Send Flowers to Russia, Ukraine and Worldwide with Cyber-Florist.com Fiance.com: Beautiful Russian brides
Home  |  About  |  Forum  |  User Blogs  |  Login  |  Register

	Create New Topic   My Posts   My forum buddies   Invite friends   Private messages Russian brides > Main Forum > Final Destination Author Post Muzzy Member send PM   block PM add to buddies Send: 7/5/2009 4:05:03 AM   Wow, didn't mean that to sound as 'bad movie' as it did. Anyway,... I'm off to visit 3 potentials in a few weeks. Thanks to the fabulous help on the forum, I've got Miss Nikolaev and Dniprorudne sorted for most things. Finally, I'm arranging for Miss Sumy. I'll be staying at the Pan (highly recomended), but I need an interpreter that doesn't come from her agency. Does anyone know of any good ones in Sumy? Also, if anyone knows the number of a good cab from Kiev to Sumy, that would be good. Apparently picking one up at the airport isn't a good idea? As always, help and suggestions welcome with muchos gratitude :) durak Member send PM   block PM add to buddies Send: 7/5/2009 1:34:15 PM   The drive from Kyiv to Sumy is close to 200 miles. Considering that in Kyiv, cab drivers like to charge about $20 to $30 for the half-hour ride between the airport and downtown, such a long trip could be very expensive. If you are new to the Russian-speaking world, I see two ways you can manage this inter-city trip. You could simply "bite the bullet" and look for a ride at the airport. Be prepared to spend a while haggling over price - there are plenty of drivers and "front men" with enough English. But expect to pay a lot (I've never booked such a ride, but I would consider $200 to be very lucky, and probably they will ask a lot more than that). Or if you have any contact person in Kyiv (dating agency or what have you), they probably can help you with instructions how to get there by train or bus - a much cheaper fare, but you'd still need a taxi from the airport to the station. Or maybe they could arrange a driver who will get you to Sumy cheaper. An advantage of going by car is that (in theory) the driver could take you directly to your hotel. However you pull this off, it is going to be a bit complicated. Rag'n'Bull Member send PM   block PM add to buddies Send: 7/5/2009 2:43:06 PM   $150 www.sumyapartments.com/en/index.php?page=transfers (Delet e any spaces that might appear in the link) Also get a quote from www.ukrainefare.com carraig Member send PM   block PM add to buddies Send: 7/5/2009 3:07:06 PM   Hi Jon, I will PM you the number for Lena at the Pan hotel, she got a guy called Vitali (He,s half Italian/Ukrainian) to pick me up, he was very reasonable and his sister is a fluent English speaker and interpreter! you can give them a try! Muzzy Member send PM   block PM add to buddies Send: 7/5/2009 4:30:10 PM   Hey folks, Thanks for all the help. The plot has thickened though, She asked me to email the agency to arrange the details. We're still talking directly, but I emailed the agency anyway. I actually told them I'd already arranged the hotel, taxi and interpreter, but they've given this response: £150 for 'services'. Not too sure what that entails outside of them supplying me with a Ukraine SIM card. Taxi pickup at Borispol and return to Sumy (with girl and interpreter in tow) for £130 Free interpreter for day one, $7 per hour every day following. Apartment (apparently near her house) £35pn Access to their 'catalogue' of girls in case we don't 'click'. I know what everyone's thinking - red flags. Thing is, if this is a scam, the prices are pretty reasonable. I'm lining up my own Sumy backups just in case, so what do you think, worth the risk? I may try getting a different interpreter either way. Don't like the idea of someone on the agency payroll controlling my communication. Should I go with another taxi too? Is it worth paying a bit more for a bit of objective control? Should I just go independant with everything? I'm liking Carraig's offer, and Armin's sent be a good offer (thanks both :)) - could do with some advice. I'll be emailing fiance.com for some details of the agency. I've googled them and her, and no scam reports have shown up - yet. Rag'n'Bull Member send PM   block PM add to buddies Send: 7/5/2009 5:31:55 PM   jon, Big danger signal! Whilst those prices might be reasonable a definate 'no no' that people, supposedly, working to help you and the lady get along are offering you a catalogue of other ladies. Could be the lady is the carrot on the string to reel you in to spend your dollars in the agency's direction, this coupled with her directing you in the agency's direction. Of all the ladies I ever met with not a single one of them pushed me in the direction, to spend my money with, an agency. Have you done all the Google checks, name of agency, name of lady, both followed by the word scam, postal address of agency, phone number of agency (what 3 numbers, after 380, to detect if it is a mobile number rather than a Sumy area code), run anything you can thru Google. gecko Member send PM   block PM add to buddies Send: 7/5/2009 6:21:32 PM   it doesn't sound like a scam to me. the prices are reasonable. and the agency and the girl both know that there is less than a 10% chance that you will be soulmates. if i was an agency or a girl, i would offer you the same services. so it would be hypocritical to suggest its a scam. if this is your first time, go with the flow, develop some relationships. next time you go, you can arrange things directly with the new 'friends' you have made. hope that you and the girl work out. but if it doesn't move on quickly. think of it as a blind date. if you had a bad first date in your own country, would you ask for a second? probably not if you had other oppurtunities. not going with the agency might make you look cheap and suspicous. not a good first impression in a country where first impressions mean everything. Land of oz Member send PM   block PM add to buddies Send: 7/5/2009 11:24:13 PM   I would simply tell the entities you have previously checked with that your friend has made arrangements for you. Make sure you have their phone numbers with you when you go, and make sure you take a gsm quadband telephone with you and purchase a sim card and some minutes at the airport so if something is not right you can contact people with your first arrangements. If your current phone does not use a sim card or is not unlocked or a quad band you can purchase a nokia canybar phone at kbp airport. It has been 3 or 4 years since I did this but then the phone was $70 and the sim less than 20. Armin(Bonddd) Member send PM   block PM add to buddies Send: 7/6/2009 3:11:58 AM   $130 for a taxi sounds like a magic. It is 370 km from Kiev to Sumy. It is 130km from Nikolaev to Odessa and the best offer is $90-120 for a trip. May be local taxi drivers in Sumy eat less or their taxis use water instead gas) peteb Member send PM   block PM add to buddies Send: 7/6/2009 4:21:05 AM   bowhunter must knows some good interpreters in sumy. he's in kiev now, met up last night. big cock up though as i thought he was coming today (6th) so i got train tickets to the crimea for today and not yesterday, oops! so he and his girl had to quickly find an appt for the night! can't wait for the 12 (or so) hour train journey ahead of us tonight to the crimea... :-| /pete Kirkland Member send PM   block PM add to buddies Send: 7/6/2009 3:00:05 PM   My opinion:- this is an common scenario with the lady being in the pay of the agency. The prices may seem pretty reasonable to you but compared with the average wage in Ukraine (less than 200 USD)someone is making a killing. Do the maths....the interpreter is earning more than a doctor. The 150 GBP for "services" ...a portion of that is a bung to your girl. I did exactly as Gecko suggested and went back to visit a girl from an agency who rented us out a nice flat near to the one I'd rented off the agency previously. (Exactly the same type of flat) First flat I rented was 45 euro per night. The one she got us was 50 USD for a fortnight. Do as you wish and if it don't feel right then it probably isn't. Best thing would be to get the girl away from the agency. If you can do that you might be in with a chance of meeting a nice lady. If you don't click expect to be taken for a few dollars more. carraig Member send PM   block PM add to buddies Send: 7/6/2009 3:23:30 PM   She asked me to email the agency to arrange the details. We're still talking directly, but I emailed the agency anyway. I actually told them I'd already arranged the hotel, taxi and interpreter, but they've given this response: (Quote) Jon, it will not be unusual for the agency to ask the girl to convince you to use their services. She may even get a kick back for this! Is she with the "Hearts Desires" agency in Sumy? If so, my advice to you would be to leave well alone!! They are run by a guy called Andre, he is a very unreliable individual, I ended up in the Pan because he completely screwed up my apartment plans, Their main interpreter is a lady called Stasia, she,s not a bad girl, I only needed her for the intro, but in the end I had a few good conversations with her about how the agencies deceive guys etc. Make it clear to your girl now that you have already made arrangements, she will like you more if you appear in control. Rag'n'Bull Member send PM   block PM add to buddies Send: 7/6/2009 3:59:14 PM   Armin (Bondd), You're going to have to learn not tpo quote taxi prices all over Ukraine based on Odessa-Nikolaev, it's common logic that the longer a journey then, per kim, the rate comes down or can be negotiated down. If you've been paying circa $105 for a 2 hour journey then you've been paying $52.5 per hour, allbeit 5 years ago I travelled Odessa to Zaporozhye in a limo, that's something like a 6 hour journey, and I think it was $150, $25 per hour, even allowing for a hike in fuel prices that's less than half to what you've been paying and it was in a limo, not a Daewoo or similar. 4 years ago I took a (Mercedes) taxi off the street in Nikolaev, without pre-agreeing a price, it was on a metered charge, to Zaporozhye, call that a 3.75 hour journey, cost circa $120 thus $32 per hour. More recently I've been looking at a website whereas a taxi from Borispol to Poltava is $89, it's about a 3.5 hour journey thus circa $26 per hour and Kharkov to Poltava, perhaps a 1.75 hour journey, for $49, $28 per hour. Figured out yet Armin (Bonddd) that you're being ripped off? Rag'n'Bull Member send PM   block PM add to buddies Send: 7/6/2009 4:00:56 PM   Correction, that $39 for a taxi Kharkov to Poltava thus $23 per hour! Rag'n'Bull Member send PM   block PM add to buddies Send: 7/6/2009 4:09:31 PM   Armin (Bondd), These are the people that I took the limo Odessa to Zaporozhye with, for a longer journey they quote $20 per 100km, it'll be a higher rate for a shorter journey but I expect cheaper than you've been paying. http://odessa-tour.narod.ru/photoalbum33.html beemer18 Member send PM   block PM add to buddies Send: 7/6/2009 6:40:53 PM   Martin, your per hour quotes don't include the drive back, got to take that into account. When I was in Odessa recently, I aksed for quotes from many different drivers(on street) for a trip to Oman....all gave a price I think of 3uah per km...which was about 60cents a mile. For well known routes there are set pricing, as far as I know. I did notice the pricing for taxis from Borispol to Sumy was pretty cheap for the distance, I figured the apts wanted to get more people to Sumy. For a long time the price from Odessa to Nikolaev was around $60-$65. Rag'n'Bull Member send PM   block PM add to buddies Send: 7/6/2009 6:59:37 PM   Beemer, But all those 'per hour' figures I quoted, and Armin has been paying, can be divided by 2 and still Armin has been paying well over the odds! I get this info from being a secret agent Beemer. :) Rag'n'Bull Member send PM   block PM add to buddies Send: 7/6/2009 7:16:53 PM   ODS to Nikolaev, 70 of something whether it be dollar or euro: http://nikolaev-tour.com/transfer.html bowhunter Member send PM   block PM add to buddies Send: 7/14/2009 11:08:12 AM   here is my 2 cents hearts desire was once slavic princes and yes Andre is out to make a buck. they are also connected with Natasha club, I used his interpreter named Victoria for a few days on one of my trips to Sumy and she is very good. the cost last time was 15 an hour from them. the polena agency charges 5 an hour and Elena is quite good and funny. Taxi is normally 150 from the airport to Sumy. I normally pay 40-50 for a one bed room with independet hot water, heat and air. the agency aprettyukrainianwife com can arrange an apartment and taxy they are also known as the polena agency. bowhunter Member send PM   block PM add to buddies Send: 7/16/2009 3:19:55 AM   if your girl comes to the hotel to meet you she will probably be seen as a prostitute in Sumy. she will probably sugest meeting some place else. Your Reply: Your name:   New Registration Password:   Forgot password?   refresh Code:   Russian brides > Main Forum > Final Destination
	Pages: 1