please, please, I'll do anything for a sliver of your attention" which is a "your value is higher than mine" frame.  As soon as you get in that frame, women will pick up on it and walk all over you.  Doing the polite thing isn't always the right thing to do.

Offline ML

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Well interesting strategy/idea of being polite vs too polite.  Always a fine line I suppose.  We will see how it works out for you.  Best get to bed now.
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Great well written TR, TBB. 

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TBB: I'll pick up on a couple of points on the way through and hopefully won't digress from the theme. Your experience with S-7 is very different to mine.................but, I suspect by what I've found over the years that boarding on the east side (OVB, OMS etc etc) is a somewhat more personable process than on the west side (DME etc), probably due, in part, to the lower airport traffic.

Tall, blue eyed blondes. Yep, happy with that choice but make sure the carpet matches the curtains. :D

Risks of VO vs risks of VM have been hashed out well enough elsewhere and you've touched on them here. I did both and plenty of it, for the most part, because I was NOT particularly interested in finding a "wife". I planned to travel 3 or 4 times per year and did just that for a while. I was seeking good company for my trips. Nevertheless, trips were what it was all about for me, at least in the earlier times and I admit to being in exactly the same situation as you were in Lenin Square, several times. Honestly, that is when I discovered I was a VO guy. I was travelling to enjoy myself, not to continually extricate myself from uncomfortable situations. It was much easier to VO and if it didn't work out, get on with the trip and if someone else crossed my path along the was, so be it, but that is me.

The flip side of that, and I admit to being somewhat intoxicated with it in the early times, was / is the thrill of the chase and or balancing act. I admit it does get tricky saying goodbye to one lady in a hotel foyer about 11 nano seconds before the next one walks through the door and watching them brush shoulders walking in the opposite directions.  :-[

Ironically, upon return home from the last and perhaps most entertaining of all VM trips, I received secondary contact from my now wife who had been no part of any of those trips. It has been VO ever since and the rest is simply humorous reflection of which she doesn't mind giving me a jab in the ribs about from time to time also. Hope your trip and the end results are as much fun and make you as happy as mine did and I am. 

Offline Gator

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TwoBit,

I just scanned your T/R because I have a dinner engagement.  It looks splendid.

You  speak Russian, you are young, you have 16 days, you are wise from your prior trips and reading RWD, and you have a long list of pretty dyevs.....It does not get any better.  90% of the RWD readers should feel some envy.

I expect to see less and less of you at RWD as the cream floats to the top and you become more involved.

Thanks for sharing, and good luck.  Enjoy!  And I hope you meet your "one" and such becomes apparent.

Offline Jooky

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Hey TwoBit!

I figured you'd post here, so I decided to drop on by.

I'm glad you made it to the zoo. It really is a cool and unique little zoo. For those that haven't visited (probably everyone reading), many of the 'cages' are simply fenced off areas of the natural forest, and you get to see a rare Liger.

Sounds like you also have already discovered the central parks and the river walk at Rechnoi Vokzal. Both are places I recommend for a first date and Pl. Lenina is the perfect central meeting place. I think you’ll see quite a bit of Mr. Lenin and his comrades.  You've probably spotted the various outdoor spots to grab a drink near the parks.

A few places I recommend:

The circus if it's running.

Goodman steak house. Good old Australian steak in Siberia.  ;D

People's Bar. Typical youngster hang out and the food's not bad.

Pechki Lavoshki (?) Used to be Zhili Bili. It's Novosibirk's answer to Moscow's Yolki Palki, but better in my opinion.

There's a Ukrainian restaurant across the street from the Tsirk, Shinok U Bakuli, that's quite tasty and you can get a nice private booth.

There’s a plush bar with live Russki music right in the evenings at Pl. Lenina, under the grocery store.  I forget the name, but it’s easy to find.

Aladdin restaurant. Ok, the food’s not great and you can get better middle-eastern cuisine in the Bay Area for sure, but… this place never seems busy, has cool décor and atmosphere and can be a nice romantic spot

If you want a cheap, quick and tasty lunch, there's an Uzbek food hut in front of the Tsum shopping center on Vokzalnaya Magistral. If you walk from Pl. Lenina to the Vokzal, you can't miss it.

You must go for a swim in the filthy Ob. There’s a beach across from the Rechnoy Vokzal metro and everyone knows Siberian cities are famous for their beaches.

Check out the breakdancers and Goths in the evening in the parks near Pl. Lenina in the evening and tell me you’re not transported temporarily to the 80s. Or just go to Rock City (easy to find from Pl. Lenina, I won’t give you any directions, you can ask ladies in the street for that).

If you meet up with someone with a car, I recommend a trip to the Ob Sea.

You can skip New York pizza and the extra weak hamburger joint where ex-pats hang out. I’m sure you’ll pass it by.

20 bucks that you get dragged to a Planeta Sushi at least once.

Offline Vaughn

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It's my pleasure to read TwoBit's TR after a prolonged absence here...

Blazing one's own trails while maintaining control of situations (aside from
an unexpected chance encounter at the park) makes for a refreshing read.

Looking forward to more - and congrats on your natural love of language. It's
a rare thing around here.

Offline Blues Fairy

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For those that haven't visited (probably everyone reading), many of the 'cages' are simply fenced off areas of the natural forest, and you get to see a rare Liger.

Wow, I remember him as a cub. :)  Glad to hear he's alive and well; it would be nice to come back and see him again.

TwoBit, love the title of your thread and your TR; keep up the good writing.
Question: with all the letters you've written and received, has nobody sparked an interest deserving of more than a brief coffee date?  Not a single brilliant writer with potential of being a great life partner clearly visible through letters alone?

Offline TwoBitBandit

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TwoBit, love the title of your thread and your TR; keep up the good writing.
Question: with all the letters you've written and received, has nobody sparked an interest deserving of more than a brief coffee date?  Not a single brilliant writer with potential of being a great life partner clearly visible through letters alone?

There's several girls that I've had a great exchange of letters with and who would probably make great partners.

However, I believe that chemistry is also important... both sides.  If a particular girl isn't into me, then I want her to feel free to walk away.  I don't want her to feel like she has an obligation to hang around me just because she agreed to spend ten days or two weeks or whatever with me.  I think that no matter how much you write, you really don't know much until you start racking up some real face time together.

For me, a woman who can express herself in writing and understand my position is just the starting point.  And, I want her to feel have the same perspective. 

Anyways, my first date today is soon.  I'll write more at the end of the day...

Offline Jooky

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One more thing... I'm pretty sure today is City Day, but if you're out and about that should be pretty obvious by now.

Good day for some dates with lots of concerts and activities in center. Good luck!

Offline JohnDearGreen

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Preface
I picked a city, then targeted girls from 24-30.  I wrote to around six or seven hundred (no, that’s not a typo) girls,     
I hope your 1st trip is successful... 

If a man writes to 1000 ladies on his 1st trip, then what will he do if the 1st trip is not successful?   Write back to the same 1000 ladies and tell them he is sorry they were not one of his 1st round draft choices, but he would like to meet her on his 2nd trip?

Seems like it would be better to start earlier, write 20 letters at a time to the ladies you like best, until you have enough for your 1st trip.  Leave the others for your 2nd or 3rd trip...

Offline groovlstk

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Best TR I've read in a long, long time. Keep it comin', TwoBit.

Offline Misha

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If a man writes to 1000 ladies on his 1st trip, then what will he do if the 1st trip is not successful?   Write back to the same 1000 ladies and tell them he is sorry they were not one of his 1st round draft choices, but he would like to meet her on his 2nd trip?

On the mamba network that TwoBit is using, there are 7,999 profiles for the city of Novosibirsk of women between the ages of 25 and 35. Hypothetically speaking, he could make at least 8 trips before having to write to the same woman twice from this age range. Of course, there are always new women creating profiles every day, so he could possibly add even more hypothetical trips  :evil:

Offline tim 360

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Excellent beginning Two Bit.  Your approach and methods make perfect sense.  Bring it on.
"Never argue with a fool,  onlookers may not be able to tell the difference".  Mark Twain

Offline TwoBitBandit

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If a man writes to 1000 ladies on his 1st trip, then what will he do if the 1st trip is not successful?   Write back to the same 1000 ladies and tell them he is sorry they were not one of his 1st round draft choices, but he would like to meet her on his 2nd trip?

Seems like it would be better to start earlier, write 20 letters at a time to the ladies you like best, until you have enough for your 1st trip.  Leave the others for your 2nd or 3rd trip...

On the mamba network that TwoBit is using, there are 7,999 profiles for the city of Novosibirsk of women between the ages of 25 and 35. Hypothetically speaking, he could make at least 8 trips before having to write to the same woman twice from this age range. Of course, there are always new women creating profiles every day, so he could possibly add even more hypothetical trips  :evil:

Or, I could go to another city on the next trip.  Last year I went to Nizhny Novgorod.  I had some chemistry with a girl but I couldn't keep it going and it fell apart.  So, this time I just went to Novosibirsk instead.

If I don't catch any fish this time, next time I'll go to Omsk, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Samara, Rostov-na-Donu or Volgograd.  There's no shortage of girls to chase.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_and_towns_in_Russia_by_population

Offline TwoBitBandit

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There are so many great Russian girls.

Бисер Киров - Как много девушек хороших
http://video.mail.ru/mail/v_kirov//_myvideo/257.html

Offline TwoBitBandit

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Day 2: Sunday, June 27

I get up after having slept seven hours, which was about five more hours more than I slept the previous night.  I make some coffee and start reading news on the internet while my mind wakes up.

On the calendar I have Yulia at 6 pm and Elena at 7 pm. (This Elena is not the same girl as Lena from yesterday.)  I still need to figure out what happened to Anastassia from yesterday.  After digging through all my emails and notes, I figured it out: I put the wrong number in my cell phone number for Anastassia!  I entered Anastassia’s name but used Yulia’s phone number.  I just copied it from the wrong place in my notes.  So, Anastassia (who I never actually contacted) was at home thinking “why didn’t TwoBit contact me?”  Yulia, who got the message intended for Anastassia, was thinking, “Why does TwoBit want to meet me tonight at 8pm when we already agreed to meet tomorrow at 6pm, I already told him that I was out of town until Sunday.”  So, I am officially a dumbass.

Once I decide it’s late enough to start sending SMS messages… around 11:00 or so, I first propose to meet Elena at 8 pm.  I haven’t talked to Elena since before I left the United States.  I don’t say anything about moving it from 7, I’m just like “Let’s meet at 8 by the Lenin statue on Lenin’s Square”.  She replies and says OK.  This is good, now I have two hours with Yulia instead of one.  I tell Yulia to also meet me on the Lenin square at 6 pm.  And I ask Anastassia if she can meet me at 2 pm or 3 pm.

Anastassia doesn’t question why I didn’t contact her yesterday and agrees to meet at 3 pm.

Soon after Anna from yesterday calls and asks if we can meet today.  I say that I’m busy with various stuff and suggest that we meet tomorrow (Monday) at 5 or 6.  She asks me what I’m busy with.  I don’t know why she’s asking, she’s knows the answer and she’s just being catty.  She declines the invitation for tomorrow and says she’ll decide later.  She’s annoyed but I don’t think it’s a showstopper as long as I don’t yank her hair too much.  It just requires some diplomacy.

Lena from yesterday also wants to hang out with me.  She starts sending me occasional SMS messages during the day asking what I’m up to.  I reply to them but I always wait for an hour or two.

At 3 pm I go out to meet Anastassia.  Jooky was right: today is a big celebration in the city.  There are people everywhere.  Lots of people.  There must be twenty thousand people milling around in a two-block radius of the center.  Lots of streets are closed off for pedestrians only.  It’s sort of funny, because the celebration is the 117th birthday of Novosibirsk.  If San Jose threw a 117th birthday celebration, people would laugh at it and twelve foreigners would show up for it.  But in Novosibirsk, boatloads of people showed up.  It was crazy.

I meet Anastassia at 3 pm.  I had a great email exchange with her: her writing was interesting and she was quite educated.  Right as soon as I meet her, though, I sense that something is just “off” about her.  It’s hard to describe, it was mostly just intuition.  The way she talked, her body language, her haircut, her clothes.  We start walking around the city.  There’s no free space in the cafes: many are closed for the holidays and the remaining ones are packed.  She’s very shy and doesn’t say much.  We find a small park with some tables some distance from the center and sit down for awhile.  By this point I’ve lost interest in her but I keep a polite conversation going.  The conversation has a subtle undertone of how hard her life is.  She was adopted at a late age.  She can’t find a job, and even though she’s highly educated she’s cutting hair for a living.  She has some problems with her creditors.  She’s not enjoying her life very much.  At one point she volunteered that lots of people tell her that she isn’t quite like the others.

After about half an hour she suggests we walk down to the river.  After awhile the conversation just dies off and we keep walking.  There’s another zillion people down by the river.  We walk along the river embankment in a large park for about a kilometer or so.  At around 5 pm I’m trying to figure out how to get back to the center for my 6 pm date.  I suggest we take the metro, since I know there is a metro station here.  She leads me to it and we get on.  She asks me if she should lead me back to Lenin Square.  I decline, saying I’ll just get off and that I can find my way back myself.  When we get to near my station she asks me again.  (The way home for her is to continue on the same line for awhile.)  I decline again.  When the doors open, we have an exchange of glances and she says до свидания.  До свидания, Анастасия.

I feel a sense of sadness: I really wanted to like Anastassia.  I wanted to meet her because she obviously made a sincere effort while writing me.  Yet, I know that I’m not going to warm up to her.  Been there, done that.  If there’s no chemistry right off the bat it won’t appear later.  I start walking around looking at all the booths selling stuff on Lenin Square.  

At 5:45 pm Yulia writes and says she’ll be half an hour late.  It’s a half-hour round-trip walk to my flat, so there’s no point in going back.  At 6:35 she says she’ll be there in twenty minutes.  It sounds like the problem is that the trip back to Novosibirsk is taking longer than she thought.  At 7:15 I cancel the date and leave.  I suggest the possibility of a date on another day, but I'm doing that just to leave the option open and I don't know if I'll try to do it or not.  (It's always good to leave options open.)  Even if she shows up now I would only have half an hour to spend with her.

I’m back in the same boat: there’s no point in going back to the flat since my next meeting is at 8 pm.  I walk around central park for a little while since I haven’t been there.  I buy some sashlik wrapped in tortillas from a booth.  At 7:50 I end up back at Lenin Square and Elena shows up at around 8:05.

Elena is cute in a girl-next-door sort of way.  I’d say she’s slightly above average for Russian girls.  She’s probably a 6.5 in Russia and a 7.5 in the United States.  She’s dressed in high heels, blue jeans and a blouse.  She has light brown hair and blue eyes.  We agree to start walking around.  We have a pretty good conversation about languages.  She’s studied English for awhile and knows a lot of words, perhaps two thousand or so.  My Russian is still far better than her English, so 95% of the time we’re talking in Russian.  She impressed me with her knowledge: I asked her the Russian verbs for “to compare” and “to follow” and she immediately knew them.  (Although she didn’t know the word for “to implicate”.)

Elena is quite intelligent and we have a good conversation, but she’s not that much into me.  She doesn’t hold eye contact with me very long, never touches me and doesn’t do any of the traditional “I’m interested” things (playing with her hair or jewelry, smiling at me, letting our shoulders touch as we walk side by side, etc.)

I suggest we go to a café but it’s hard because there are so many people out on this holiday.  Some cafes are closed, some are packed with people and Elena doesn’t like a couple of them.  Finally we find one, and we each order a salad and a coffee drink.  We continue our conversation.  It’s an interesting conversation but it is very cerebral.  I try to lighten it up and occasionally flirt without seeming too try-hard but it doesn’t help.  We hang out there until eleven, then go watch the fireworks.  The street is packed with people.  Whenever we accidentally touch from all the people moving around us, she moves away again.  She just isn’t into me that much.  When the show is over, I take her hand to lead her out of the huge crowd, but I can tell by her response that she doesn’t want me to hold it so I let go right away.  At the corner where we need to go in different directions, we say goodbye.

I’m into Elena and I’d like to see her again, but I don’t think it’s going to go anywhere.  I suspect that she might accept a second date… but the problem is that she has control of the frame.  I can’t tell if she isn’t into me in particular or maybe she’s just slow to warm up to men.  If this were the United States and I had a long time to play dating head games I might be able to get control of the frame again and move the relationship forward.  But, I’m here for a such a short time that I can’t really do that.  So, I decided that my strategy is to ignore her.  If she doesn’t contact me, that’s the end: I won’t contact her.  If she does contact me, at least the frame has moved slightly in my direction and I’ll figure out how to respond.

The plan for tomorrow (Monday) is that I have a date with Natasha at 9pm.  I’ll try to set up another date with Anna or Lena from yesterday from 6-9.  I don’t think I can realistically see them both in that small of a time window.  I’m more into Anna than Lena, so I’ll contact Anna tomorrow and try Lena if I can’t get that to work out.

Today didn't go as well as yesterday but it could have been worse.

It’s past 1 am again.  TwoBitBandit needs his sleep!
« Last Edit: June 27, 2010, 11:34:41 AM by TwoBitBandit »

 

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