You may wonder how a man such as my self came to be where I am today. How did I come to marry a Russian woman, advise and council other men seeking to do the same, start my own tour and introduction service specializing in Russian ladies, appear on national television as an expert on the subject and write a book such as this one? Sometimes I ask myself the same question. If you had told me ten or fifteen years ago that this is where I would be at the end of that time, I would have laughed and bought you another round. I spent most of my twenties and early thirties partying with women that weren’t anymore ready for relationships than I was. It would be an understatement of massive proportions to say that in my younger days I was a “jerk” to the women in my life and that the reason for the failure of most of my relationships was, “yours truly.” Luckily, the years made me aware of my shortcomings in relationships and the words of an old friend who said, “There is more to being a man than just being right,” began to make sense to me. That combined with the decision that I wanted something more out of life and relationships prompted me to begin considering having a more serious relationship with a woman.
I came to this much the same way that most probably do. I had reached a point in my life where I had decided that I would like to find a wife with whom I could spend the rest of my life. Now, even though I had a new perspective on dating and relationships, I still had no real plan for how I was going to find the woman that I was looking for and what’s more, no real concern that I needed one. I continued to meet women the way that I always had, at clubs, church, through friends, at work etc. I wasn’t really choosing women that it made “sense” for me to date. Therefore I made one bad choice after another and went through one failed relationship after another. I was sitting back letting ball come to me instead of charging it, seeking it out and managing it.
I felt like my life had fallen into a “rut” from a love and romance perspective. It seemed that I was dating the same woman over and over again. It was the same song different verse. Now admittedly, much of this was my own fault. I kept allowing myself to develop feelings for women that were really not right for me and tried to “mold” them into the woman I was looking for. And while I was doing that, the women I was dating were doing the same to me! I didn’t proactively seek out the type of woman that I wanted and needed so I was doomed to keep settling for women that didn’t know themselves or what they wanted out of life or that exhibited behavior that was unacceptable to me in the long run.
Even though I knew who I was and what I wanted out of life and a life partner, I didn’t make a conscious choice to seek out the type of woman that was right for me, so what I ended up with was a lack of options, not a legitimate choice. Yet I kept rationalizing that I could make these relationships work if I did everything that I could do on my end. I kept telling myself that “as long as I was attracted to her,” I could do the work for both of us until she recognized the need for change and “got with the program.” Unfortunately, after a certain age, people don’t typically change a great deal. If a person doesn’t feel that certain things are important and that certain behavior is unacceptable, it is generally a mute point to try and change them. Also, the truth of the matter is that if someone doesn’t know who they are and what makes them happy, then how can they possibly presume to make someone else happy. When someone doesn’t really know who they are and what they are looking for they are in a constant state of restlessness, always open to suggestion and the promise of something seemingly better than their current state.
Admitting this to myself, I decided to take a more proactive approach to finding the type of woman that I was looking for. The first thing I did was to physically write down what kind of woman that I would like to find. Then I began to try and identify methods that would help me find such a woman. I tried everything that I could think of from singles groups and church singles groups to real dating agencies, to the Internet. Singles nights were awful. I kept meeting alcoholic women that had no soul. Church singles groups kept trying to fix me up with women that I had no physical attraction to and the dating agencies that I visited, even the biggest that advertise so heavily, were an absolute joke. There selection was minimal at best and the women that I did meet were basket cases with more baggage than the “Titanic.” It was then that I turned to the Internet. Ah hah, the Internet!
I thought, Wow! This is great. I can go on-line, choose the people that I am attracted to based on their picture and then see if we are compatible based on their profile. We can write for a while to get a feel for one another and then we can actually meet. What a great concept! I went on more than 30 dates with women that I had met through various Internet sources. I am going to make a very long story short. It was a complete disaster! I was even worse off with this selection of women than I was meeting them by chance. I don’t care how many “steps of compatibility” a site has; the truth is in the meeting. I met women who had put pictures that were 5+ years old on the site, lied about smoking, having children, marital status, juvenile delinquents, psycho ex-husbands, you name it, etc. I even met one that thought she was a vampire. I sh_t you not! She had a small coffin for a coffee table! You make think that I am exaggerating, but I assure you that this is all true. You can ask my best friend, Susan. She actually met this woman! Anyway, it suffices to say that I was discouraged to say the least.
Luckily, one of the sites on which I had placed my profile had an international side. I was not aware of this, but one day I received a letter from a lady that said she was from Moldova. Moldova, I thought, where the heck is that? After doing some research I found that this was one of the Republics of the former Soviet Union. I was intrigued and so I began to correspond with her. Soon after, I received other letters from other ladies all over the former Soviet Union. I wrote to several and I liked what they had to say. Each mentioned deep desires to find a “soul mate” for marriage and traditional values regarding the roles of men and women within society and the family unit. This sounded great to me so I began to look into it further.
Even back then, I didn’t really take any of this at “face value,” as I didn’t have any real way of knowing if all of this was on the level, so I wasn’t about to jump on an airplane to try and meet one of these women with whom I had been corresponding through a completely unregulated site, but I was extremely intrigued. I went to the Internet and began researching the subject. I read article after article about the merits of Russian women and their desire to find a husband with whom they could share their life. I found sites that specialized in Russian Bride profiles and gave the promise of “in-person” meetings and socials with hundreds of Russian ladies. Still, I regarded all of this with cautious optimism. I didn’t completely believe that all of the gorgeous ladies on these site that were writing to me were actually looking for foreign husbands, as I had noticed some inconsistencies and duplications in the correspondence from site to site, but I wanted to believe it and I wanted to find out for sure. I decided that since many of the larger Russian Bride sites had many of the same women listed, the best way to go about this was to choose the “American Owned” site that appeared to be the most legitimate, for safety reasons and to travel there with that company. I figured the worst that could happen was that I would have a very interesting vacation. What I found was interesting all right.
First, I had chosen one of the larger and more legitimate looking sites out there. I am sure that you have run across it. The first sign that I had that this might be somewhat less than advertised was that I basically went from my hometown of Houston to Europe before anyone from the Host Company introduced themselves to me. I had no idea who he was or what I was supposed to do once I got to Ukraine. Luckily, the guy sitting next to me on the plane was on the same tour, so we were in the same boat together. Once we arrive in Ukraine we began to figure out who the group leader was and the other American men that were in our group. Once we got through customs, there was an attractive girl with a sign of the company name. I stopped and another girl asked me my name. She checked my name and told me to stand by another girl who was also nearby. After all came through I realized that there were about 40 guys in my group. We boarded a large bus and went to our hotel.
When we arrived at the hotel there was mass confusion. No one knew what to do except for the people at the front of our long line of men. No one was telling anyone anything so we basically just stood there like idiots until we got to the front of the line. There we were assigned our room and told to come to dinner downstairs at a designated time.
Once I got to my room I realized that it didn’t look or smell anything like the room I had viewed on the website, but I expected as much and I was a boy scout, so I was prepared. That evening we had dinner and met all of the girls who worked for the agency. They told us how to prepare for the next day’s social, but as you will read in subsequent chapters, the advice that they gave us and the organization of the socials left something to be desired. It suffices to say that during that first tour I learned that it was easier said that done to meet any of the ladies that I had written to and that making it through a social unscathed was also easier said than done. I had written to many ladies, but I only got to meet a few of them. Also, of those that I did meet, as you will read in later chapters, not all knew about my correspondence or me. Some were even running little enterprises based on correspondence.
I was disappointed in the trip on a whole, as it pertained to finding a future wife. Despite all that I had been told about inviting women to socials and the help of hospitality suites, the company in question fell far short of it’s claims. That is not to say that I did not have a great time and meet some beautiful ladies because I did. I am only saying that if the company in question had been up front about how things really worked, more organized in their efforts and cognizant of the holes, shortcomings and inconsistencies of their system, that things would have been much better. If nothing else on this trip, I learned that it was just plain difficult to meet the women with which you had been corresponding and that not all correspondence was real.
With this new perspective I returned home and began to plan for my next trip. Despite what I had learned about that particular company, correspondence and the social scene, I still felt that, based on the honest and sincere ladies that I did meet, that there was something to this whole “Russian Bride” thing. I decided that the problem was the company that I had chosen the first time and not the industry as a whole. I chose another company this time, again one of the larger and more popular ones, with which to travel. This time however I was much more careful to try and analyze my letters and I made sure to get more information about each lady that I really wanted to meet and not leave it up to the company in question. I also took all of my correspondence with me. I figured that at least I knew what I was up against this time.
On this trip the socials and hospitality suite were much worse and unorganized than on the first. Compared to this group, the first group had their act together. I thought I was really sunk until I met a really attractive lady at the second social named “Ira.” She didn’t speak enough English for me to understand what she was getting at, but she was persistent. She kept coming up to me and trying to get me alone so that she could speak with me through her interpreter friend. I thought that she was just someone that wanted to meet me, but after I found out what she was trying to tell me, I learned that she worked for a local marriage agency in Kherson. We were in Odessa at the time, but she explained to me that at the next social, which was to be held in Kherson, there were four ladies that wanted to meet with me. I didn’t yet understand how she knew this or of me for that matter, but then she explained further. She held up letters that I had written to the four ladies in question. I wondered how the heck she got hold of these. She then went on to explain that she worked for a local agency in Kherson and that they had actually translated my letters to these ladies and that these ladies were actually members of her agency, not the large site. I still didn’t completely understand, but I listened intently as she explained to me the difference in what she and her agency did, versus the large company and site on which I had found these ladies. She explained, as I will in later chapters, that her agency was the real marriage agency and the site on which I had found the ladies was only a website which purchases pictures and profiles from agencies all over the former Soviet Union. She also explained that this is why men, myself included, have so much difficulty meeting the women with whom they have corresponded. She explained how some agencies are honest and some are not, which in great part determines whether or not your correspondence will be real and a subsequent meeting possible.
I had struck gold! Although I didn’t completely understand it at the time, things became more and more clear to me as my trip progressed. I would later come to understand that Ira and her staff, because they translated letters for and provided interpreters for most of the socials for the large tour companies, she had the inside “skinny” on this whole industry from one end to the other. I stayed in Kherson after all of the men in my group returned to Odessa and I was able to meet all four of the women in the profiles that Ira had shown me without issue. She explained to me that she and the staff of her agency knew each of these ladies personally so that arranging meetings with them was no problem. She also encouraged me to look through their catalogs of ladies and choose more in whom I was interested. I did so and was able to meet all that I had chosen. That was certainly a better “kill rate” so to speak, than I had experienced with the large tour company correspondence and socials. It was at this point that I began to put my trust in these folks, as they had earned it and allowed them to assist me in my search.
I met many lovely ladies through this agency and none were marred with the confusion and uncertainty that had been created by correspondence and socials. Although they were all great, I kept leaning toward a lady that I had met at the Kherson social. Against their recommendation, I decided that she would be the lady that I would spend the rest of my time with this trip. This decision would later come back to haunt me. I spent the rest of my time with this lady and then returned with her to Odessa on the second to the last day of the tour. Other men that I had made friends with from my tour group asked me where I had been. I explained to them about the “Mecca” of lovelies that I had found in Kherson and the more efficient method that I had discovered at the local agency there. All were envious, as they had experienced the same difficulties that I had with correspondence and socials. As with the first tour, I kept up with most of the men on this second tour via email once we returned home. This would become more important as my business developed.
When it was time to go back to Ukraine and spend time with the lady I had met at the Kherson social, I went by myself this time. I reserved the help of Ira and her interpreter “Sveta” before returning to Kherson. When I arrived there it was soon apparent that the lady whom I had chosen was hiding something. As I explain in later chapters, we finally deduced that she had lied about her age among other things and that she was not the right lady for me. Ira then went to work setting up new meetings for me. She set up meetings not only with ladies from her agency, but also with another Kherson area agency. Again, the ladies that I met through these agencies were wonderful, engaging and attractive. I met several that I wanted to come back and visit.
Several months later when I did come back, in addition to supplementary meetings with ladies from my previous trip, I met the lady (whose picture is on the cover of this book) that would eventually become my wife. With the help of Sveta and Ira, I had learned how to safely and efficiently meet honest and sincere ladies from real local agencies. They had even shown me how to take a lady from sites on the web, locate their real local marriage agency, contact and determine the legitimacy of that agency and arrange chaperoned meetings with these ladies. Once I had surrendered to their way of thinking and choosing ladies, I was much more successful.
When I returned home I had four lovely, legitimate ladies from which to choose. The cream rose to the top and my next trip was spent with my lovely Nina. During my search I had made a mental note that the agency for which Ira and Sveta worked, had no website. The only way that they were able to attract men to their agency was to “Shanghai” them from the socials of the larger tour companies or by referrals. Since I was so impressed with the level of their service and the knowledge that they had given me, not to mention the fact that they helped me find my wife, I decided that I wanted to help their agency in any way that I could. I had some intermediate web skills so I decided to build them a website featuring their ladies. I figured that if someone called me that I would tell them about my positive experience and refer them to my Ukrainian friends’ agency. Little did I know what can of worms I was opening up.
When the site was completed and launched I began to receive calls from men whom I had met on previous trips that had heard about my site and experiences. I also began to email all of the men that I had met on both tours to let them know what I had experienced. I was not surprised to learn that of the 70+ men that I contacted only a few (4), had actually managed to find what they were looking for via the large social tours. I arranged tours for several of these men. It was then that I realized the value of the service that my Ukrainian friends and I could provide. I began to advertise and write about my experiences on-line, as well as optimize my site for the search engines. The rest, as they say, is history.
Since then, my site has been the source for several magazine articles and one nationally televised feature for a serial news magazine. We are now recognized as one of the legitimate sources for information regarding Russian Brides and the Russian Bride industry. I have spoken with thousands of men over the last couple of years that have requested information or relayed their experiences to me. My company has taken many clients to the former Soviet Union and taught them the safe and efficient way to search for a Russian Bride.
So there you have it. That’s how it happened. I hope that my story has given you some insight as to who I am and how I got into this crazy, wonderful business. I am truly proud of my work and the fact that my wife and I are helping to provide men and women needed information about this whole process. Oh, and by the way, it doesn’t suck to be married to a wonderful Russian woman like Nina, who as you will read, is everything that I have every hoped for in a woman. We are truly blessed to have found each other and to be able to help men and women that desire a lifetime partner to be able to find one safely and efficiently, without some of the hardships and deceptions that we experienced along our way to finding one another. The rest of this e-book will give you some idea about what you are getting yourself into if you are thinking about the pursuit of a Russian Bride. Good luck and God Bless You.
-Christopher Bianco- |
