I have been reading this newsgroup sporadically for the last 2 years primarily for nostalgic reasons but have been reluctant to contribute to it. Finally I thought maybe sharing my experiences may help someone in their pursuit of happiness. Also my approach was different from most other stories in this newsgroup - an approach which most people would say is bound to fail.
My story begin in 1996 when I filed for divorce and started the process of looking for a new life-partner. I didn’t attempt looking for AW for obvious reasons; even otherwise it would have failed based on my character. I tried to advertise in American Singles and received just one email response! I placed an adv in a US based Russian newspaper and got one phone call and probably she got disappointed and never called back. Then I asked my former Ukrainian professor who introduced me to a Ukrainian girl who has been living in US for 5 years. I met with her once and she turned me down probably because I told her truthfully about all my problems in the first visit.
Those days (in 1996) the mail-order firms were mainly based on printed catalogs. I ordered the Prima Club catalog which had 500 color photo listings and costed $125 for all 500 addresses. I think I wrote to about 200 of them a standard letter with one side in English and the other side in Russian translated version. I used a demo version of a Russian translator program to translate it. Since I was impatient, I send the same letter as email delivery ($5 per email to Ukrainian postal mail) to 50 selected girls . I got quite a lot of response.
Few of them even called me- one of them being my future wife. She was 18 years old then and I was 33 years old. She called me for 2 minutes and gave her number to call back. We talked for 30 minutes. She found it strange that I was cataloging all my disadvantages like going through divorce; having a kid, etc and asking whether that is alright with her! After the phone conversation, I was so excited and wanted to visit her immediately. Since she lives in the dorm and visits her apartment once a week, I had no way of calling her again. Nevertheless I booked a flight and made only one day reservation in hotel in Kiev and her home town. The Ukrainian travel agent made arrangements for me to be picked up at airport and at hotel and to be taken to train. I asked the travel agent to call her neighbor and leave a message for her that I am coming to visit her. Later on I learned that my future wife found it had to believe I would really come and it was all a joke. I had made a list of 4 other girls who had responded whom I could meet to incase the first one fails.
I was flying from Chicago to Kiev direct flight via Ukrainian Airlines. By the way I never used that airlines again - everybody smokes even in non-smoking area! I was told that it was a direct flight but never knew that it stops over in Lviv for refueling. Since Kiev and Lviv sounds kinda similar, I somehow got the impression when the flight landed that it was Kiev and nobody was waiting for me there. To make my confusion realistic, they made me check all my luggage and hand searched them. Nobody speaks English since it is a Lviv is small town. After spending 30 minutes sweating, I located one passenger in the airport who speaks English and who explained the whole thing. Everybody had to recheck the luggage and the next stop was Kiev. There I was greeted by the translator/driver who took me to the railway station, bought me a ticket to Krivoy Rog and placed me in the appropriate compartment. It was an overnight journey to Krivoy Rog and I was in a 2 per room setup. The other Ukrainian passenger was a nice guy. I had taken with me a handheld Russian electronic translator. It was so cumbersome to use to have a conversation. Finally I resorted to using sign language and showing words from a pocket dictionary.
The problems started again when I landed in Krivoy Rog next day and there was nobody waiting for me. I had paid for a translator to pick me up but he didn’t show up. There nobody in the railway station who speaks English. I was standing there like a fool not knowing what to do. My fellow passenger seeing my plight agreed to hire a taxi for me and take me to a local hotel. As expected the receptionist in the hotel doesn’t speak English. He got me a room and helped me to make a phone call to my future wife. When I heard her voice in English it was such a relief! She said she will meet me in the lobby in one hours. This passenger even took me to my room and showed me how to use the flush in the bath-room. Please note that this passenger was traveling from Berlin to Kiev to Krivoy Rog and must be very tired. That shows the hospitality of the local people. I found this hospitality even at other times.
My future wife met me in the lobby. She was 6 feet tall, natural blonde and very pretty. By the way I am shorter than her. Also she talked fluent English since she was enrolled as a linguist student in the local college. She didn’t even have the typical Russian accent. We walked to her apartment which took about 45 minutes. I was famished since I didn’t have my breakfast yet. She offered me Cavier on bread. I have never seen or heard about Cavier before and made a stupid remark, “Don’t bother with the canned food”. She still teases me about my ignorance. As usual, I stated all my facts about my life especially my problems and disadvantages. Then I asked her as to whether she is interested in me. She responded positively. So asked her to marry me. This was 2 hours after meeting and while waiting for her parents to arrive from their countryside home. Her parents did not take me seriously when I asked them about marrying their only child! I know what most of you must be thinking - this is a stupid and immature decision.
The only gifts I had bought from US were some Hersley chocolate variety packs from Walmart. She invited me to stay at her house instead of the hotel which I gladly did. I remember the class that I taken in marital therapy long time ago when my Professor had said, “If you really want to know how you future wife will behave with you, then stay in her house and watch her behavior with her family because that is the similar way she is going to treat you.” Looking back retrospectively it is very true. I cancelled my meeting with the other girls and spend the whole one week with her. We had a great time and we practically had a feast every day. At the end of the stay, I gave her $1000 as a gift.
Since my divorce took almost over a year to complete, I visited her in Ukraine totally 5 times each for 10-14 days before we got married. Once we went to a small town by the Black sea and spend a week. We rented a house for $3 per day! She bought groceries from the local market and cooked the food for us. We had a great time. Never during all these trip, did we go to any restaurants. I had suggested once and she tried to discourage me saying it is too expensive. Also she was very disciplined about no love-making before marriage. Even though it was little frustrating then, now I realize that her same disciple keeps her faithful and sincere to me.
We got married in her town and had a small wedding with just 15 family and friends invited. It was in a hotel and there was 4 courses of meal and costed $35 per head. We went to Poland for our honeymoon where I applied for her visa to save time since even if we applied in Kiev, the papers are send to Warsaw. She got her visa in less than 3 months. Since I was impatient, I told her to skip the formalities of Ukrainian paperwork. So she took a train to Warsaw and took a flight to US practically eloping from her country. Skipping the Ukraine’s costly and time-consuming formalities means that she can’t return back to her country with Ukrainian passport because they wouldn’t let her out again! So she had to wait till she got her US citizenship which she did. I got her enrolled in BS in computer science and she completed with high honors. Within 6 months she will be completing her Masters in computer science. She has never worked so far partly because I discouraged it. She was offered a scholarship for MBA which I asked her to turn it down since we have a baby now and doing 2 masters at the same time can be stressful. She has sponsored her parents who hopes to come soon. We recently celebrated our 5 year marriage anniversary. Like any married life, we do have our small ups and downs but we try to resolve all our differences before bedtime!
In conclusion, it was a marriage after one letter, one phone call and one visit and 2 hours conversation before making decision to marry. That is for now folks.....
