A month long trip to Russia & Ukraine over 13 time zones

[Eduard]

Hello every one! I'm going to attempt to write a trip report that will also include some photos and even a video of us taking a boat ride in St. petersburg. I will need to capture it on my comp and upload to youtube first though. Should be pretty interesting for some people at least.

This time I went to both Russia and Ukraine with 2 clients (one at a time 2 weeks with each, both are RUA members).

Guy1.
Talked to many women, in the beginning had a very nice connection with one RW from Kazakhstan and then suddenly she just disappeared. Yes, this happens sometimes. Probably she became interested in some one else. Women usually don't like to write "explanation letters", so after 2 or 3 of his letters and skype calls went unanswered we decided that she was gone.
Too bad, seemed like a very nice and attractive girl, but this can happen. Just like men who talk to several women, women also talk to several men and there is always a chance that somebody else will grab her attention (although it doesn't happen too often since most local guys are just looking for a quick hook up). At the same time he was talking to this girl in St. Petersburg. She gave her email address after 1 or 2 exchanges and also turned out to be a professional translator who spoke English fluently. So they communicated directly without my involvement at all. She was becoming a very good prospect, so St. Pete was definitely on our travel itinerary at this point.
He also connected with a woman in Kiev and it just happened so that she was coming to the US to visit her girlfriend pretty early on when we just started working with him. So he drove down from Canada to meet with her for a couple of days while she was here, in the US. They seemed to have had good chemistry together and decided that he would come to Kiev and spend more time with her. So Kiev also became a definite destination for this trip. Since he already met her and felt pretty strongly about her he decided that he didn't need any back up plans for Kiev. So she was the only woman he was gonna meet there.

He was also talking with this girl in Samara, Russia, who was very pretty, but he had a tough time to get her to open up. Sometimes he'd email her a letter and in response she would just send a few photos of herself trying to stay cool on the beach (this was an unusually hot summer in Russia and Ukraine). Although her bikini pics looked extremely enticing, both my client and I felt uncomfortable with her inability to open up with him in her letters. When asked about that she would respond that in order for her to open up she'd need to be communicating with a man in real life and she just didn't feel comfortable doing it by email. In my experience this is not typical. Most RW open up and do discuss things close to their heart after a few weeks of communicating, but this one was hard to read...
By this time we already had booked a flight to Samara, but allocated only 2 days for that city since this girl seemed to be iffy. My client and I discussed this, and decided that we should try and see if there were other interested women in the greater Samara area. We contacted several women from Samara and Tolyatti (they are within 1 hour and 15 minute drive from each other) and quite a few of them responded.
He still had about a month before the trip and started corresponding with several women from Samara/Tolyatti area. Closer to the time of the trip we narrowed it down to 3 great prospects! But we only had 2 days in Samara... 
As it turned out, one of the 3 had booked a vacation previously and was going to be away during the time of our visit. That was a shame since they had a lot in common and the attraction was def. there. The other girl rearranged her schedule to meet him, but at the end she wrote some things that set off red flags and we both agreed to just forget about her. So now we had our 1 girl to meet (which was ideal since we only had 2 days there) but we also had phone numbers of a couple of other girls he communicated with just in case. He did not make any definite plans to meet with them, and they agreed that basically he'd call when we were there and if the girls were available, they'd meet. So we were all set for Samara.

Since we were spending a week in St. Pete, we agreed that just in case things don't pan out with the translator girl we should have a back up plan. We found several girls that were interested, but one in particular had the best possibilities.
So now we had the plan and the tickets booked for St. Petersburg, Samara, Kiev (by way of Moscow)

To be continued...

[Eduard]

The St. Pete girl offered help with finding apartment that would be conveniently located for her to get to and for him to see the city. The place was on the corner of Nevsky and Fontanka - a very nice location in the center of the city from where we were able to walk to pretty much all important sigh Normalts in the city. The apartment was also very nice but there was one negative - no air conditioning.
Normally there is no need for it in St. Pete but last summer was unusually hot, even in St. Pete so not having the air was slightly uncomfortable, but not terribly. Guy1 and I met up in Amsterdam and flew to Pulkovo airport together where his lady was waiting for us with the cab. Her English was very good so the conversation was flowing nicely. Even before our trip I was introduced to her as a personal friend of Guy1. We spent the first couple of days running around the city checking out the sights, taking a boat ride (which really demonstrates why St. Petersbug is called "Venice of the North". I will post the video that I took of that ride on youtube and provide the link to it shortly. These couple of days also gave me the opportunity to get to know her as a person and I did sense a couple of issues that I felt I needed to share with Guy1. He took my observations under consideration and they continued dating through out our stay in St. Pete without me with the exception of one evening when we met his ":back up plan" lady. She was actually very nice, and at the end he regretted that he didn't have enough time to get to know her better since he committed all his time to the translator girl. At the end of the week Guy1 saw that things weren't really working out with her. He observed certain things about her that he didn't care for and combined with what I told him in the beginning after spending a couple of days together with her made him come to the realisation that she wouldn't be a good match. Guy1 told me that he was going to post his TR here as well, so I'll let him elaborate on this if he chooses to.

Next stop was Samara...

[Eduard]

more pics

[GoodOlBoy]

Since I PM'd you already Eduard and you said questions are OK, here goes:
I am curious how these FSUW feel or react when they see you, obviously "tagging along" during their dates?
Do you provide some kind of "cover" story, like "I'm his interpreter/translator" or do they know up front exactly what you are doing there, essentially "sizing them up" for your client?
Thanks, GOB

[Eduard]

Since I PM'd you already Eduard and you said questions are OK, here goes:
I am curious how these FSUW feel or react when they see you, obviously "tagging along" during their dates?
Do you provide some kind of "cover" story, like "I'm his interpreter/translator" or do they know up front exactly what you are doing there, essentially "sizing them up" for your client?
Thanks, GOB

since we usually contact them in Russian, one of the first questions to my clients is: "how do you know Russian so well?"
At that point my client explains that he knows this Russian guy, Eduard who also met his wife the same way, on a Russian dating site, brought her to that USA and they've been happily married raising 2 beautiful kids together. Eduard agreed to help him with translation so that there wouldn't be any misunderstandings because of the language barrier.
Also once they start connecting and decide to talk on the phone/skype, I help them with 3-way call translations. During these calls I build a repore with girls, they ask me questions about life in the US, how my wife was able to deal with this etc. Many times I actually let them talk to my wife, and sometimes they exchange email addresses and email each other. My wife helps them feel more at ease since she went through this whole process herself and can talk to them from the RW's perspective. By the time my client and I arrive and meet with the ladies most already think of me as a friend and are very much at ease with me around. Some even give me little presents as a sign of appreciation for helping them communicate.
This particular girl in St. Pete only knew me as his friend since there was no need for translation for them from the beginning and they've been communicating directly, in English by email and skype without my involvement. Therefore I only spent minimal time with them until they wanted to just be on their own.