I've been going to Kaliningrad for a number of years as I've been studying Russian and there's a good language school there. I heard about a dating agency there from one of my teachers. (
www.my-love-story.co.uk) Of course I've met a few girls over the years and have used free online dating services like
http://love.mail.ru/, but I thought what the heck why not see if some local help might not make a difference.
Kaliningrad is not a bad sort of a place to spend a few days. There are a few good things to see if you want to be a tourist, but the great thing is that it is full of good restaurants and bars. There are lots of ugly buildings of course, but that's pretty much a given for any Russian town I've been to.
The girls are pretty. You just need to walk down the street to realise that. Kaliningrad is a sort of honey pot for Russians who lived in the other parts of the Soviet Union. I'd say maybe half the population wasn't born there. The attraction is that the the Kaliningrad region is quite well off by Russian standards.
Anyway back to the girls. I started writing to a girl a few weeks before my next trip. This was only a few weeks ago. The correspondence went pretty well, but we all know how difficult it is to form a real impression of someone when you've never met them. Anyway I arrived in Kaliningrad, was picked up at the airport by the agency owners, and after that taken to my hotel where we had a couple of drinks and a chat about meeting the girl.
I met her the next day. Unfortunately there was just no chemistry at all. She was perfectly pleasant, and we liked each other well enough, but I wasn't what she was looking for and vice versa. Disaster. Two weeks to go and I've struck out on the first day. But no. I phoned the agency and they said not to worry, they'd get me some more dates. They pulled through. 3 more dates in short order and in the end I met a really nice girl with whom I've spent some good times. Things are looking good and I'm reasonably optimistic.
Of course my girl Katya works and so during the day I was at a bit of a loose end. Here the agency helped me quite a bit by providing me with some things to do. I went on a traditional Russian fishing trip, went hunting for wild boar and got taken to various sites around about including some nice old towns. When Katya was free she came too and we were able to go walking along the beach and we had a great outdoor barbecue.
Kaliningrad is reasonably easy to get to as it's sort of sandwiched in between Lithuania and Poland. There are flights from Riga and from Moscow. Anyway I had a good experience there and thought that some of you might like to hear about it.
Best wishes,
Peter
