Here is my story...aka "World's longest post" - Russian Ukrainian Belarus Travel Music Woman Dating News

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Here is my story...aka "World's longest post"
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Posted by: zdrd

Some of you may see this post on another thread, I copied and pasted it onto it's own thread so I could share my experience with a wider audience and perhaps get some more feed back.

I must warn you all that when I start typing I cannot stop (detail oriented) so this post probably will set a new record for lenght but I hope you all will read on.

Anyway here is my story (so far), I have been corresponding with a girl (Anya....11 years my junior) who lives in Lugansk, Ukraine. I know Lugansk gets a really bad rap about all the scammers but I have been very fortunate as I found her by accident really. Never in a million years did I think I would ever go online to meet someone in the US much less someone who is 7 hours ahead of me (literally at all times). She posted one of those free profiles on Date.com and that's where I met her. I have been corresponding with her for almost 3 months now and things are just about as good as they could be (I imagine). For the 1st month or so we were really just penpals, I don't think neither of us were really sure what were doing or what to expect. So we asked each other the usuall questions..."what is your favorite movie"? color? song?.....yada, yada, yada. We exchanged emails/pictures about 3 - 4 times a week and I know it is hard for her since she works 9am - 9pm, 6 days a week. I admit that before meeting her I really did not know much about Eastern Europe, it's culture and way of life. For the first month I thought she was emailing me from home! I only found out that was not the case because I started surfing the internet trying to learn about her country and realized that most people have to go to the internet cafe or through a dating service. Yeah I felt like a real "western" Idiot. So I asked her "Anya where do you email me from"? She said "I go to the internet cafe after work". Of course me being the nostalgic type I saved every email she has sent to me, I thought "no way she emails me after work every day" so I check the time stamp on all the emails and wouldn't know it - most of them came to me between 9 and 10pm. That's when it hit me, I thought to myself "she must like me to go through all this trouble".....by the way gang, I am very nieve, I couldn't win the lottery even if you placed a winning ticket in my hand. Anyway, I thought to myself that this girl has to go through all this trouble to chat with me. Then I started thinking what the cost was to communicate with me at the IC (internet cafe). Of course I asked her...."Anya how much does the IC cost you"? She replied "5 grivnas an hour". Well I did not no what a grivna was so I did a little surfing and found out it is about $1US. To make a long story a little shorter, I did the math and realized that she was spending a hefty amount to communicate with me. OK before I go any further, I am not that nieve, I realized that I must not be the only guy she was communicating with but I was ok with that. With all the scams out there and girls falling in love with WM after 3 letters and wanting $$ for a visa and plane ticket to the US, I was also very cautious but after 6 weeks she asked me for nothing and I felt a bit guilty that she had to spend her grivnas on me (and whoever else) while I typed away to her from the comfort of my own home. So in my next email I asked her if I could help her pay for the IC but to my disbelief she just blew off the question, so I asked her again but she would not get on the topic with me. I knew then she was very special, so in the next email I said "Anya could I have you full name and address so I can send you a Christmas card because, you know, Christmas is in 24 days"..she says "no, your Christmas is in 24 days mine is in 37 days" so I thought what the hell is this girl smoking? Come to find out that Russian Orthodox goes by the "old calendar". Yep I felt like an idiot once again.....I never heard of such a thing. I thought Xmas was Xmas and everyone who celebrated did so on the 25th. So I got her full name and address because she thought I was sending her a card. (I like how the address is written backwards but it really makes more sense if you think about it). So I had her name and address and went online to westernunion.com and sent her $100 for the IC, I figured that would get her about 3 months worth of IC time but in reality I wanted her to have some extra money for the holidays even if things did not further develop betwen us. After that I emailed her and told her to stop by her nearest WU branch with her ID to pick it up.....at the end of the day she was very thankful. I told her she should get her mum and her neice and newphew a nice Xmas gift even if they have to wait the extra 13 days:-) My sweet Anya bought her mum some warm slippers (because the apt is now cold) and her niece and newphew some toys and told them it was from me.....is she a keeper or what? Well it was now about Dec. 17th and after procrastinating I fianally did mail her a Xmas card (I did not tell her). I had read that the Ukraine postal service is sometimes known as "snail mail" but no matter, better later than never (I guess never was a real possibility). So I mailed the card, backwards address and all and hoped for the best. Folks...do you think our stars are aligning.....she got the card on 1/5/04 - two days before RUDOX Xmas! She was so suprised and happy.

So what have I learned in my first 3 months? either I am the biggest sucker in the world or we are off to a fantastic start. What do ya'll think? Here is what the near future holds. I have a bacheola party to go to in Amsterdam in March for 3 days then I was thinking of flying from Amsterdam to Kiev, Borispol - transfer to the local airport in kiev and catch a flight to Lugansk and spend a couple weeks with her. She is all for it.

Now the challenges I/we face down the road.

1) I am not a US citizen: I have lived here for the last 21 years and procrastinated on filing for citizenship (yeah I'm an idiot). This is what is takes to get me to file. All is not lost however, the process takes about a year now so I should be a citizen by early 2005.

2) Remember I told you I was not a citizen? Well my great grandparents immigrated from Portugal to Trindad way back when and I lived there for the first 10 years of my life. These factors of climate and Portuguese/Trinidadian blood have given me nice olive complextion (yeah I'm a stud....as long I think so). However travelling to Ukraine with a nice olive complextion makes me stick out of the crowd like a sore thumb. Not only will I stick out like a sore thumb but I have to go through Ukrainian customs 4 times (2 airports on each leg). I know they are going to give me the anal probe or something. At least if I was staying in Kiev I would only need to go to the airport twice and I would also be in a metropolitan area. For all I know, Anya lives out on a chicken farm where the locals have never seen a studly olive guy before. Then there is the question of family acceptance. So what do ya'll think?

Hey Ulughbek....after all this if I am lucky and everything falls in place maybe we can have a double wedding in the summer of 2004? What do you think?

My apologies to those that felt this post was a little long and boring. I will say that I am happy you all know my story (so far) as it is tough to go through this alone:-)

Cheers!
~D

Posted by: jeff101d

zdrd,
I wish you good luck in you're travels.
Amsterdam to Kiev is a relatively short painless flight. I've done it a few times on KLM (book a flight to Kiev and make a few day stopover in AMS kinda 2 for 1 with KLM) . Maybe you can ask Anya to meet you at Borisopol. It's a looong way to Kiev and can be veeery expensive for foreigners like any int'l airport with taxi scammers (they tried that on me even at JFK, and I grew up here). If she's for real, she'll be happy to meet you there. A 6 hr train ride is not unusual in that part of the world. Stay a day or 2 in Kiev then maybe you both can take the train back to Lugansk. It's an experience to remember but by the sounds of it (nice olive complexion) you'll probably be mistaken for Chechen which definately involves anal probing whereever you'll go. Lastly, forgive me for not being much of a romantic but wouldn't it be more practical to line up a few "Anya's" to meet there and spend some time with each. 8,000 miles seems like a long way to go for a date with someone you've never met. And more than once I 've gotten to a city and the woman didn't show for some reason or another. Luckily I had a plan b,c,d... otherwise Lugansk or even Kiev on vacation will be awfully boring alone.

Posted by: Jutman

Hi

Russia has some people with dark skin, from causasus region. The only problem is that in this region, is where Chechnya is located. So people with dark skin is stopped everywhere and must show passport. (They are afraid of terrorism). But thats is all you have to worry about, get stopped everywhere by the police and in airport the are going to open your luggage.

However you are going to Ukraine. I have no knowledge of this here.

You say you would be different because of your skin colour. Most people from the west would be different. Especially americans are easily to spot.

Secondly many russian cities with a university has students from africa and so on. Simple because its low tuition, so they are not stranger to people who are not white as chalk. I assume it will be the same in Ukraine.

I would recomment to go. Its very important to see how she lives.

Good luck

Posted by: andrei

Hmmm... A darkskinned man is going to visit a farm in Ukraine....

Prepare to feel yourself like a zoo animal

I'm not trying to scare you, but you know, one of the black men on this forum (Searcher, exactly) is going to visit my city that has more than 1,000,000 citizens, and Im still afraid that one day some drunken bastard will point a finger at him screaming "Look, a real Negro!" or "Why don't ya bust a rap, brotha!!". You that in rural area these things are even more frequent. So stay strong dude. It's not because they dont like blacks its because they've never seen any.

Posted by: joseph

hmmm.... sounds almost like utah!

Posted by: searcher

Quote:

Originally posted by joseph
hmmm.... sounds almost like utah!

LOL

I think it has changed some but one time I was passing through Utah in the 80's and stopped in a diner there to get something to eat and they became so nervous..... like we were from space or something!

My mother, who was waiting in the car, even noticed from outside.