Vinnytsya

[IAmZon]

I have heard it said that people have "physical appearance generalities" by region in Ukraine?  If that is so, I am particularly attracted to several women from this city:

Vinnytsya

Yet, I have not read much about it. 

Does anyone have the inside track?

[duplantisjj]

I have heard it said that people have "physical appearance generalities" by region in Ukraine?  If that is so, I am particularly attracted to several women from this city:

Vinnytsya

Yet, I have not read much about it. 

Does anyone have the inside track?

I have no experience re: ppls appearance from different regions.  But I did correspond with a girl from Vinnytsya last year and she was gorgeous.  My problem was that I met her through HRB and could never get their hooks off of her contact info.  You're ladies name wouldn't happen to be Natalyia?   

[IAmZon]

YEP:)  cloths designer ... one letter hot; next letter cold.  It is her that put this itch in me.  After I found RWD, I began to see that Natalia and RLM/HRB was an "operation" - they all are to some degree.

Still, no info on Vinnysta?

[William3rd]

I have been to Vinnitsa twice- a few hours outside of Kiev by bus. 2003 and 2005. You can see why the germans were able to occupy the country in a few days. The land is almost flat-perfect for the thousands of small farms that you see as you go.

Not much to write home about- the "social" was held in what appeared to be a bombed out building and they were literally dragging women in off the street to have the party work. It didn't.

The hotel was clean but a dump. There may be better lodging elsewhere in town. No amenities and no restaurant-just a cafeteria, but the food was good.

The city itself doesn't have much to do or much to offer. Its big claim to fame seems to be the mummy of the father of modern anesthesiology in a glass case-similar to what they did for Lenin.

The women were attractive.

If you stay more than two days, you will have run out of things to do. Unless you want to take up farming

[Mir]

Other reasons for fame are: Hitler's bunker complex 'Wehrwolf' which was the Nazi Eastern command HQ and The Pirogov museum, which is a memorial of Russian medicine.

Rivardco

My sincere advice is to chose a larger city for your first visit unless you have a lot of time (like a month).

[Turboguy]

I was there for a social several years ago.    Gals were attractive and friendly, place the social was held was small but nice, hotel was good, but not a 5 star.   Gal I met was a first class scammer and my terp went along with her.   All in all not a bad city.   I would have to have a good reason to make it my choice to visit.

[Leslie]

Vinnitsa,

Know the place like the back of my hand.  My wife is from Vinnitsa.  The women are majority Ukrainian (this is western Ukraine so Russians are not too popular..)

Here are a couple of agencies -

http://www.ladyorchid.com/

http://www.ukrainian-woman.com/

Both locally owned and basically straight.  Do not write through either agency for long though.  Ignore all of Kostya's investment "schemes".  They all involve him spending your money LOL!!

The Pirogov museum is worth a visit especially in summer.  Give Hitlers bunker a miss, the Red Army made a real good job of destroying it.  There is nothing left to see.  Dining / Disco bar - Sport time is medium price place.  Europa more expensive.  You can eat real well on $50.  If you speak the language there is lots to do.  Every family has a Dacha. Mushrooming, picnics, getting drunk in the woods...

Rail service from Kiev is frequent (around once every 2 hours)  takes 3-4 hours.  Taxi costs around $120.  Use a decent car, it is 4 hours drive.  Hotels are not up to western standards.  Apartments are much better.  Around $40 - $60 a night.

Vinnitsa is typical Western Ukraine small city.  It is not poor by comparison to Eastern Ukraine.  MOB has never been big here (unlike Kherson).  There are a significant % of prostitutka's in the MOB pond so be careful. This is a great place to meet a genuine Ukraine woman but it is not on the tourist track.  I would not recommend it as a destination for a first or even a second trip.  I reckon you need to be self sufficient to be successful here.  If you are still in the tourist bubble you should go elsewhere.

Hope this helps

[Ste]

Give Hitlers bunker a miss, the Red Army made a real good job of destroying it.

My SWMBO is in Berlin now and I've made a few trips to track down the Führerbunker, I know where it is, I think.

Wonder what's underneath, the Sovs then the GDR tried to blow it up but only succeeded in collapsing the roof into the rooms, and that was the Vorbunker, the Führerbunker was 50 foot down some steps...

Ironically it's all underneath a child's playground now or thereabouts, compelling stuff, Berlin is rapidly becoming my favourite city....

[Mir]

Berlin is rapidly becoming my favourite city....

Why?

[duplantisjj]

YEP:)  cloths designer ... one letter hot; next letter cold.  It is her that put this itch in me.  After I found RWD, I began to see that Natalia and RLM/HRB was an "operation" - they all are to some degree.

Still, no info on Vinnysta?

Too funny...my Natalia was a clothes designer too.....

[Ste]

Why?

Dunno really - I like the feel of it, lots of history and atmos, like Glen Coe, you can feel a lot has happened and a lot of people killed. Kind of eerie.

U-bahn and S-bahn are everywhere, quick, clean and cheap, and I love trams. Best of all housing is ridiculously cheap, 360k Euro for a 7 bedroomed house nr the Tiergarten.....

[Leslie]

Ste,

Agree with you on Berlin. East Germany is great value for money.  Try Leipzig...

The Bunker is not the one in Berlin, but a command and control post just outside Vinitsa.  Unless you are into imaging what was there from weed covered bumps in the terrain then give it a miss.  Not worth the drive out there. Drive a bit further (or get the bus for a couple of bucks) and visit the gardens at Uman.  Great place for a picnic.

[mervin]

I've been to Vinnitsa, and duplantisjj, if you are curious as to which HRB agency your lady used I could probably find out for you. youmemarriage.com is one of their affiliates there. There is another affiliate agency there, but it's a small agency. I personally know of only 2 HRB agencies in Vinnitsa. However, there may be more.

I loved Vinnitsa - however I didn't think the ladies were as attractive there in comparison to the other cities I visited (but that is just my opinion), and I would not go to Vinnitsa for any other reason than to meet women. There isn't a whole lot of tourism there at all. The thing that I did like about Vinnitsa was that it was easy to find my way around and I could walk everywhere without the need for a cab. That's more than I could say about the other cities I visited. Tons of good restaurants to choose from too! I spent a lot of time hanging out in the center of the city near that big clock tower. I still can't get that image out of my head. Funny how of all the things I remember from Ukraine that is what has stuck in my mind the most.

http://www.ukrainian-woman.com/ is no longer in business. I know Konstantine, who used to own this agency. He's now in the translation business. He got out of the MOB business because it wasn't making him any money and he says foreigners don't come to Vinnitsa anymore in the same numbers as they once did. 

The hotels in Vinnitsa are all dumps from what I saw. Most of them are attached to casino's. I dunno why that bothers me so much, but my gut tells me that when a Ukrainian hotel is attached to a casino it's bad news. Maybe it's just my paranoia talking.

I've been to that medical museum that some of you are talking about. I thought it was kind of boring myself, but I was impressed at the level of upkeep. The museum grounds were flawless. 

I actually met a few HRB girls while was there. One of them I corresponded with for about 4-5 months - her name was Iryna. I spent virtually my whole time in Vinnitsa with her. She was a great girl, and very honest from what I could tell. Nope, I didn't travel there using HRB. I used their services to correspond with her, but I decided to travel to Vinnitsa on my own to meet with her, and a few others (behind the back of HRB for lack of a better term). It was actually pretty easy to pull off to be honest, and I paid the local agencies regular fee rather than the inflated fee that HRB qualified members pay.

Ok to get off topic for just a second: first, to all you members who started using HRB before you realized there's a $1k fee at the end of the tunnel prior to being given any contact information - fear not! Most of their affiliate agencies are easy to find once you arrive into your ladies' city. Even their small agencies can be found fairly easily just by asking around. So instead of worrying whether or not you should pay their fee, just get on the friggin plane and go. If you've got a remotely intelligent guide you're going to find what you're looking for. And you won't be subjected to HRB's agency fees.

As for how I did it? Well I took a big risk because I pretty much just showed up in Vinnitsa and called up the agency and told them I wanted to meet with Iryna. She didn't even know I was coming until the day before I arrived. It could have been a disaster had luck not been on my side, because for all I knew she could have been out of town that week.  I had been corresponding with the agency directly for about a month before I left for Ukraine. I didn't trust the agency (youmemarriage) any more than I trusted HRB, so I didn't share any of my trip details with them until the day before I arrived. I was probably being more paranoid that I should have, and I did not want to give them the chance to think about how they were going to deal with me.  I think it's possible to deal with an dishonest agency in person, but you sure can't do it from 5000 miles away and behind a keyboard, so I was trying to be cautious. But it turned out I was just being paranoid. The agency turned out to be very nice. 

By the way, I talk to 3-4 guys who have had success with HRB. I personally would never use them and I think it's silly to pay their high fees, but I've never been convinced they are a complete scam operation. Anyway... I don't really care to debate this point, and I think that if some of you have girls that you're corresponding with there that you're completely wrapped up in, and if you're not bold enough to strike out on your own (behind the back of HRB) then don't pinch pennies and pony up to become a qualified member.  Sometimes it's silly to put a price on things.

If the Natalia you guys are talking about is 24 years old, has dark brown hair and is about 162cm tall I might know a thing or two about her.

[mervin]

Vinnitsa,

Know the place like the back of my hand.  My wife is from Vinnitsa.  The women are majority Ukrainian (this is western Ukraine so Russians are not too popular..)

Here are a couple of agencies -

http://www.ladyorchid.com/

http://www.ukrainian-woman.com/

Both locally owned and basically straight.  Do not write through either agency for long though.  Ignore all of Kostya's investment "schemes".  They all involve him spending your money LOL!!

The Pirogov museum is worth a visit especially in summer.  Give Hitlers bunker a miss, the Red Army made a real good job of destroying it.  There is nothing left to see.  Dining / Disco bar - Sport time is medium price place.  Europa more expensive.  You can eat real well on $50.  If you speak the language there is lots to do.  Every family has a Dacha. Mushrooming, picnics, getting drunk in the woods...

Rail service from Kiev is frequent (around once every 2 hours)  takes 3-4 hours.  Taxi costs around $120.  Use a decent car, it is 4 hours drive.  Hotels are not up to western standards.  Apartments are much better.  Around $40 - $60 a night.

Vinnitsa is typical Western Ukraine small city.  It is not poor by comparison to Eastern Ukraine.  MOB has never been big here (unlike Kherson).  There are a significant % of prostitutka's in the MOB pond so be careful. This is a great place to meet a genuine Ukraine woman but it is not on the tourist track.  I would not recommend it as a destination for a first or even a second trip.  I reckon you need to be self sufficient to be successful here.  If you are still in the tourist bubble you should go elsewhere.

Hope this helps

Just read your post Leslie. Well I agree with some of what you said for sure! But honestly, Vinnitsa is not really western Ukraine - culturally I mean. Everyone there speak Russian and not Ukrainian as their primary language. Geographically it is slightly western, but just barely. Regardless, I think a lot of people mistake it for western Ukraine because foreigners don't go there too often. Most people fly into Kiev and then head east or south and so they think that any city that is west of Kiev is western Ukraine.  Vinnitsa is actually closer to Kiev than Poltava or Kharkov.

Honestly, I never saw any prostitutes there, but then again I was not looking for them. But ok, I'll take your word on this, your wife is from there so I think you probably know a lot better than I do.

Vinnitsa is probably the third or fourth wealthiest city in Ukraine - behind Kiev and Odessa only and maybe Donetsk. Land in Vinnitsa is super expensive. Yeah, I know that is the trend in general these days in Ukraine, but It's as expensive in Vinnitsa as it is in Kiev. An apartment in Vinnitsa goes bout about $80K at least.

The MOB business is not booming at all there. Since 2001 American tourists have stopped coming. My friend Konstantine told me that Vinnitsa girls are generally not interested in foreigners, which is another reason he feels there isn't a big market there. However, that is his opinion. Do I think it's a bad place to meet women based on my experience? No, not at all. There are tons of them, I can tell you that! The young population there is exceptionally large.

I don't necessarily think it's a bad place for a first timer to start out at. As a matter of fact, I'd say it's an IDEAL place for a noobie. The city is small and easy to find your way around, it's not expensive, foreigners don't go there and there are tons of women. However, there isn't much to do there, so if you're not going there to meet a lady you certainly don't want to go there as a tourist.

Here is a list of the agencies that I know of in Vinnitsa. Konstantine told me not to go near the sites I listed as "bad reputation." However, I would not have used them anyway. The only agency that I did business when I was there was youmemarriage.com.  I had no problems with them by the way, and even though they're affiliated with aweb and HRB I thought they were good and honest. I'm not promoting them though, I'm just giving you my 2 cents.

www.bogdana.net
www.ladyorchid.com
www.arussiandestiny.com
www.agency-exclusive.com (bad reputation)
www.yanaagency.com (bad reputation)
Natali Agency - I can't find the website for this page (bad reputation)
www.Youmemarriage.com

[mervin]

pictures from Vinnitsa