I refer to guys speaking of only Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, there are many countries other than Russia, all the 'stan' countries that I recently spoke of for example.
The cost of a $50 (ish) visa made a blind bit of difference to me, I don't promote Russia, I merely try to make guys aware of their short sightedness!
No shortsightedness, Martin. Most of the ladies on the websites are from Ukraine and no visa is required. It may be easy to go to the stan countries, but why pay the $50 when you don't have to? How are you going to contact the ladies if you don't know they are available? We don't know they are there. They must advertise themselves.
There are websites full of profiles from Ukraine...
but there are a lot more women in the other Russian-speaking countries!
To give 2 examples, lavaplace.com and russianeuro.com are non-agency websites, not very expensive, with English-language web pages, and most of the women are definitely not from Ukraine.
Probably scamming is a big problem in any poor country, but I think it likely, that scamming is worse in Ukraine, in part because those men who are least prepared and least serious are much more likely to travel to Ukraine than other Russian-speaking countries -- it is the "path of least resistance." And this constant parade of (often clueless) foreign men creates many business opportunities for con men and female vampires. One fool's opinion, anyway.
Just to clarify this point further I have just, quickly, gonr thru the most recent 10 pages of posts on this forum. Countries/Cities are either written in to the title of the threads or the conversation(s), in the opening post(s) are pertinent to that country/city, by numbers:
Belarus: 1
Moldova: 4
Russia: 20
Ukraine: 86
Approximately 50% of the threads pertinent to Russia are from Ralph alone but by these statistics above it would appear that of the men that travel to FSU for romance purposes 77.5% of them are all travelling to just one country, Ukraine!
All you guys wittering on about visa-free entry to Ukraine need to realise that it doesn't apply to every country. Those of us from New Zealand and Australia need a visa for each of Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus, none of which have embassies in New Zealand. We don't even have diplomatic relations with Moldova! From my point of view it's a hell of a lot easier to go to Russia, especially as I've been before.
And Beemer - why on earth did you keep getting stopped by the police in Russia? Were you wearing some rude T-shirt or cap? I spent a month there, and pretty much the only contact I had was asking some cops in Moscow if it was OK to take their photo (it was).
For the novice or first timer in the FSU, the visa process can be intimidating. I learned from this forum that it is probably just filling out a form and paying the fees. When I decided to visit the FSU for the first time there were many Ukrainians and a few Russians that I thought I could go visit.
I looked at the visa for Russia and it was $100 and a long form. If I remember correctly, the form included questions like how many kids do you have, where were you born, where were your parents born? where did you go to school (grammar, high school and college). WTF? Why do they want to know these things? Are they looking for a criteria for denial? What if I get declined? I would have spent all the time and effort for a woman and cannot go. Or why if I have to go to more hoops to get approved. Of course, I thought it probably would not be that bad or there wouldn't be that many websites and testimonials, but this was on the back of my mind.
Then, I looked and verified several times to the point they got annoyed at me, calling the Ukrainian embassy that they didn't require a visa. It was a no brainer.
It didn't help much when my flight back went through Moscow for a couple hours, because I read that more than 12 hours in transit, I believe, then you have to get a visa. I then read how much trouble you can get into if you don't have a visa. Thoughts like what if my flight was delayed in Moscow, will they give me a hard time? It took me a while to decide, but I almost got a Russian visa just for the few hours of layover.
Then there was the layover in Moscow. I was greeted at the gate by beautiful young lady by name. WTF? That's never happened before. "Ragingbull?" she said. "Do you have a connecting flight to Atlanta?"
There were three others that were taking the connecting flight, but she escorted only me to the ticket counter to get my boarding pass. Perhaps the others had other escorts, I don't know. She waited and then escorted me to the gate. She left me at the line for security. There, I met English speaking people. All of us waiting for a flight were all in a glass enclosure. The others told me they went through two other security checks before they got there.
Talking to the ladies going on the flight, not to strike a conversation, but to discuss the security procedures we were going through, and offering my seat so they could remove their shoes, they gave me one answer and continued to ignore me. It was then and there I knew I was no longer dealing with FSU women and my vacation was over.
You've made your point, FSU does not mean Former Soviet Ukraine. The FSU is a big pond to “Fish” in, I'm sure most guys here understand you. But I think you must also understand that most “Fishermen” have their favourite spot along the river, either because they believe the “Fishing” is better there, or because they are most comfortable at that spot.
You've visited many FSU countries, good for you. Others prefer solely Ukraine, our friend “Shooter” cant stop shouting about Moldova at the moment, other guys prefer Russia, and some guys probably like to visit several FSU countries, as you have. I, for example, “Fished” only in Ukraine, the relaxed Visa law swayed it for me, not because I'm “tight” or “short sighted” but because it meant that it was instant, I simply decided I wanted to embark upon this whole undertaking then jumped on a bus at London Victoria and 40hrs later I was here, simple. 2.5 years and a few mini-relationships later, I got a real “bite” and with a lot of work sprinkled with a little luck, my “fishing” days are behind me, that's me, Ukraine was the only “pond” I needed.
To start accusing guys here of being 'too tight” and “short sighted” because they choose to visit a particular country from the FSU to hopefully find their life long partner isn't too clever, in my opinion. Reading several of your postings it's clear you have a degree of intelligence Mr “Smart” don't go and ruin it by becoming a boring dictator !
How much time and trouble does a trip to FSU take to complete?
You'll take the time to source and pay for international and domestic flights, probably costing in excess of $1,000, you'll probably complete online credit card proformas several times in the process, you'll organise accommodation, you'll probably complete vacation applications to take time from your work, you'll travel to the airport, stand in line to check in, then queue at security, then queue at passport control, then queue for a cup of coffee or similar, you'll queue again to board the aircraft to sit in an uncomfortable aluminium tube for X amount of hours, you'll probably change aircraft, queuing again several times in the process, at an intermediary airport before arriving in Borispol, to change aircraft again and go through the queuing yet again before ultimately arriving at your destination to stand and wait for baggage before queuing to get thru immigartion and exit the airport and, look on the bright side, you won't have to go through that sh1t again for at least a week when you travel home again.
So, in your quest to find your dream lady, is completing a form and paying circa $100 really asking too much?
No, it's not too much, but if you had to choose which direction you are going to go, which would you take, the one that needs to fill out a form and pay $100 or the one without a form and free?
"And Beemer - why on earth did you keep getting stopped by the police in Russia? Were you wearing some rude T-shirt or cap?"
Aucklander, I have no idea, it seemed they saw me coming from far away. Always in the daytime while walking down maindrag in St Pete's...whether I was alone or with a girl....maybe that tanned California look does not do well in russia
it was just an observation that Ukraine seems the be the only destination - or rather the popular - for most. sure it is because of the relaxed visa requirement. which actually puts Russia in one's favor if one is willing to do the work. why continue to flame out in Ukraine and to keep going to meet x ladies with backups. sure the law of averages comes into play, the more chips you put on roulette the better your chances if all you want to do is get a quick prize. why not focus on someone, assuming you can get into a real conversation with 'someone' who does not have fifty or more joes pounding on her door. that was my only point. Russia is a big place. and chances are you cannot go with the luxury of always having a backup plan. makes it a lot more challenging. and a lot more rewarding. I had no preference to either place. I just happen to forge a good relationship with a lady from Russia. and I see everyone (almost) talking about Ukraine most of the time. that's it
That's along the lines I've the point I've been trying to explain.
Someqone quoted earler that there is an X amount of females in Ukraine and, to the effect, there's plenty to go around but a female could register on those statistcs wherether she be a recently born baby or a 70 year old grandmother and, even of the ladies that fall within the eligible age group, a large proportion shall be less than attractive, they're not 90% supermodels as that other idiot laid claim to, and of the prettier ones only a small proportion shall want to leave Ukraine and, with some 80% of men considering Ukraine, it could be a statistic similar of 1 man per 10 suitable ladies.
Now compare the female population against the female population of the, combined, rest of Russia and the CIS countries and, I'd expect, Ukraine would barely register and with only perhaps one guy in five venturing elsewhere, other than Ukraine, it would surprise me if it were a statistic of 1 man per 10,000 suitable ladies.
I admit that going up and down the Kiev subway escalator from a scientific sample of the ratio of beautiful women. At least not when I observed, the older women were not there. There were men there, but they were far outnumbered by the women. OK. Maybe I saw what I wanted to see.
I did notice that the women I contacted had other suitors. I either asked them or I noticed. Even my current gf did. To minimize this, I went to the far corner of Ukraine to a small town, Kerch. Still, the only way we can know the other women in other countries is if they advertise.
An Asian lady just started work at my place of employment. She is tall for an Asian lady. I finally talked to her today. Her name is Olga. She is a third or fourth generation Korean from Uzbekistan.
Interesting history Olga just told me. She knows no Korean. Her computer has cyrillic. I now have someone to translate Russian for me.
In the 1860's, there was no border between Russia and Korea. About 250,000 Koreans settled in Vladivostok. Suspicious of Japanese spies, Stalin created the border and moved the Koreans to Uzbeksitan.
I have a novel to be written. The title may be just "GRAY". It is set in the future - way in the future. A time when all of the peoples of the world inter mix and there will be no differences in appearance of any of the people inhabiting the world. We will all be gray like the little men who travel from far away galaxies. Theirs is a world far advanced from ours - hell they have the technology to travel this far don't they? They have been around long enough that all of their people look the same either by evolution or by the mixing of races over millions of years (still evolution).
The only border will be the distance one can travel through the cosmos.
Isn't this the belief people have that incredibly (technologically) advanced aliens can be so clever that they invent interstellar travel, mastering anti-gravity, artificial gravity, anti-matter power and even overcome the laws of thermodynamics and relativity, to traverse the great distance of our universe to come to our planet...
...and crash!
And die!
So, the hyper-warp drive is working fine, but they've never heard of brakes or seat-belts.
Speaking of evolution, perhaps these aliens could be nominated for the Darwin Awards?