Snail Tale

[Doug S]

I realize that hardly any new guys have the patience to use snail mail anymore, although I still highly recommend it for a number of reasons. However, I'm not here in the newbies section to talk about that, rather to share a story about the kinds of strange and unexpected things that can and will happen during your quest.

When I was writing to my list of potentials, (my now-wife) Olga’s third letter back to me never arrived. She had put some prized prints from her modeling portfolio in it to impress me. The photos were very expensive for her. In fact they were a family investment in her future; and she was rationing them out, saving them for that very special guy. (Years later, after learning this, I was flattered.) It was in that third letter with the seductive (but professional, mind you) photos that Olga indicated she wanted to continue our correspondence despite the fact that in my last letter to her I had expressed doubts about our 20-year age difference. She wrote: “you look very good for your age. And even though I may look young I am very ready get married and start a family. I very, very like you – you seem like the kind of man I have been waiting for.”

But her original mailing of that letter never made it. No doubt those modeling photos (In which she was all legs, heels, and hot pants) ended up adorning the inside of some Ukrainian postal worker’s locker (either for the sheer erotic pleasure of her stolen Slavic beauty, or out of spite for the Americans who are stealing those same Slavic beauties from his homeland).
Having not heard from Olga for almost two months, I figured my comment about our ages had scared her off (which was probably what I subconsciously intended, projecting my own fear onto her). I moved her folder to the back of the file box, along with the other women who had dropped off the radar, and focused on my other prospects.

I am a meticulous person, and I kept detailed files of all my correspondences with more than 50 foreign women. (It was these files that helped me rank them and develop and adjust my “short list.”) I even had a procedure for purging the files of women who appeared to have “died” or “gone cold” (stopped writing). It was something that I actually read on the Internet about corresponding with Russian women via snail mail. Before giving up on them, I sent the seemingly “dead” women simple post-cards (no envelope, just a card); the common wisdom being that post cards always make it through the FSU postal system for some reason. And they make it through very quickly to boot. (Probably because it is obvious that there is nothing of value in them – either materially or information-wise, nor are they able to convey enough of a story for anybody to despise and therefore intercept or waylay them.)

On the last-ditch post cards I wrote (translated into Russian): “Dear (Natasha, Ludmilla, Olga, etc.) Hi, it’s me, Doug the serfingest from California. I never heard back from you, so I’m guessing you lost interest in me. I am just double-checking to make sure that’s what happened. If you are still interested, please let me know because I really liked you.”

Well, within three weeks I got a letter from Olga telling me all about the letter she had sent me with her special modeling photos. Hadn’t I received it? She was very upset and her letter was peppered with exclamation marks. She expressed polite (lest it get withheld again) but extreme and between-the-lines frustration with “her country’s unreliable postal service. She said that when she did not hear back from me she figured the same thing I had figured about her – that I had decided against continuing our correspondence. (Later, after we were married, she said that she and her Mom figured the legs, heels, and hot pants might have scared me off and that maybe the secret-weapon photos weren’t such a good idea after all).

She also said that she was very upset that such a snafu may have caused her to have lost her chance with me because I may have moved on to other women. I remember being moved by her emotion, which reeked of sincerity (unlike the feigned emotion that other Russian women had professed in letters to me, trying to stampede me into jumping on a plane and rushing out to marry them). She was very politely pissed I her very lady-like and proper way. And in that letter she gave me her family’s telephone number and urged me to please call her at such-and-such a time on a Saturday, Monday, Wednesday, or Fridays because she works the night shift as a taxi dispatcher.

I rounded up an interpreter and talked to Olga a couple of days later via a 3-way phone call. We got the whole mess straightened out, discovering that a key piece of mail had almost sent us both our separate ways with the wrong impression of each other. It was our first little laugh together. Later, as we became more involved, and now - after six years of an extremely satisfying, smoldering, and soul-mating marriage and propagation (our new daughter, Lana) - that same realization of how we nearly floated past each other in the big cosmic sea of snafus, causes us both to take pause.

After receiving my postcard (but before my phone call) and realizing there was still hope, Olga mailed me a duplicate of “the letter,” complete with another set of the precious modeling prints. No. it was not a Xerox copy, for Olga did not have access to a Xerox machine in those days. Instead, she made hand-scribed copies of her letters for her own records (essentially wrote out two of each letter and kept one for herself.)

About a week after we talked on the phone, the replacement letter arrived. Upon seeing the modeling photos I then fully understood how they and the letter that enclosed them could have gone MIA. But then, a few days after that another replacement letter came; this one with no photos. Not a Xerox copy, but what appeared to be exactly the same letter I had just received hand-written in Olga’s penmanship all over again. Now unwilling to trust the Ukrainian postal system with her future, Olga had prepared and sent a back-up. (I found out later that at that point she only had one set of  the precious modeling prints left and had decided to save them in case the whole Doug-from-California thing fell through and she had to drop down to her Number 2.)

I, living in the world of easy Xeroxing, grappled with what had happened. I set Olga’s two handwritten letters out on a table side-by-side and compared them line-by line. It was incredible. So faithful was her hand each time that they almost looked like one was a copy of the other, with the same words starting on the same lines, same punctuation and flair of strokes, etc. But then I got to a paragraph where she must have been interrupted in her copying and left two complete lines out of the back-up. Aha!

Then I sat back and contemplated Olga. She really wanted me to get that letter. She was really upset with the Ukrainian postal service. She was really working hard on her future. And she must have really liked me a lot. I made a note of this in her file.

And to this day, more than seven years later, as Olga and I stroll through the park or local shopping mall hand-in-hand with our child in our arms; happy as can be, I often think about those (three) letters. And of course, the collection of modeling prints occupies a special section in our family photo album.

Doug S.

[Durk]

      Doug I am glad to see somebody else here believes in actually writing!!
   I have been joked with for spending the keyboard time, but I think it is really necessary to write regularly before your visit the girl. Both people learn
 about each other their family, friends, etc. The tone of the letter will also
 tell you if she is into you enough to visit her. The effort she makes would
  let me know how serious she is, especially if she is writing a lot of guys at
  the same time. The letters will also show the issues concerning being scammed. Sooner or later the flag will show and a scammer will not write a
 single guy unless she thinks she can get money from him. She will write many!  I think the phone is then next. Have to talk to her on the phone!!
      How is her English? The phone will answer the communication question?
       I was surprised to hear that Jet's wife Lil could read and write but not
  speak good English. From looking at different profiles the level of English
  varies greatly. I have a question. Does the Russian differ much from city to
   city?   D

[Doug S]

Durk,

It worked very well for me. And not just with Olga, but with all of the women I was considering. We disclosed everything we could about ourselves via words and photos. And as you say, telephone conversations. It really helped me narrow my search down to the right woman. By the time I went to FSU to meet Olga in person, I knew exactly what she would look and act like; and she knew the same about me. There were no surprises for either of us, and we were able to relax and focus on the few remaining things we wanted to learn about each other.

Don't get too hung up on the speaking English issue. The nicest and best Russian women don't (yet). It's easily overcome. If you are the kind of guy who is willing to put in the writing work, then you are also probably the kind of guy is willing to put in a little more to overcome that. Yes, it will cost you more (translations and 3-way phone calls), but it's one of those penny-wise and pound-foolish things. I can't tell you how many guys we have seen waste months and years of time and lots of money on plane tickets, K-1s and weddings even, just because a Russian woman already spoke English, even though she wasn't the right Russian woman for that particular guy. The right one didn't speak English and was unfairly passed over.

I'm assuming your question is do Russian women from different cities speak different dialects or version of the Russian language? Well, Russian is Russian, but Russian people from different regions do have different accents and colloquialisms. Like New Yorkers vs. Bostonians vs. Alabamans vs. Californians, these different accents can sound like completely different languages to the untrained ear. But it's all just Russian. I found that the Russian women I was communicating with in Moscow sounded much harsher and more guttural than the ones I talked to in Ukraine, for example. In fact, my now-wife Olga's sweet, smooth voice and  rolling, lilting Russian was one of the things I found very attractive about her. (Compared to one girl from somewhere in Central Russia I talked to who looked small and sweet in her photos but barked at me like a 200-lb. drill sergeant over the phone.)

I have even gone so far as to compare Russians from Ukraine to Californians and Russians from Moscow and central Russia to New Yorkers; but that has gotten me into trouble in some crowds. I, being a Californian, prefer the laid-back Ukrainian Russians in terms of language and demeanor.

DS

[prince_alfie]

Letters are pretty awesome. Plus you get to meet ladies who don't have internet access. After all, love only takes one to cross the t and dot the i.

I love reading letters that are handwritten. Just hope that she doesn't conduct the KGB handwriting analysis test! 

[Doug S]

Durk,

You are correct and I agree with everything you said. Unfortunately, there is a whole other school of "just pick a city, get on a plane and go over there and meet lotsa wimmen."

I suppose there are good arguments for both approaches, and as I recall they always end in stale mates. (But hopefully the resultant courtships don't, ha-ha.) All I know is that if I had used the "pick-a-city" approach I would have never picked Krivoy Rog, and I would have never found Olga. I shudder at the thought of what might have happened to me and where I would be now.

To answer your question, no Russian does not vary from city to city. Everybody in FSU pretty much speaks Russian equally well. You may run into the rare occurrence where a woman you want to communicate with is actually an ethnic native of a particular FSU country, and that country's language is actually her native tongue, with Russian being her "second language." For example, in Western Ukraine you might run into a true Ukrainian whose first language is Ukrainian, and who had to learn Russian as a second language. But that will be very rare. It's usually the other way around.

Doug   

[David1963]

Doug,

I wonder how many relationships never got off the ground or ended because of a lost letter or E-mail, I'll bet there are plenty.  I'm glad you and Olga survived that.

Don't get too hung up on the speaking English issue. The nicest and best Russian women don't (yet). It's easily overcome. If you are the kind of guy who is willing to put in the writing work, then you are also probably the kind of guy is willing to put in a little more to overcome that. Yes, it will cost you more (translations and 3-way phone calls), but it's one of those penny-wise and pound-foolish things. I can't tell you how many guys we have seen waste months and years of time and lots of money on plane tickets, K-1s and weddings even, just because a Russian woman already spoke English, even though she wasn't the right Russian woman for that particular guy. The right one didn't speak English and was unfairly passed over.

It looks like you and I are in the minority here.  There was a whole thread on this subject and the majority consensus was that you can't build a relationship with a woman you can not communicate with.   

[Doug S]

David,

Maybe Anna Kournikova's reply to me got lost n the mail. Oh, well, I like my Olga better anyway.

Doug

[calcowboy1]

Personally, I think the snail mail system is stupid and antiquated.  My wife and I have sent birthdays cards to her sister and parents to only have them either dissapear or arrive 3 months later.  You cannot have any confidence in the FSU postal system. 

In today's day of email and that lovely invention called a telephone, there is no need to take the chance of a lost letter with hand written letters.

Just my 2 cents.

[BillyB]

In today's day of email and that lovely invention called a telephone, there is no need to take the chance of a lost letter with hand written letters.

Don't forget, like the phone, the telegraph was invented too to say "Hello" to your sweetheart. One could've sent a telegram through Western Union to your RW but I'm sure that's not what a she'd expect coming through Western Union these days. You had your chance, now WU has discontinued telegrams in 2006.
http://www.westernunion.com/info/aboutUsHistory.asp?country=global