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1st Class Services

Several visits to Russia and my continuous contact with Eastern Europe made me a kind of "expert", and I would like to share the knowledge of services that are available for men seeking a foreign wife in these regions.


Membership 

With today's advance technology, leading websites offer wonderful memberships. 

Ads in newspapers and Listings in gentleman's catalogs are outdated. Newspaper ads were very effective and affordable. Newspapers were very popular with women for personal ads, and response rate was good, especially if your ad was written by a professional, but not anymore.

Membership on a website offers so much more. You can correspond directly with the lady or through the website.

Advantages

For example, if you have purchased some addresses, and then decided to upgrade your Silver membership to Gold or Platinum membership, you will get a discount equal to the cost of addresses that you purchased. Or if you paid for some responses from women and then decided to upgrade to Platinum membership, you will get a discount equal to the cost of responses you paid for.

Best option: I would suggest to go for Gold membership. Get use to the website and then add on for example Weekly Ladies Catalog or upgrade to Platinum.

Links to recommended Russian websites:

Elena's Models 

Elena's Models offers all these options: 

  • Silver membership; Free for all members to join website.
  • Ladies weekly Catalog; All ladies that submitted their profiles the last for weeks. 
  • Gold membership; All ladies on the website, excluding the Ladies Weekly Catalog.
  • Platinum membership; Including Ladies Weekly Catalog, all other ladies on website, unlimited access to contact details of ladies, unlimited send and receive emails and able to view all photos. 

A Foreign Affair 

A Foreign Affair printed publication will be delivered to the women who are interested in meeting a special man for friendship, love and possibly marriage, on a monthly basis.

  • For a 3 month placement - Reaches 3 000 women (direct mail) + the Russian magazine and newspaper + networking. 
  • For a 6 month placement - Reaches 6 000 women (direct mail) + the Russian magazine and newspaper + networking. 
  • For a 9 month placement - Reaches 9 000 women (direct mail) + the Russian magazine and newspaper + networking. 
  • For a 12 month placement - Reaches 12 000 women (direct mail) + the Russian magazine and newspaper + networking. 

A Pretty Woman

A Pretty Women's prices for addresses are as following:

  • 1 to 4 $15.00 each
  •  5 to 9 $12.00 each 
  • 10 or more $10.00 each

A Pretty Woman does not provide women's letters with the listings and sells the letters separately. Addresses can be also obtained through the membership plans (for more details please visit the website).

Helene International

Established in 1998. They have an office in Saint-Petersburg and representatives in USA, France and UK. The database never exceeds 250-300 members but they make their point to make sure all of them are available by keeping permanent contact will all the women and removing outdated ads. 

Links to recommended Chinese websites:

Chnlove.com

Unlike other sites where online dating may be unpleasantly treated as a casual identity game, Chnlove enables single gentlemen meet their true love with the help of local agencies in China and other Asian countries. The platform's partnered agencies strictly examine the ladies' information and assist all communications until your dreams come true.


Agencies

Agencies introducing Russian women can be split into two groups:

  • Foreign based
  • Locally based

Foreign agencies: Foreign agencies are all the agencies that are outside the countries of the former USSR, and are spread over the world. Most of these agencies are far advanced and use the latest technologies available, offering a variety of quality services. Services of foreign agencies are usually free for women. They will offer you a wide range of payment facilities: by credit card, check, cash deposit etc. It is easy to check the legitimacy of the foreign based service. There are only a few leading agencies. Most of them belong to some kind of unions such as BBB Online or anti-scam organization displaying their icons.

Local agencies: Local agencies are based in the countries of the former Soviet Union. Usually they charge both men and women. Many of those agencies do not have Internet presence, and if they have a website, they seldom offer facilities to pay by credit card and use wire transfers via Western Union instead (which cannot be refunded if something is wrong with the service as you can do if you paid by credit card). The legitimacy of a local based service is more difficult to confirm, although some of the local agencies join reliability programs too.

Best option: I believe foreign agencies are a better bet. You never know where you stand with a local agency, and cannot refund your payment if you are not happy with the service as they do not work with credit cards. With a foreign agency you always have your credit card company on the guard. 

Advantages: Foreign agencies offer cheaper prices because they make money on volumes. Local agencies have only a few clients, and they try to make money out of high prices.

How to select a good service?

A legitimate service should have those features:

  • It must have a contact page with full contact details, including a direct phone number and preferably fax number. You must be able to call to the office and talk to a live human on the other end.
  • It must accept credit cards via secure interface (check the "lock" icon at the right corner on the bottom of your screen).
  • Does the site belong to some reliability program? Check the icons on their Home page. 

Links to recommended websites:

Elena's Models - Elena's Models specialize in introducing Russian women of model quality. They strive for the quality rather than the quantity. Every week Elena's Models receive 100-250 new applications from Russian women and Russian girls, and introduce you only the best. All information is verified prior to the publication, and ladies are informed when their ads are published. Double confirmations via email and regular mail are sent to ensure women remember about their ads and will inform the agency when they no longer consider themselves available.

Addresses of ladies can be ordered through membership packages:

  • Silver: Order 9 or less addresses at $10 each. 
  • Gold: Order 10 to 50 addresses for $95 for all.
  • Platinum: Unlimited number of addresses, plus a handful of additional services of value more than $250 ($499 for 3 months)

A Foreign Affair

A Foreign Affair average more than 7 engagements a day. It is also on of the the largest, most respected Tour Company in the industry, and the only one to operate offices in every tour city.

A Foreign Affair sells addresses of ladies in membership packages.

  • Silver: 1 to 2 addresses at $9.00 per address. [More information on the Silver subscription level] 
  • Gold: 3 to 13 addresses at $7.00 per address [More information on the Gold subscription level] 
  • Platinum: Unlimited number of addresses ($95 a month)

A Pretty Woman

A Pretty Women's prices for addresses are as following:

  • 1 to 4 $15.00 each
  •  5 to 9 $12.00 each 
  • 10 or more $10.00 each

A Pretty Woman does not provide women's letters with the listings and sells the letters separately. Addresses can be also obtained through the membership plans (for more details please visit the website).

Helene International

Established in 1998. They have an office in Saint-Petersburg and representatives in USA, France and UK. The database never exceeds 250-300 members but they make their point to make sure all of them are available by keeping permanent contact will all the women and removing outdated ads.

Links to recommended Chinese websites:

Chnlove.com

Unlike other sites where online dating may be unpleasantly treated as a casual identity game, Chnlove enables single gentlemen meet their true love with the help of local agencies in China and other Asian countries. The platform's partnered agencies strictly examine the ladies' information and assist all communications until your dreams come true.


Flower and Gift Delivery Services

A gift in the form of flowers or perfume can place the seal on a relationship. Modern technology makes it easy to send a gift anywhere in the world. 

The crux is to distinguish between reputable businesses and the ones that will try to make more money by saving on the quality of the gift. A reputable company will deliver the gift only to the addressee, make arrangement by phone to ensure the addressee will be at home at the time of the delivery, and can also offer you a photo of your lady-friend with a gift. Other companies will just give the gift to anybody present at the address, and can even report successful delivery when there was nobody at home and the gift has not been delivered. 

I know about the case when a guy ordered delivery of flowers to a lady on St. Valentine's Day, and the delivery company reported there was no such address. He was devastated but the lady confirmed in the phone conversation the address was correct. The reason was that street numbers were a bit mixed up and her house was standing away from the street. The delivery company which had the lady's phone number on the files never bothered to phone her and find out. The next time the guy used a recommended service, and the flowers were delivered successfully and he also received a smiling photo of his sweetheart.

Best option: Use a reputable service even if their prices are slightly higher. You get what you pay for.

Advantages: A nice gift can secure a relationship, and at the same time confirm that the woman is real and really looks like her photos she sent to you.

Links to recommended websites:

Russian Service 

Flowers, gift, and mail delivery services to any address in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, and the other Republics of Former Soviet Union. Travel arrangements and gift ideas. They are not just a flower delivery service; but a kind of a wizard who will make your dreams come true!


Membership Plans

Well established foreign marriage agencies often offer different membership plans that have some services and/or addresses included in the form of a package. The more expensive is the plan, the bigger discount you get on the services.

Membership plans can include only addresses, addresses and publication in the catalogs, email forwarding or any other available service. I suggest you to carefully study membership plans before you subscribe to a service. Basically, you can find ANYTHING  you want to, but you must be ready to invest in your search. I am talking not only about money but also about emotional energy, time, and desire to learn her culture and language. If your search is specific (a woman of a particular trade, for example, a medical doctor) or you are looking for a woman who is much younger than you (more than 10 years difference), I seriously recommend you to consider a more expensive option, which at the end of the day will SAVE your time and money, and free you from frustrations of a fruitless search.

Remember, you are looking for your future wife. You CAN find her. How much does it worth for you? You decide.

Best Option: It really depends on the person. Size yourself against of the caliber of a woman you are looking for. What are your chances of meeting such woman in your home country? If the odds are not in your favor, select the option that gives you more.

Advantages: An advanced plan will supply you with a better choice of available women, saving your time, and at the end of the day your money. If you paid $10 for 1 address you cannot really hope they will go out of their way to help you. If you are a member on a gold or platinum plan, you can request some favors.

Links to recommended websites:

Elena's Models -  They have 3 membership plans: silver, gold, and platinum.

Silver and Gold plans: Offer only addresses; the plans are implemented automatically, when purchase addresses. Gold plan gives free access to the Members Area.

Platinum: Unlimited number of addresses; additional photos of women (if available); 3-month subscription to the weekly ladies catalogue; enhanced listing in the online gentlemen's catalogue and sending your data to 295 local dating agencies ($499). Platinum members are served individually; all requests are answered by a real human in priority order. Platinum membership is valid for 3 months, thereafter it can be renewed at a reduced price.


Religious oriented services

Most services introducing Russian women are not religiously oriented, and many do not supply you with information about her religion.

The majority of people in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are Orthodox Christians. In Southern countries of the former USSR such as Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan the majority of the population are Muslims. There are also Jewish that can be found in the countries of the Eastern Europe.

Since the Great October revolution religion was oppressed in Eastern European countries and religious values did not play a major role in peoples lives. The major role belonged to life values. Most Russian women will happily accept a man of any religion, especially Christian confessions.

Best Option: All the women of all religion groups are available for marriage.  

Advantages: Very few women are fanatic about their religion.


Romantic Tours

Tours can be divided in two categories namely:

  • Social Tours
  • Individual Tours

The majority of the social tours are organized by foreign companies and in many cases in collaboration with partners in the country where the tour will take place. Most agencies concentrate on metropolitan cities such as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev and Odessa. Some companies also offer tours to regional cities such as Ekaterinburg, Vladivostok and others. There are also available tours that include several cities on the schedule.

In my opinion, tours to smaller cities can be less comfortable but they are definitely more fruitful: foreigners are still something special there, and women/men rate of those tours is unbelievable. Moscow, for example, is pretty much a regular European capital with all materialistic values that we have in the west. If you do not reside in New York City or LA, your Moscow princess will quickly get bored of your quiet country life; she is used to the vibrancy and the pace of the capital.

Individual tours are tailor made packages for the clients on request.

Best Option: Tours to smaller cities.  

Advantage: Regional ladies are much warmer and accepting. 

Links to recommended websites:

Romantic Tours

A Foreign Affair claims to offer more Romance Tours to more cities than any other tour company during which you can meet 500 to 2000 beautiful women. They have hundreds of previous tour clients who are happy to share their experiences with you, and also offer dozens text and video referrals from the website. 

Tours are offered to the following cities: Moscow, St Petersburg,  Kiev, Crimea, Volgograd, Dnepropetrovsk, Riga, or to multiple cities, 
Odessa-Nikolaev-Kherson.


Translations

While all people in Russia and former USSR study foreign languages (mostly English) at elementary schools and colleges because foreign language is a compulsory subject, their knowledge of the language is limited. They will be most often capable of reading with a dictionary but have close to zero proficiency in verbal communication.

If you want to impress the woman of your dreams when writing to her the first time, translate your letter to Russian, whatever your language is. She will be very grateful - you will save her a few hours of digging into dictionary and let her enjoy your letter. If your lady's English is not very good, it is also a good idea to allow her to write you in her native language so she can express herself. Ask a lady in your first (translated to Russian) letter if she would prefer to write in Russian - it will separate you from the crowd, and she will feel you really care about her. Russian men seldom care - this is one of the reasons Russian ladies look elsewhere. Show her you are a gentleman.

Most agencies offer translation services. While quality may vary, foreign agencies usually offer better quality translations because their translators have experience of communication in the language in the country of its origin. Most translators used by local agencies have no experience of communication with the native speakers, which affects the quality of their translation.

Some agencies differentiate translation services into 2 categories:

  • exact (adequate) translation
  • edited (creative) translation

Your letter can be translated phrase by phrase as you wrote it, and it will be the exact translation. Or your letter can be rewritten to compile with Russian cultural and language rules, which is the edited translation. Both types of translation will basically tell the same things, but edited (creative) translation will turn your letter into perfect Russian. With the exact translation it will feel as translated document; with the creative translation your letter will have a feeling as if it was originally written in Russian.

To make it more understandable for you, creative translation is the same type of process that used in translating books from one language to another - finding corresponding idioms, explaining words and phrases that do not have distinctive meaning in another language, etc.

Best Option: I would suggest to use creative translation for your first (introductory) letters to your lady, and adequate translation on the later stages (if she needs it).

Advantage: Translation eliminates uncertainties and cultural misunderstandings, saves her time and shows you care.

Links to recommended websites:

Russian-English / English Russian translation - It is recommend to translate at least your first letter to a woman because Russian ladies struggle with reading English letters even if they know the language fairly well. It will ensure she will read your letter, and understand everything you were intending to tell her.

Russian translation software

Handheld electronic dictionaries and linguistic software available in the following languages: Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Latvian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Yiddish.


Dating Scams

There are the good people and bad people. Unfortunately bad people also exist in this industry and can be divided into two categories. They are mostly men pretending  to be Russian women seeking love and women that are Gold Diggers.

Recommended websites or pages:

Russian Scams


Dating E Books

Marina Smiley is the author of some of the most popular eBooks about Russian-Western marriages. She sensitive issues are discussed in her book:

  • What you must know before you decide to marry a Russian woman. 
  • What you need to tell your bride if you live on a tight budget. 
  • What you must tell your bride if you feel insecure and are afraid to trust her completely. 
  • Tips for men who are financially stable and are afraid to trust their future wife. 
  • Three major reasons why foreign-Russian marriage fail. 

Your Russian Bride - The Shocking Truth

Handheld electronic dictionaries and linguistic software available in Russian, Ukrainian and many other languages

Language Teacher®. Electronic pocket talking translators

Russian translation software

 

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