... in response to For Deckard, posted by terry on Feb 5, 2002Terry,
Jack is correct about Olga and Eugene.
Even from the very beginning, they were very responsive to my questions (of which I had many), and they never seemed to tire of answering them.
On one occasion (fairly early in my writing to Luda), I wanted to give Luda a nice gift for her birthday, but what I wanted to give was not offered in her service page. Olga basically took pictures of three different kinds of white blouses and sent them to me. After I chose the one I wanted and sent her the money for it, Olga went out and bought it for me. She waited until the day of Luda's birthday to buy flowers (for maximum freshness). It so happened that Luda was to come into her club to get my letter that day, but if she hadn't, Olga and Eugene would have delivered the flowers and gift for me. Luda came in, received the blouse (which was in a beautiful gift box) and flowers. After Luda received my letter there and posed for some photographs taken by Olga, Eugene took Luda home in his car (an incredibly nice gesture). Soon afterwards, Olga then sent me pictures that I had paid her to take for me of Luda. Not only did she take a close up picture of the flowers and gift that I was giving to Luda (so that I would feel more satisfied knowing exactly what Luda was receiving), but she sent me extra pictures of Luda that I did not pay for, that she had taken anyways.
Throughout the many photo sessions that I had Luda and Olga go through (which included traveling to a couple of scenic areas not too far from the club), Olga let Luda keep many of the pictures taken of her on a floppy diskette, and Luda would surprise me with "bonus" pictures of her every now and then.
There are numerous other examples of their kindness even before I arrived, but I won't go into them unless you ask me more questions that bring them to mind.
I want to say though, that when I arrived, I used their computers from time to time, and they never charged me at all for using them. Olga helped me to find the right person who worked at their club to save my pictures from my digital camera, to a computer, and then burn them to CDrom. This was a "lifesaver", and would allow me to take over 1500 pictures while I was there.
Another thing, while Luda and I had to be apart for 5 days when she went to central Ukraine with most of her family, I stayed with her mother. It was during the time that Luda was away that I knew I wanted to ask Luda to marry me soon after her return. I wanted to give her mother advance warning and "ask" permission for this. This was a bit steep to communicate to her mother, as her mother speaks only a few words of English, and I only spoke a tiny bit of Russian. Sure I could have gotten the point accross, but I wanted to do it delicately. So, I asked Olga and Eugene to meet me at a cafe with Luda's mother, and Olga and Eugene translated to Luda's mother everything I said. Originally, only Olga was going to come, but I asked Eugene to come as well, as I felt the translation would be smoother, and it was. I felt Olga and Eugene were quite kind to take time out of their day to accept my request, and they never asked for any money from me.
On my last day in Simferopol, Olga and Eugene even came to Luda's home to say goodbye to me, and handed me a gift to take to my mother.
I hope this answers your question about how my interactions with them went.
Peace,
-Deckard
