Early 1990 to 2000 was a period of desperation for the Soviet block, just as 1945 to 1955 was a period of desperation for Germany. You don't see many men writing to Germany now a days, do you? I've written this before, and I write it again. "Marriage Agency" industry in the FSU, as envisioned in the west once existed, but it is my belief that it no longer does. What continues are the sequals and the reruns, based on the past successes, but they are only scams.
Its like I myself and a few other have wrote in the past. This battle is almost finished guys. There are two main factors that drove these beautiful women to take a chance at a new life with a foreign man. Very bad economic situation and very bad men. Well, the economy is getting better and better and the men are getting better too. As it was already said these ladies have options now and those options are growing not every year but every month. I myself have one more trip left in me. Maybe two but certainly not more than that. This will be my last year searching for a soul mate in the FSU. Good luck to all! We will need it.......
Agreed! Between 1991 and 2001, there was a genuine effort to immigrate. As the economic desperation has died down, women have become increasingly picky. Just as German women were available from 1945 to 1955. No one's writing to German women anymore, do they?
Villages here are inhabited by the old as young flee to Chisinau (it's the same all across eastern Europe). Since 2001, wages have increased from $50 to 150 Euros. In 52 F weather, already the ultra-mini-skirts are out -- worn with stockings and long boots. Everyone's got a cell phone.
Chisinau is filled with Mercedes Benzs. They are usually stolen from western Europe.
I abandoned the TV gal because I grew tired of taking her to $40 dinners, where converstaions never progressed to relationship.
Ala may be becoming interested again. She hates Moldova and Moldovans, and can't describe enough wrong with them. But only 1 man came to see her before me. "What does that tell you?" I tried to lure her.
Irina and her sister Nadia dumped me. Irina was a wierd case because she responded to my personals ad in Moldovan newspaper back in July 2006, and we wrote and called on and off since.
Natalia answers when I write and call, but without any clear direction.
I met a new pretty girl and her ok older sister yesterday just in front of the hospital. She's only 18 (I sure hope so because she looks 12 - there goes my career). Some boy knocked her up, so she is truly desperate for a relationship.
I have no doubt that anyone can find a pretty and genuine FSU girl by living there a while, but it is not going to happen thru the internet, especially if there are other parties, such as marriage agencies involved. Even East Indians and Sri Lankans living have found pretty blonde Moldovan girls, something unlikely back in the US of A.
I agree James. If you actually live there (FSU)its a different story. Your odds do improve a lot. I met a few girls in Ukraine that were really good girls and were really beautiful but the deal breaker was they didn't want to leave. They told me if I would stay in Ukraine then they would be mine. Go to USA? No deal.
Very instructive and discouraging posts. According to some sources (I remember I read something in www.womenrussia.com), the number of marriage agencies in Russia is increasing at a very high rate. I can hardly believe it if "What continues are the sequals and the reruns, based on the past successes".
DrKoop,
I am sorry that your self esteem is so low. From your posts it appears that you try to convince girls (every single girl you meet) to have a relationship with you either with gifts and money or suggesting that they won't meet a man in their lives after you leave.
The information that "the number of marriage agencies in Russia is increasing at a very high rate" hardly suggests anything at all about the supply of genuine women profiles since as we all know the supply of fake profiles is literally unlimited.
What it does suggest though is that there exist an ever increasing demand for Russian brides and girlfriends and unlimited hope on the part of western men who make themselves the perfect sitting ducks, hence the number of agencies (fraudulent in particular) and the number of women profiles (fraudulent as well) increase.
The question is as deano put it: how many genuine FSU women want to migrate to a western country? and is this number decreasing comparing to the numbers observed during the past decade?
I wonder if these girls would have left if they had met the 'guy' that they had dreamed of. I think in such a situation they would think twice about moving. I know every guy has met that girl that they would move the world for. Maybe that is what it takes for a girl to leave her country.
Trav,
I agree, that number would be nice to know. Also, is the number of western men growing, it must be if the marriage
agencies is growing
From from doc's this and other postings, I think he's a playboy or wanna be playboy. He pursues the others, continues to meet new ones even when claiming to be steadily dating.
I have a right to secure as good a deal for myself as possible.
Okay, the 18 year old Tanya and her 24 year old sister Natalia invited me to their home for lunch, where I met the entire family, and liked them very much. Natalia works in Dubai UAE and has a tall and pretty sister married to a local there. They visit and give bring along many presents. Tanya is the only girl I hugged and kissed on this trip. But she kept flipping her mind. What if I beat her when she comes to USA, what if I hate her coming baby, how will we communicate, I felt she thought I was too old for her and made excuses to bail out.
So, I left Chisinau empty handed, took a bus to Prague. It took over 4 hours to cross the Uki Polish border. In Prague people dress as Americans, nearly all the girls have achny and kezboards have too manz characters you do not need but cannot get to those you need. Now what
Its 20 F degrees colder her than it was in Chisinau. I always thought western Europe was warmer than eastern Europe. Girls here are not as attractive as those in Chisinau. Folks dress very ordinary. Restaurants are also more like American. You can just smell grease when you walk by the KFC. In Chisinau, most restaurants have live music, and a lot of concept. For example, me and Tanya visited one themed after Uzbekistan. Servers dresses, pottery, dishes, walls, windows, everything reflected this concept.
To make up for the time wasted at Uki Polish border, you should have seen the driver drive, even on shoulder to pass traffic.
Plenty of Chinese tourists in Prague. Chinese tourists were unheard of a decade ago.
Think, I will call Natalia about Tanya. She was such a fresh flower. Even tied my shoes since I could not bend due to my surgery.
As soon as the bus service resumed, I too one to Paris. After seeing Czechs at train station, I'd say they dress like us only in the city center area. Paris is a world class city. French babes are pretty. Algerians, mostly non-Arab, are the largest minority in Paris. Weather was great.
Then I took a bus to Amsterdam, where my flight back to the US is from. Amsterdam is a crumbling, run-down city that attracts toursits probably only due to it's red light district, where I circled like an airplane forgotten in a holding pattern. Amsterdam is 60 percent non-white. Dutch dress and look like us.
Saw 4 or 5 10's in the RLD, which to my surprise closed too early. Girls were telling me this, but I thought they were just hustling me in.
I called Natalia in Chisinau, and Tanya has come around. She wants to do away with the baby and starts a new life with me. Did I mention she is 18.
DrKoop,
thank you so much for your invaluable information. Your descriptions of European cities and populations sound really laughable to European ears.
The phenomenon is simply shifting - and confusing most of us who have little really compare it to.
As a 49 (still) year old guy - I am virtually invisible in US singles bars. On line dating of American women (though admittedly I have tried in a couple of years) produced results that were generally between pathetic and amusing.
Young women in the US won't even bat an eyelash toward an older man no matter how disadvantaged their situation. I suppose it is possible to get their "services" for a night at a price but the idea of getting attention toward a personal relationship is absurd. They aren't even willing to lead-us-on as its so laughable.
In Eastern Europe we still get plenty of (at least outward) attention and supposedly consideration toward a future relationship, which surprises and confuses the hell out of most of us older men. If given an opportunity, most ANY are more than willing to lead on a gullible American man.
Is it better to get ignored by the vast majority of young and pretty American women, or to be increasingly misled (whether by their efforts or our own foolishness) by the young and pretty in Eastern Europe?
I think its still possible to find a wonderful FSU woman as your one-and-only, but you have to narrow the gap. You have to be in good physical shape, maybe a little closer in age, and maybe a little more realistic than many of us have been in the past.
I think our radars are completely overwhelmed from time to time by the attention we receive from so many young and beautiful, but often insincere Eastern Europeans that we become caught up in the moment and our common sense takes a nose dive.
I will be embarking on a brand news "starting over" trip on the next few months myself to the FSU. And I will try my best to pick the region and the opportunities as carefully as possible.
I have been to many countries in Europe, both in the west and the east. Please notice that this distinction is becoming more and more senseless. Since Jan. 1st, 2007 even Romania and Bulgaria are part of the EU. However, I prefer to speak about something I know very well, that is my country, Italy. In Italy, the very concept of "single bar" is unknown. The only single bars I know about are whorehouses. They are illegal, strictly speaking, but some are tolerated. The situation is similar in the Italian part of Switzerland, otherwise known as Canton Ticino, where such "single bars" - some of them feature high class beautiful babes from South America, Hungary, Latvia, Czech Rep., Slovakia, and so on - are really a lot and attract streams of "tourists" from northern Italy. I think this "single bar" point marks a cultural difference between Europe (or at least Italy) and the USA. Actually, I never was in the USA and I will ask the dumbest question you ever read in this forum. What is, exactly, a single bar in the USA? What can you expect from a visit to a place like that?
"Singles bar" is actually a dated reference, more frequently used in the 1970's and 1980's I think. (Gad.... my age is showing even here!) It refers to a bar generally where single men and women go to meet each other.
Its not a neighborhood pub, it might be refered to as a "dance bar". It is most certainly not the same as a "whore house" (unless one is being cynical) and as such is not likely to be illegal.
In Eastern Europe, what I am refering to is usually called a "disco", though THAT is is itself a dated term in America. People in the US generally laugh when they here the term disco - thinking it refers to the era of Barry Manilow and Gloria Gaynor (the 1970's). I have had to inform more than a few people here that the "discos" of Eastern Europe are not the same discos of which it was said that "Disco is Dead" by 1982.
Jet: I know you are a long time poster and I recall your lady from, I think,
Chisinau. I crashed and burned too, the names are different the stories the same. No more Moscow for me, unless you live in NYC, I doubt any Muscovite is going to be comfortable. You are back at it, just curious, why? At least I have stupidity for an excuse but you seem more sensible. I am actually thinking about Chisinau. I know you have been there several times. Any generalizations? I think these big city girls have a tough time any time they are taken out of their element. Good luck.
Barfly1:
She was a great woman, at first anyway. I met her at a Romance Social in Ukraine, though she was, indeed, from Chisinau. She rode a bus six hours to Odessa hoping to meet someone special. It took nearly a year for the fiance visa to be approved from the time we started gathering documents. The actual application didn't take that long *though it was certainly longer than people wait even this year I understand). We did some of the gathering of documents at our leisure.
As she went through the interview process and we recieved final approval - I suffered a personal tragedy - my 20 year old son was killed in a car accident on the very day one of our documents was offically approved. It was the worst of times.
We seriously considered scrapping the entire project - since a fiance visa must be used within six months of final approval - but having worked on it as long as we did, we made the move to bring her over.
There were some problems, to be sure. Some were clearly related to the grief process. Some problems had nothing to do with that. She was an only child to a widow and very much missed her mother. She wanted to live in a skyscraper. There were a lot of things.
We labored over the decsion but in the end she went back to Chisinau - while we considered possibly trying again or even marrying later in Moldova.
But she changed afterwards. I visited her two times after that in Chisinau spending first three and later two weeks. But it was really over. She became much more money oriented and much less serious. And CERTAINLY less honest on just about every topic. Without being too specific lets say the writing was on the wall. It was over.
The final consideration was just this past December - when we talked briefly about getting married before the New Year. But it seemed instead that she was more interested in hanging on a while while I continued to send her money.
Oh well.... life goes on.
I hope to go again in April and/or August of this year. There are plenty of other fish in the sea.