Is this Common?

[Thronnos]

I have been emailing a Russian Lady back and forth for the last few weeks.  In her last message she wanted to hear my voice.  She said that she did not have a phone at her place, but said she could call from the telegraph of the city.

Is this normal, is there in dangers of handing out your phone numbers?  Should I send a home phone or cell phone number?

Just looking for a Little Advice.

Thanks,

Thronnos

[Michelangelo]

I have been emailing a Russian Lady back and forth for the last few weeks.  In her last message she wanted to hear my voice.  She said that she did not have a phone at her place, but said she could call from the telegraph of the city.

Is this normal, is there in dangers of handing out your phone numbers?  Should I send a home phone or cell phone number?

Just looking for a Little Advice.

Thanks,

Thronnos

Girls always want to hear your voice.  If anything develops, you'll find yourself calling her every day.

International calls are very expensive for FSU girls, so that part is odd...

How long have you been writing her? Two weeks? Once you feel comfortable with who she is, I see no problem with giving her your number...

[jb]

Thronnos,

Just my opinion, but I'd say the danger of you being stalked from 6 or 7 thousand miles away by an evil RW are somewhere between slim and none.  Like,,, snowballs in hell.

May I may a small suggestion?

The lady who makes a call from the Telegraph Office will pay an ungodly sum per minute to place that call. If she can't afford a phone, then calling you may place a terrible burden on her finances.  Almost everyone in the FSU who doesn't yet have a phone of their own has a friend or a close relative who does.  Ask if she can recieve a call from you at her friend or relative's home, make a "date" out of it.  Pay attention to time zones and call within minutes of the promised hour, trust me, if she's sincere she'll be there.  She will also probably have someone there who speaks at least a smattering of English, so it will be a real highpoint for several of the girls.

You wind up paying for the call and she'll see that you are not a "greedy" man by this act of thoughtfulness.  Played properly, this could be a long term Ace in the hole.

[ConnerVT]

International calls are very expensive for FSU girls, so that part is odd...

Not necessarily true any more.

This June, I bought a calling card from the telephone company in Tver.  It was a dial up Internet access card AND a LD calling card, with rates running about 5 to 10 cents a minute to the USA, depending on the time of day.

She might not call for hours at a time, but a 5 minute telephone call is bus fare.

[jb]

but a 5 minute telephone call is bus fare.

From a private home phone with a calling card, yes it is bus fare, but from the local telephone/telegraph office, a call might easily run a buck a minute.

I don't know where this woman is from, unless they really live in the back woods village, it's a rarity these days for Russian folks to not have a phone unless they are extremely poor.   The fact that this woman is able to get to internet access tells me she lives in the proxminity of a good sized town, but there are still many older Soviet style apartment building which were never wired for phones,,,so I guess anything is possible.

[ConnerVT]

jb, didn't you just say a few posts ago that she could find a relative or friend with a telephone to receive a phone call?  I would assume that those telephones can also make outgoing calls. 

With a (local) calling card, it doesn't cost the telephone's owner a ruble, and only a ruble or two a minute for the purchaser of the calling card.

Two years ago, my wife and I tried to think of things that were less expensive in the US than they were in Russia.  About the only thing we could come up with was telecommunications.  Time have changed, and telecom is becoming more available and more affordable in the FSU.  :cool:

[Elen]

Girls always want to hear your voice.

Girls also want to find out is there is some woman in your flat who would pick up a phone reciver at 2 Am:P

[Michelangelo]

LOL

[itstime]

When I was in Kiev I told my girlfriend that I was going to phone my kids on Sunday afternoon. I planned to use my cellphone even though roaming rates are very high. But she said, "OK, I will go with you to the post office and you can call". So on Sunday afternoon, that is what we did. We went to the central post office in Kiev on Maidan Nezalezhnosti. On the Khreshchatik side of the building you go inside and there is a room lines with phone boths and a bunch of ticket counters in the middle. We went to a ticket counter, said which country we were calling and they said the per minute rate which I forget. But it wasn't that high. I put down enough cash to cover an hour phone call and got back a receipt with a phone booth number. In the booth, I dialled my call normally (except for 00 to get international) and as I talked there was a meter above the phone showing how many minutes were left in the call.

It was a nice cool room on a hot August day. That alone made it superior to using the cellphone. I have seen similar telephone setups in train stations in Russia. Probably that is the "telegraph office" that this girl was referring to.

By the way, I rented an apartment in Kiev and also arranged a driver from the airport. After dropping us off at the apartment, he left us a slip of paper with the office address where we were to pay the balance of our stay in the apartment. I had only paid a one-day deposit. Since my girlfriend claimed to know Kiev, he gave no instructions. So we had an address and didn't know where it was. What would you do?

Check the phone directory, right? There is usually a map in there. That's what we did, we checked the phone directory. But we didn't look in any book. In Kiev, they still have the old Soviet Union directory assistance operating. You go to the train station, go up to the Directory wicket (Spravochnik) and tell them what you need to know. They quote a price, you pay, they give a receipt and then they give you the info. The guy ahead of us just wanted somebody's phone number.

I just love experiencing that kind of stuff. It's what makes visiting the FSU so interesting.

 

[al-c]

Is your telephone number in the phone book?  If so, it is also on the internet.  So it looks like it is no big secret!

If she wants to talk with you, that is great news.  Give her the number.