My Wife is Leaving Me

[ScottinCrimea]

Yes, after a blissful year of life spent together in the US, my wife is returning to Ukraine.

Now if any of you are getting some morbid sense of satisfaction from this, shame on you!  Actually she's going back for a couple of weeks to get our daughter's international passport.  For those of you who haven't followed my other thread about this, after two trips to the consulate in San Francisco to get documents to send to Ukraine for this, they changed the rules and said my wife had to come do the application for her daughter in person.

Making the travel arrangements was a nightmare.  Getting to Kiev and back wasn't a problem, except for schedules requiring 10-11 hour layovers or not leaving enough time to get through customs and change planes, but coordinating flights so she could get to Simferopol and back without having to spend the night in Kiev proved a real challenge, especially since most flights leave Kiev early in the morning before airplanes or the train from Simferopol arrive.  Ultimately we found a great price of $868 from Salt Lake City to Kiev and back via JFK that met our time limits.  We used WizzAir, the new discount company to fly to Simferopol but she will have to take the train back to Kiev when she returns.  Booking on WizzAir was interesting because of how they break down the fees.  They only charge 9 UA but then they add a taxes and passenger service fees totalling 197 UA.  On top of that they have a payment handling fee of 31 UA and a charge for every bag you check with two costing 144 UA.  They also charge for any total baggage weight over 20kg.  So our total for this flight was 381 UA, or about $65 plus whatever she will pay at the airport for any extra weight.  This really isn't such a bad price, but not what you expect when you first see their listed fares.  It was funny putting our information onto the website because where you list your address and country there isn't an option for the US.  Your only choices would be "Some Country" or "Other".

I'm very interested to see what her impressons of Ukraine are now that she has been away for a year and especially to hear how the current financial crisis is affecting things there.  I know prices for things have gone up a lot but will the rise in the value of the dollar compensate for this?  It will be nice for her to check on our real estate projects there and see how the current situation is affecting real estate in Crimea.  And of course I want to hear about her impressions of Ukraine after being in the US for a year.  I'll try to keep you posted on what she has to say.

If any of you need something (small please!) hand delivered to Ukraine or back you can pm me and maybe we can arrange something.  She leaves on the 7th.

[Mishenka]

Scott!!
don't scare us like that!!

Ok, let us know how wizz works for you. Should be interesting flying hungarian airlines,  to bad they don't fly into Russia.  Prices seem cheap in Euro's  but they are all shorter flights within Europe.  I tried booking a few dates but it kept taking me into December available flights. You save a fee if you pay by direct bank transfer.  FYI the Ukraine H is 6.1 or .16 cents to a USD. so expect 6 UAH to one USD. With credit card or bank fee, 5.80 for one dollar

[dispozo]

I used WizzAir in July, we flew from Simferopol to Kiev. I also booked online from the U.S. at that time it was $50.00 for two tickets. We had no problems with WizzAir and would use them again.

[John K]

Good luck with that.  After we married, Marina tried to get her passport changed to "Ukrainian living abroad(?)", instead of the regular Ukrainian passport.  She had to fly back home, translate and notarize our wedding certificate, then register it with the marriage bureau.  After that, she could try to get a more correct passport type.  Because of the headaches and bureaucracy, she ended up just changing her passport to reflect her married name.  She spent over 2 months just to get that far!  Maybe someday she'll try again, but I doubt it.

And I thought the INS was bad...

[Kuna]

Scott,

Whilst we'll all be interested to hear of your wife's impressions on her first return to UKR I'll spare a thought for you and how much you'll miss her.  I'm not looking forward to my wife going back alone at some time in the future.

Our next opportunity to go back is next year and I already know what my wife's impressions will be.

Negatives:  Crowded transport, grumpy people, dirty streets, expensive food, Ukrainian language, Government circus, etc
Positives: Bread, wine, baby potatoes, freshly pressed sunflower oil, friends, family...

All the best to your whole family for the trip!

Kuna

[bgreed]

Hey Scott,

Hope your wife has a great flight will be interesting to hear her impressions after being gone a year.

About your realestate investments, the news could be grim Lena has told me that for the past few weeks prices for apartements having been very steadily falling along with cars and anything else.  The banks have stopped loaning any money so it seems they are having their own realestate bubble burst.

[Misha]

About your realestate investments, the news could be grim Lena has told me that for the past few weeks prices for apartements having been very steadily falling along with cars and anything else.  The banks have stopped loaning any money so it seems they are having their own realestate bubble burst.

I have to say that I was prescient. This is what I posted in May with regards to the housing bubble in Ukraine:

Thompsongunner might have missed the window of opportunity: the bubble is pretty big and at some point it will burst (likely in the next year or two). Also, house prices have been hit quite hard in the USA. You would be selling in the United States when prices are in a free fall and buying in Ukraine before the bubble bursts. It seems to me a risky proposition where you end up losing a lot of money.

[ScottinCrimea]

Hey Scott,

Hope your wife has a great flight will be interesting to hear her impressions after being gone a year.

About your realestate investments, the news could be grim Lena has told me that for the past few weeks prices for apartements having been very steadily falling along with cars and anything else.  The banks have stopped loaning any money so it seems they are having their own realestate bubble burst.

I had expected the bubble to burst, especially in Kiev, long before now, since most of the increase was caused by foreign speculation.  I don't think the price drop will be as dramatic in Simferopol since there wasn't as much of that there and they were lagging about 2-3 years behind Kiev.  We own our property free and clear and have no plans to sell.  We're looking long term so short term fluctuations don't matter so much to us.  We don't deal with the banks, especially with regard to borrowing money because their interest rates and terms are outrageous.  We deal in dollars, not hryven, so the drop in the value of the hryvna has actually been a good thing for us in the short term. We may even take advantage of the current situation to buy more.  The issue for us will be finding a tenant when we are ready to start leasing, but again, we're not dependent on any income from our property so we can be more flexible and patient.

I'm thinking that my wife will arrive there about the time that the effects of the crisis are just beginning to show. It will be very interesting to hear her impressions.