Hey guys, new guy here with concerns

[jb]

Prince Alpo,

Yet another bit of advice from someone who has never been there or done that.

Who suddenly made you an authority on FSU women?  To my knowledge you've never met one... RWD needs to insert a big disclaimer,,, "Do Not Read Posts From Prince Alpo.  He Knows Nothing Of Value".  As I said: "There's no cure for stupid", and you are certainly that.  If you think I'm attempting to destroy your credibility, you are right... No one should ever read one of your posts and take it seriously.

Why don't you wait until you have the tiniest bit of real experience before you offer advice to anyone.  Your pal Eric, who is existing on hot dogs in NYC, is in the FSU on your advice now. 

You have no clue as to what you are talking about.  Why don't you just go away?

God help us~!

[prince_alfie]

Prince Alpo,

Yet another bit of advice from someone who has never been there or done that.

Who suddenly made you an authority on FSU women?  To my knowledge you've never met one... RWD needs to insert a big disclaimer,,, "Do Not Read Posts From Prince Alpo.  He Knows Nothing Of Value".  As I said: "There's no cure for stupid", and you are certainly that.  If you think I'm attempting to destroy your credibility, you are right... No one should ever read one of your posts and take it seriously.

Why don't you wait until you have the tiniest bit of real experience before you offer advice to anyone.  Your pal Eric, who is existing on hot dogs in NYC, is in the FSU on your advice now. 

You have no clue as to what you are talking about.  Why don't you just go away?

God help us~!

Wow, and I thought engineers were more diplomatic?  ???

[jb]

Nope, engineers are pragmatic and practical,,, you are neither.

[prince_alfie]

Nope, engineers are pragmatic and practical,,, you are neither.

Well sorry but I'm romantically pragmatic!
And I do not treat love as one of the hard sciences aka positivism. That's for me not my style.
Luckily, flaming seems to be overlooked here? Anyways, I'm afraid that this will be boiling down to opposing views on how life works. I tend to be more brutally optimistic.

[Kuna]

funkola,

This is my advice for you to make your search as efficient and effective as possible.

I'll spell it out step by step and some of it might seem like very basic stuff but I think it is one approach that would work for you.

1. Decide what you want in a future wife and write it down.  What is negotiable and what is not.  It's important to write it down and refer back to it often to check you're head is straight and you're not getting carried away with fantasty.

2. Decide where you're going (Appropriate sized city for your home city so you're not asking a girl to move from Moscow to a tiny farming town or something that will make adjustment more difficult than it needs to be) and only write to women from that city, or cities very close-by.  It's less expensive and more efficient.

3. Join 1 agency that you feel most comfortable with that has ladies in the region where you want to search and join freepersonals.ru.  I'd also join brides.ru.  The expense upfront is nothing like the expense of a wasted trip.

4. Write meaningful letters to the ladies and send those letters on mass.  Don't trickle out one or two a day.  Send 20 or 30 per day for 2 or 3 days to all of the girls you find that meet your criteria.  In the subject line mention something from their profile that was of interest to you. They get HUNDREDS of letters, you need to grab their attention.  "Meaningful letter" means REALITY, FACT, and ASSERTIVE wrapped in HONESTY, COMPASSION and FEELING.  Don't be soppy, you'll just invite the scammers and scare away the serious girls.  Write short simple sentences even if they have "good" English.  Make the correspondence easy for them. Don't write letters until you know when you are going to FSU.  TELL the girls when you'll arrive and you might scare the scammers off and show the real girls you're fair dinkum!

5. When their responses come in look for red flags. If they include the word "love" in any part of their emails disregard them immediately.  Obviously anyone asking to meet in a foreign country or anyone that asks for money is OUT!  If you're not interested in what they say in their emails then reply to them that you don't think you're compatible but you "wish them all the best" - DON'T force yourself to be interested!

6. Don't be afraid to "disengage" with any girl that does not stand out in her correspondence.  Ask for MANY photos and expect answers to ALL of your questions.

7. When you're down to a few girls call them as often as is reasonable and continue to reduce the number you're communicating with based on the level of comfort and confidence you have in them.  They'll be doing the same thing to the men that are writing to them.

In my opinion (and with the benefit of hindsight) the best method is Write Many - Visit One PLUS have a backup plan.  

If you correspond honestly and effectively with "the one" you'll have a good chance of a connection when you meet.  She'll WANT to meet you and not just be curious to meet you.  

You then need a Plan B or backup plan.  If you do meet and you don't click for whatever reason be aware of the agencies in town that you can visit to view catalogues and arrange dates while you're there.  This way if sparks don't fly with the one you can transition into a "Power-dating" trip.

My most important advice is "Don't be afraid to disengage with someone that doesn't meet your original criteria".  You're goals is a happy marriage, not just a meeting or a foreign romance.

Keep your head straight and aim for exactly what you want.

These are just my ideas and I've only taken one trip.  The above is a mix of what I did and what I think I should have done with the benefit of hindsight. It's not the only way but I believe the above is an effective way to go about this.

Finally, if you start feeling with your heart when you're corresponding with a girl stop and remember that NOTHNG is real until you meet.  I repeat, NOTHING IS REAL UNTIL YOU MEET!  Once you meet a girl face to face you will know the reality, no matter what it is.  Reality is good, fantasy is disastrous!

Turbo mentioned many good sites.  I used Elena's Models but if you're focusing on a city then choose a local agency or one of the HUGE ones with many girls like bride.ru.  You'll need to send LOTS of initial letters to find "the one".

Good luck,

Kuna

[I/O]

Ditch the agencies and post yourself on freepersonals.ru . You will not regret it.
Honestly it will save you much heartbreak and money by going the personals route.

Most things amuse me.  Very few things annoy me.  I am not a big fan of agents. BUT this has got to be the most phuct piece of advice I have seen anywhere.

To paraphrase Mark Twain.  Sometimes I sits and wonders and sometimes I just sits.  Unphucinbelievable

I/O

[BillyB]

funkola,

I remember seeing some websites at Aweb that was interesting to share. Also seen your gal there too. She's a good looking woman and looks to be in her 20's instead of 36. Hopefully she's not sending you 10 year old photos.

Found these websites in Aweb's "other sites" that can be clicked on the front page.
http://www.anastasiaweb.com/Default.aspx?page=OtherSites

Here's a marriage agency where women bare all to potential husbands.
http://www.ladiesinnude.com/

Big Dicks Dating Tips will assist you in this endeavor.
http://www.bigdicksdatingtips.com/

Get your drugs here to make you sexually irresistable.
http://www.luvessentials.com/

One guy gained 4 inches in length and doubled his thickness with penis enlargement. It's possible you'll get more action with penis enlargement than you will with Aweb.
http://www.extagen.com/

[funkola]

Yes that link page is a red flag for sure. Shows you what they consider to be legit businesses.

Curious, how did you know which girl I was writing?

[funkola]

Kuna that seems like some solid advice to me. I think I will re-plan my trip for a later time. I do know I want o go to Ukraine. Not that big of a country so I may split it into 4 sections and make four trips overall.

[Muckraker]

Actually, I met my wife on A-Web (read my trip report). I'm pretty sure Rasdave did too.  And a couple of others that I can't remember.  

A-Web is just a front for the local agencies.  Yes, they have all kinds of "marketing" ploys to incent the owners at the local agencies to keep the letter volume going  (my wife was a translator for a few years for an A-Web agency).  My wife didn't get a percentage of the letters, that's for sure.  She barely made anything, and sometimes she didn't get paid at all, like the time she was penalized for telling a girl how to set up a free email account (the agency owner was going to charge her 500 rubles a month). She never saw any of the employees or the girls getting a piece of the action.  In fact the uglier girls had to pay the agency owner to join (A-Web says they don't pay but they don't care what the local agencies do).  Translators were underpaid and overworked and most couldn't translate for crap.  I think it is important to remember that most of the time the translators are in a very difficult situation.  

You have to know the reputation of the local agency owner.  And if you don't know who they are because of how A-Web operates, then you are taking a risk, certainly more so that dealing with an agency that has a good reputation. But it is just a chance, because there are nice people on A-Web  too.  My wife says at her agency it was about ten percent.  That is better than what she thinks of the general population in Vladivostok.  There are all kinds of reasons for these letter writing scams, not just simply because of A-Web's greed.  If you think the chances are high that the local Russian agency owner is a moral and honest person (by our standards) then you are dreaming.  Plus a lot of the women don't want to be bothered with the chore of responding to everyone who writes to them, so they have no problem with the owners providing an answering service for them.  There are seriously so many freaks writing to them, they just don't have the time to deal with it. So it isn't always even the agency owner.

As far as I'm concerned, you have to take some chances when you play this game, and you have to be smart. You will attract the wrong kind of person if you are too paranoid or naive.

One of my Russian cousins joined the agency after she saw what a damn fine man my wife reeled in.   Now, this cousin is no beauty.  Ugly really.  She uses her real pictures. Three years later, she has received over $30,000 in gifts, free trips to St. Petersburg and Moscow, and doesn't have to work at all.  She's actually received her PhD in the meantime.  She always has at least five serious guys going at the same time.  Her favorites are the guys who have been writing for over a year.  They send her cash (after all she is practically their wife, right?).  She is mean, rude and nasty to these guys.  I can't blame her or the agency for what she is doing. Others certainly would though.

I think writing is just for testing the waters.  After a couple of months, you should have figured out her phone number and started calling her personally.  And writing directly.  Get A-Web out of the equation and then you can at least start figuring out if it is real. (Remember, she may not want to give it to you until she is pretty sure you aren't one of these crazy nuts calling her all night). There are posts somewhere with suggestions on how to get her contact info directly. Otherwise dump her. After six months or so, either you are on a plane or stop wasting her time (and yours).  

Muck

[BillyB]

Curious, how did you know which girl I was writing?

You gave out too much info but don't worry, I'm spoken for and not in the hunt and I won't tell anybody else how to find her.

Muckracker, I can now say I know someone who married their woman listed on Aweb. You've been around RW forums off and on for years. I don't know why I never got to reading your story but you seem to have a good grasp of reality of what's going on at the agency.

[corp]

Kuna that seems like some solid advice to me. I think I will re-plan my trip for a later time. I do know I want o go to Ukraine. Not that big of a country so I may split it into 4 sections and make four trips overall.

Funkola, don't go weak in the knees now, you were planning a trip, follow through full steam ahead. If you wait for the perfect woman via email, that may never happen (for you).
It is possible the lady you wrote to is legit, plan to see her but not only her.

Ukraine is very easy to travel in because there are a lot of people there who can help you with lodging, travel, language.
Any thing you need, I am sure someone can help you (Logistically speaking)

The first trip is the hardest .... not only because it is half way around the world
,, but also because it makes you examine yourself. After all, it's not every guy who flys
to Ukraine for a blind date
You will have a great time. Get that lady on the phone, if you have her street address, get someone to write a letter and get her phone number, and talk to her, the info you will get from letters is nil now.


Lets go man, you aint getting no younger 

[funkola]

BillyB she has sent me pictures holding specific gifts that I have sent her so I know what she looks like. Those glamour shots brush out out the lines in her face. And a small mole or two.

[BillyB]

BillyB she has sent me pictures holding specific gifts that I have sent her so I know what she looks like. Those glamour shots brush out out the lines in her face. And a small mole or two.

That's a good sign she cherishes your gifts. Of course there's always women out there who know how to play men but she's 36 with a child and most likely serious about finding a mate. Go and visit her. Don't be paranoid but use your big head to evaluate if there's any true chemisty between you two. Some agencies do photoshop the women to make them look more attractive than they actually are. Business improves when clients think with their little heads.

[Kuna]

Actually funk...

I agree with corp and billy here...  I think the lady you're writing to sounds genuine.  If you've gone as far in the planning as you have don't cancel on her now.  You'll never never know if you never ever go!

If you have already ruled her out consider the process I talked about above, but i wouldn't after getting this far down the track.   I said in an earlier post that her offer to pick you up at the airport is a very good sign because she'll be going way out of her way (great inconvenience for them to travel 3 hours to meet someone they've never met).

When you make your accommodation bookings in Cherkassy only book for the first 2 or 3 days that way if it doesn't work out with your lady you can go back to Kiev for some power-dating.

Treat the trip as an adventure...  go and meet her and HAVE FUN!

Kuna

[funkola]

You guys are really great. I SO appreciate all of the points of view. I am not that concerned about the money aspect because early on I trained myself to accept the fact I was going to be wasting money chasing butterflies. I do not mean to imply I have much money. But I can afford some hits here and there.

I do believe this woman is genuine. But the agency reputation concerns me. I know some think we have written to long to be serious about each other. You may be proven correct. But I "feel" she is just very cautious as am I. She would prefer that we live in Ukraine and I told her I would consider it. My main concern is health care because I do have some medical problems (other than being ugly) and I also want good dental care for my family. I am 47 and she is 36. That is a bigger age difference than I would have ever searched for. But she is the one who wrote me first. I told her I was hesitant about writing a woman so much younger than I, but if she proved to be mature enough I would give it a shot. As I mentioned before I did stop writing her at one time. For some reason I just lost interest at that time. But we got together later and things have been smooth except for one time when I jokingly said she was posting new pictures on the site to attract new men. She got mad about that remark and I was only joking. She responded that the agency insisted she keep her profile updated with new pictures. She did not like me "putting blame" to her.

Gonna try to post a real picture of her for those that have looked at her on Anatasia. Stand by......

One question..... is it cool to post a pciture of the gal you are writing too? Don't want to break any social mores.

[Kuna]

You guys are really great. I SO appreciate all of the points of view. I am not that concerned about the money aspect because early on I trained myself to accept the fact I was going to be wasting money chasing butterflies. I do not mean to imply I have much money. But I can afford some hits here and there.

I do believe this woman is genuine. But the agency reputation concerns me. I know some think we have written to long to be serious about each other. You may be proven correct. But I "feel" she is just very cautious as am I. She would prefer that we live in Ukraine and I told her I would consider it. My main concern is health care because I do have some medical problems (other than being ugly) and I also want good dental care for my family. I am 47 and she is 36. That is a bigger age difference than I would have ever searched for. But she is the one who wrote me first. I told her I was hesitant about writing a woman so much younger than I, but if she proved to be mature enough I would give it a shot. As I mentioned before I did stop writing her at one time. For some reason I just lost interest at that time. But we got together later and things have been smooth except for one time when I jokingly said she was posting new pictures on the site to attract new men. She got mad about that remark and I was only joking. She responded that the agency insisted she keep her profile updated with new pictures. She did not like me "putting blame" to her.

Gonna try to post a real picture of her for those that have looked at her on Anatasia. Stand by......

One question..... is it cool to post a picture of the gal you are writing too? Don't want to break any social mores.

Funk...

Couple of points on your post.

First of all we're all here to help where possible and like me, I'm sure you'll continue to find a wealth of information and good advice in here as you move through the process.

Many of us (me included) have started out just like you.  Some of us have travelled already and some have been lucky to find their own special lady for love and marriage.

OK.. to the points in your post...

1. Don't taint the woman because of the agency but be cautious.  When you do meet her don't lose your head and spend to impress.  See how SHE spends and that should impress you.  (In my mind I would reject a big spender because it could be something not sustainable in the long term).  That agency doesn't have the best reputation but as you saw from Muckrakers post, he was successful with them.  Obviously there's genuine ladies there even if the agencies practices are questionable.

2. I'm impressed by a lady that would prefer to stay in Ukraine after marriage because it proves to me she's not desperate to escape something.  Personally I would prefer to live in my own country but my girl and I have talked about the possibility of living in Ukraine too!  Her being cautious is also a very good sign.  She has a child to consider and it's a "thumbs up" to know she is mindful of the risks and NOT desperate to get to the USA.

3. The age gap you have with her is NOT a big deal.  11 years is perfectly acceptable and just so happens to be the same age gap as I have with my girl. You guys are a little older than us so the age gap is even less relevant.

4. A girl contacting you off a site might be perfectly legitimate but it's a small red flag in my mind. Soem girls will actively contact men, others will wait to be contacted.  I actually didn't repond to anyone that contacted me because I left my profile empty... I was happier to be the initiator of all contact. You might eventually find out the agency contacted you on her behalf first or something like that.  That shouldn't matter though if you two have developed deep and valuable correspondence through time.  Judge the relationship on the facts and realities once you meet.

5. When she got mad about your photo post she disclosed something important to you. The agency want her to keep her profile fresh even though you were in deep correspondence with her.  They are focused on revenue from correspondence, not marriage.  UW can be tempermental.. but to me that's a part of the spice that excites me. I would think closely about how you two resolved that misunderstanding. In my mind it's easy to be comfortable in happy times but what I am really interested in is how comfortable I am in difficult times. 

6. Re: posting pictures... I'm always hesitant about posting pictures but have done so once or twice.  personally I think we should ask a girls permission before posting to a public forum but you do have the option to post and leave it up there for a few hours and then remove (via edit) before the post becomes permanent. Maybe it would be best to post after meeting...  You'll see scammers pics posted here frequently but that's more about protecting other men who may also be corresponding with a scammer.  it's up to you...  but I understand you feeling uncomfortable.

The most important thing in your pursuit is this...

Don't get caught up in fantasy and always take time out to think about events in a logical manner.  I've only just returned and can't tell you how many times I needed just a little time out to organise my thoughts.

If you meet your girl and you are both happy and comfortable during your time together you'll know you have more trips and learning to do about each other. In my opinion email is good for initial contact but nothing can replace face to face time... especially in her own environment.

If you meet your girl and sparks don't fly learn from your experience and continue with your adventure.  It's a wonderful experience if you take your time and enjoy the ride.

Be careful there... some people will try to rip you off, but if you're sensible I'm sure you'll return home with a deep affection for Ukraine and it's people.

Again,  best of luck,

Kuna

[Shadow]

Funkola, the time to post a picture is when both of you are going to be in it 

The reputation of A'web may be dodgy but that does not mean it is impossible to find a real woman. However I want to make sure that you keep your head straight. Do not be paranoid but also do not be sure this is your life partner before you have even met.
The best way is to stay open minded and take things as they come. In the worst case you wil get a great experience of seeing another country.