Online Dating and Marriage Ukrainian Style.

Joined: 14 Jun 2007 Posts: 1

Online Dating and Marriage Ukrainian Style: An Englishman’s Experience.

This was an entire new, frightening, yet exciting experience after twenty four years of marriage, four children and a painful divorce. Having tried many UK based dating sites with little real success, I decided to look further afield from these Britannic shores.
In my far flung youth I experienced the delights of an Anglo-Franco relationship but then the difference of twenty two miles of La Manche, we were talking pre euro tunnel days, was too much to sustain the relationship so it came and past as fast as an English Summer.
Thirty five years later, it was time for a new beginning and hopefully a new life and love.
There still a lot of stigma surrounding western men seeking wives and companions through internet dating sites but you would be surprised how many sites there are out there in cyberspace and how many people are seeking a new love and soul mate. There are a lot of pitfalls and scams operating out there but if you take some simple precautions and do not let your heart rule your head, you will find that person that you seek.
As I said earlier, my first foray into the world of online dating was the quest to find someone close to home, that being Ringwood, a small New Forest market town, near Bournemouth, in the UK. First introductions are fine using e mail but it soon becomes impersonal, to get a real feel of someone MSN Messenger or Yahoo Communicator is a much better option. Talking to someone in real time is much more interactive and if you are really brave you can progress to a web cam, but I only used this in the later stages.
My experiences in the UK were mixed and I only met with one person. She was very pleasant but there was no chemistry so we did not pursue the relationship. Then I had my first experience of Russian Women. I received several e mails from three different Russian women, this happen over a space of eighteen months. They were very pleasant young women but their conversations, over several months, progressed to one topic, MONEY!!!!! The stories they told became even more incredible, not unlike something from an Eastenders script!! One had nearly been married but her boyfriend fell to his death in a construction accident. Another fantasised of holding hands in our wedding ceremony, having never met me, all I had to do to prove my love was to send $500 for her air ticket!!
But the third one, who was only twenty years old, had the best story of all; she had contracted a fatal mysterious brain disorder, whilst sunbathing, which could only be cured by a very expensive surgical operation!!
THIS IS FIRST RULE OF INTERNET DATING, NEVER SEND MONEY TO ANYONE YOU HAVE NOT PERSONALLY MET.
My head ruled over my heart and I stopped writing to them all.
Did I give it all up as a bad job? Well I nearly did but then fate took a hand in my life, I decided to try just one more time but this time I would make the initial approach, I would choose who to write too.
There are many women out there, both young and older who are desperate, yes that is the correct word, to find love and a loving man. I will explain later some of the reasons for this. So I used the internet to search for someone who I could share the rest of my life with.
If you enter Russian Women into any of the major search engines you will immediately be spoilt for choice. There are literally thousands of sites to choose from. I looked at many but finally I found one that was well established and very informative about the whole subject of finding a Russian Wife.
Do not be mistaken all these women on these sites for one reason, THAT IS TO FIND A HUSBAND. If you are not prepared to take this step, if you find the one for you, then you should not be wasting their time and yours!!
You can browse through many pictures and profiles on all these sites for free, including ours, wwwjust4yu.com. They all offer free initial e mails to any of their women, all that is required is a few personal details to register. You will receive a reply from each of your initial e mails, that is of course if the women like what she reads!!
A few words of advise, always be truthful, do not lie about your age, as I did! Tell them about yourself, your family, your friends, your job, and your hobbies. What you want from life, your dreams for the future. It is also wise to send a photograph if you can because you have seen them so its only fair that they can see you, even though you think yourself not very handsome, they may think different.
I initially sent six e mails; don’t send too many at first until you get some replies otherwise it can get very confusing. To my astonishment I received six replies, three were polite refusals, basically they were looking for someone younger, but three wanted to know more about me, unbeknown to me one of these was my future wife!
Now it was decision time, if I want to correspond to these three lovely women, and make no mistake they were all drop dead gorgeous, I had to join the dating agency as a member.
Most are US based so I had to pay in Dollars, which is not a problem if you pay by card. Also it is still a good exchange rate so it was not expensive. I paid my membership fee, taken monthly so you can leave anytime you wish, and then replied to my three letters.
Now I must now explain something of the process of sending and receiving e mails from your chosen ladies. Firstly you write your e mail and send it to your agency web site. Depending on where your lady lives it is sent to a local agent who acts for the agency. This local agent recruits the ladies, photographs them, takes all their profile details BUT most importantly checks that their intentions are real and that they are not in it just to scam money from some love struck western man.
These women know how to make themselves look attractive and seductive, sometimes verging on the pornographic. Be warned East European women are very attractive and sexy; apparently it’s all down to their genes and their culture. You have been warned!!
In the Middle Ages in Western Europe being pretty could be fatal; many were burnt as witches at the behest of the Catholic Church in Rome. This denuded the gene pool of their beauty. This did not happen in Eastern Europe, especially in Russia and the Ukraine.
Well after that brief history lesson back to basics, once your e mail has been received it will be translated, unless you are lucky enough to find someone who has a good command of English. The local agent will then contact the lady concerned to tell her she has mail. Her reply which could be quick if she is keen will again have to be translated then forwarded to you at the agency website. The whole process can take as little as three days but it is usually longer.
This process is fine at first but soon you will want to increase the contact and maybe hear her voice.
I was lucky, one of the ladies I chose could speak and understand English relatively well, she also had a computer. This meant that direct contact with her was viable and in my case, desirable. So how did I do it? Send her my e mail address via the agency?
Well no, there is software that recognises e mail addresses and therefore blocks the letter, but there is always ways around such problems. Most agencies will allow you to buy the contact details of any of the ladies on their books, the fee is small but you must bear in mind that without the agency’s help you will find it hard to communicate with the lady of your choice unless you are lucky like myself or you speak her language, in my case it was Russian. Lucky for me her command of English was good so communicating most of the time was not a problem but we still had our moments.
This information is usually just a phone number and postal address as most of these ladies do not have their own computers; they just go to an internet café.
So I wrote Olena a letter and invited her to e mail me, which she did, this now took the whole thing to a new higher level.
The whole process of the initial contact to direct e mailing took a mere two months. My first contact was on 7th October 2005 and by Christmas we were talking and looking at each other via MSN Messenger. The other two Russian ladies interest seem to wane over this time, perhaps they found someone else to talk to but Olena ask me to stop writing to anyone else, this included some Pilipino’s, but that’s another story!!
So the New Year was rapidly approaching and it was time to take the plunge and meet Olena face to face, so after arranging accommodation and flights, I flew from London Gatwick to Donetsk via Kiev in the Ukraine in the depths of January.

First Contact at minus 20° C

So I took the plunge, everyone at work said I was either mad or very brave, I think it was maybe a little of both but if I didn’t go and meet Olena I would not truly know if she was the one for me. I really chose the wrong time to visit, the depths of January is not a good time for first impressions. The Ukraine in winter is a very dismal place, I can understand now how the Germans lost the last war, but I had promised to go and I wanted to keep that promise. Gatwick was green and warm when I boarded Ukrainian Airlines Flight 501 to Kiev International Airport, this was in stark contrast to what I was to find when I landed in Kiev, and it was minus 20 with a wind which sliced through clothes as if you were naked. Even the locals looked cold, it transpired latter that this was a very cold winter even by Ukrainian standards, looks like I chose the right time to get the full arctic experience.
Kiev International Airport was a big disappointment, it was no bigger than a provincial UK Airport, I think that Southampton is probably bigger, and this is the only place where international flights land in the Ukraine!!!
Kiev International was my first encounter with East European officialdom. The Ukraine has now broke away from the Russian Federation and has had its Orange Revolution which has drawn it closer to western style government but all those years of communist bloc rule are going to take a long time to get out of its system. So after queuing behind a line six feet in front of the immigration desk, I was scrutinized by a very attractive young lady in a military type uniform, looking no older than my youngest daughter of nineteen years. Fortunately they saw me as no threat to national security and eager to get their hands on my US dollars I was allowed to enter the country. I had now been travelling for 5 hrs and had another two to go before I reached my destination of the southern city of Donetsk.
Donetsk is 500 Kilometres southeast of Kiev, which is the capital of the Ukraine for all you who didn’t know, towards the Black Sea. Fortunately I had opted for the one hour flight as apposed to the 14 hour train journey. Now I learnt from my wife that she never flies internally in the Ukraine, apart from the cost, she does not trust the planes!!!!!! Well my flight was uneventful and I landed in a very dark, extremely cold and apparently deserted Donetsk Airport.
This whole experience had been totally different to the package holiday flights of the past to Parma Majorca and Feutaventra. I had come not to sunbathe and drink too much but to find myself a new wife.
After short bus ride I arrived at the terminal building, it was dark and cold but there were people there waiting for there loved ones.
It was in this setting that I first saw Olena in the flesh, having gazed into each others eyes for several months now we would be able to hold each other, perhaps even help to warm me up a little.
She was dressed in a leopard skin type coat with a large fur collar, tight trousers and knee length boots, she looked absolutely gorgeous. As I said earlier these women know how to dress and make themselves very attractive to us males. She was with Victoria, Victoria works for the agency in Donetsk who in turn are the local agents for the website I used to find Olena. This agency arrange my accommodation for me and came with Olena to the airport to introduce me to Olena and take me by taxi to the flat that I had rented for the duration of my stay in Donetsk.
Well first contact was a big hug and a kiss which warmed me to my very soul. I was stunned that Victoria had to remind me to go and retrieve my case from the luggage trolley which had arrived outside the terminal doors. So hand in hand with Olena I went into the dark winter’s night to find the taxi which was going to take us to down town Donetsk.
The next few hours were a bit of a blur and very unreal but there I was, in the Ukraine, in the back of a taxi with a beautiful young woman holding my hand and smiling like the Cheshire Cat!! After about half hours taxi drive, Donetsk is as big as Birmingham, we arrived at my home for the next ten days. First impressions were not good, I was lead through a heavy steel door into a dark and dirty stairway in what appeared to be a shabby apartment block. But I was pleasantly surprised, through the non descript apartment door, with its three locks, was a very modern, warm apartment. I even had a DVD player with Surround Sound; luckily I have brought a whole wad of DVDs with me.
The apartment I stayed in is featured on our website, www.just4yu.co.uk, so if you want a closer look just pay us a visit. Having your own apartment is the best option as it is more private than a hotel room and most hotels frown upon ladies visiting single men for obvious reasons. So I paid Victoria for the ten days, they tend to like cash in US dollars, I was bit wary about this but it seems to be the norm in Eastern Europe as credit cards are not accepted in many places yet. They are behind us on this score but you can easily get money from ATMs which are everywhere.
Victoria then left leaving us alone together for the first time, we were both nervous even though we had spoken to each other most days for the last two months, it was just like being a teenager again on their first date. I had not done this for 23yrs, I was not much good at it then, but it was strangely exciting. We kissed, held each other close and agreed to meet again the following day.
After a busy day I was exhausted but felt quietly confident that I had made the right choice in coming to the Ukraine. I found out later that I had also made a good first impression because Olena found it hard to sleep that night.
I was woken the next day by the telephone ringing; it was Olena wanting to know if she could come round to see me.
Ukrainian women are very different to their English counterparts, must be something to do with their culture. I found this very refreshing but some men might find this difficult to come to terms with. Saying that not all Ukrainian women are the same, some are only out for what they can get so that‘s why its very wise to go through an agency who vets all the women on there books, www.just4yu.co.uk does just that.
Olena’s English was good but still she would not understand or totally misunderstand what I was saying, so I had to be very patient and explain some things differently but still end up with the same conclusion.
She told me she had arranged for her mother to look after her two daughters, 9&15, so she could get to know me better and hopefully she would take me home to meet them all if she felt happy with me and my intentions. Basically she was testing me to see if all I had said over the internet was true and not just a rouse to get her into bed as apparently some men do this. Seems a bit extreme to go all the way to the Ukraine in the depths of winter just for a bit of rumpy pumpy!!!
Well it could not have taken her long for her to make up her mind about me because that night she did not go home but spent it with me at the apartment.
So after all the torment of a Divorce and all those lonely nights without someone to love and to be loved in return, I had found, what I now believe to be, the only true love of my life, Olena!!!
The Ukraine was not what I thought it would be like. I had visions of Iron Curtain Russia, only relatively recently has the Ukraine gained its independence from Mother Russia. Like any country it has its good and bad points, its good points, its public transport system is very cheap and very reliable, apart from the usual buses, trams and taxis, there is system of private licensed minibuses which have specific routes and for a few Grivnas, we are talking pennies, you can travel for miles. In fact the train journey for the two of us to Kiev, over 600km, was only £25 return.
Unfortunately prices have started to go up but it is still a bargain if you have $US, the preferred currency in the Ukraine.
I will not bore you all with the daily routine of my ten days stay; I will just say that that Olena did take me home. I met a lot of her large family. Her two daughters, the youngest now ten tells me she loves me everyday. Her natural father left her when she was very young so I am her first father as far as she is concerned. I met my prospective mother in law, who is lovely, cannot speak English (but now says a few words, a bit like my Russian), also Olena’s father, elder sister and various cousins, nieces etc.
I had another first; I had two Christmases with New Year in between, that was really strange, something to do with the Orthodox Christian Calendar. Ukrainians also seem to have a passion for mobile phones; every other shop seems to be selling them. There is money in the Ukraine but it appears to be a more distinct gap between those who have it and those that don’t. Also there is no benefit system there so if you have no money you starve. If you have money you seem to be able to buy or do almost anything, you can literally get away with murder if you have money and the right connections. Olena’s family have experienced this first hand, but that’s another story.
Apart from that there is not a lot of difference than here, except it is much colder in the winter and very much hotter in the summer than here.

Anyway you may have guessed that our relationship went from strength to strength in a very short time. We went to the British Embassy in Kiev and started the visa application for Olena to visit me in the UK. I wanted her to experience a little of my home life, meet my family before she finally made the decision to become my wife.
Visa applications are straight forward as long as you can supply all the documents requested, believe me they want to see everything!! It is very ironic how much paperwork there is but if you turn up at Dover and ask for asylum you get housed and fed paid for by the British taxpayer. A six month visitor’s visa is now around £50 but a marriage visa is £300 and if your prospective wife has children then they are £300 each as well. So you need to be sure you want to do this before you take the plunge. Once you are married then you have to pay £320 to £500 for a two year extension to the marriage visa but this time all dependants are included. Then after two years you have to prove you are still married and living together then you can apply for permanent residency, for the same price again!! Who said marrying foreign women was easy and cheap?
So you ask if it is this expensive why do it, and lots of men do this. I can only give you a personal opinion on this, after talking to many English women the chemistry was not there, but there was something about Olena. From the first sight of her on the website, meeting her and being with her just reinforced all my feelings, to make it even better Olena feels the same way about me. Maybe it was luck or fate, who knows but both our feelings are towards the fate option.
My visit to the Ukraine was over before it began; well that’s how it felt. The only thing I did not miss was the weather of -30C, but that was especially cold even for the Ukraine. I had just picked the wrong January. My flight home was uneventful and on arrival at Gatwick I just started undressing because it was so warm!!!
Being apart hit us both hard, but we were resolved to be together again very soon. Olena was given her visa in early February so nothing could stop us from seeing each other again.
I received the news by text message whilst boarding a cross channel ferry at Dover. So with the knowledge that my new found love would soon be in my arms again I set off to Calais to relieve the French of beer, wine and some of their sausages.

So before we progress to the UK experience of my now lovely wife, a few observations I have made concerning my experiences with Ukrainian women.

They always take a lot of care in how they look. Make up is a must, they feel naked without it, it will usually take awhile to apply so if you need to go out in a hurry forward planning is a must.
They tend to wear a different set of clothes indoors as opposed to outdoors, so again no quick getaways.
Shoes always come off before entering the house, its not a religious thing, just to stop dirt coming in the house. My son drives my wife mad especially when her walks in the house with his boots on.
They tend to eat a little but often, when I was in the Ukraine Olena never had much food in her house and she tended to only buy enough for a meal. Compared to my weekly visits to Sainsbury or Asda which would have fed them for months!!!! Don’t get me wrong, we do not eat a lot as a family but I like to have some food in the house. I think the main reason was money because now both Olena and the kids eat a lot more.
They are not camera shy, just look at some of the girls on our website. In fact once they see a camera they are in a seductive pose before the lens cap is off. Unlike my daughters who are very camera shy and are terrible to get pictures of.
Most of the women are drop dead gorgeous, must be something to do with their genes, are don’t they know it. They expect as a man you should treat them right, they love flowers and other signs of affection. Unfortunately Ukrainian men, on the whole, do not treat them well so hence the many websites full of ladies looking for a nice western man.
They all love family; Olena is very family orientated and spoils me all the time. Family is most important to her and many of her fellow country women. In this respect they are very different to Western women.

I am learning more all the time, why the other day when helping Olena to produce her CV I found out she started work in an arms factory as a gantry crane driver in their foundry!!! With a degree in economics to boot.