Eric, you surprised me,, maybe i'm doing a bit of guessing here and if so disregard half, and apologies.
if you have already been to ukraine how could you allow yourself to go down that road of agencys and there games? let alone even going into ukraine for more then time out.
i only went to ukraine once for such, other time just for fun.
to anyone out there who uses a system where interpreters are part of the game (or high cost baby sitters for really only your wallet) you really have lost the direction of a half decent search.
you need to do some massive changes or you will get disappointment almost every time.
i'm trying my best not to knock you Eric, for at least you show determination, and have shown first hand what that place is.
i could only imagine the disappointment.
but i have to say it, a lazy unorganized search (relying on agencys and part ukraine) will only give poor results and basically a poor man at the end of it.
switch to russia and no agencys,,, that style of ukraine searching has done its day,, really its like beating a dead dog for dying.
i cannot stress how much better russia is, the girls are far less corrupted, interpreters(whats that).
and with all that i only know or new three russia words and just not interested in knowing more.
wow kiwi!!!! -- I never even thought about it until now. when I fist met my Russian wife she didn't know word one of English. Well, "I no understand" counts when I first called her. Actually almost all Russians take English in primary school but it is simplistic and unless one goes after it it is the same as the year of French I took. un, du twa, etc. But she didn't even think of using an interpreter when we met. She carried a Russian/English dictionary and we would write notes. She didn't start to study English until after we met online and decided to meet in person. Heck, she wasn't really interested in an American. Even when I went to Russia the first time, there were enough English speaking types that if you are not afraid of the dark you can get by pretty well. We both carried dictionaries.
I traveled to many places over the years. The only place in the world that people were rude to me because I did not speak the language was Quebec, Canada. As soon as they discover you are American the automatically only speak French. I was in France along the Med and the people were fantastic.
I concur that Russia is the land of opportunity to meet a good woman.
I've used apps on my iphone on pretty much every trip. The problem is they all seem to need internet access, which can get real expensive, real quick (because I always keep my UK SIM)