Tours and Socials are a good way to meet ladies. They offer several advantages. You can meet the ladies firsthand and know their personality. Spend time with the ladies that you have interest in. Understand if a relationship with a specific lady is worth pursuing. Meeting your lady in person is required for US Immigration in order to get the lady into the United States.

Russian women sites are not all the same!!

Sites that specialize in Russian brides are not all the same. When you begin your search for a Russian bride you will probably browse through a few sites. Most sites offer a lot of the same services such as ladies' information and pictures, translation services, email forwarding, flower and gift delivery, travel assistance and fiancée visa assistance, to name a few. This is simply because these types of services are necessary to support your needs as well as the needs of the ladies you are corresponding with. Look for an agency that provides full service, meaning they can help you locate women, translate, provide tours and basically offer any service to accommodate your needs.

Some men quickly find ladies that interest them, while other men need more time because their preferences or tastes are very specific. If you get impatient, then contact the site you are working with and speak to them about your needs. Most of the good agencies will be knowledgeable, professional, kind, courteous, and most of all willing to help you. Most likely the reason they are in the business in the first place is to help people. You can also try visiting some of the message boards and communicate with other men who may have some advice and experiences to share.

Here are some things to consider when choosing the right agency:

1) Work only with agencies based in the United States unless you have strong recommendations from people you trust. There are many dishonest agencies in Russia and former Soviet Union countries and business is conducted differentle in these countries. This can lead to costly mistakes and misunderstandings.

2) Do not do business with any agency that will not provide you the woman's direct contact information, but instead insists that all correspondence goes through their system.

3) Deal only with agencies that take credit cards. This way you can always dispute the charges if you feel you have been ripped off.

4) Deal with agencies that do more than just sell addresses. Make sure an agency has translation services, flower delivery services, travel services, etc.; it is to their benefit that you get responses from the women listed on their service. You won't need their additional services (where the agencies really make their money) if nobody responds to your letters. An agency without additional services has no real reason to care whether or not you get responses and may sell outdated contact information.

Think Geographically!!

Remember that you are going to be visiting the ladies that you correspond with. You should concentrate your efforts on one specific city or area so that you do not have to travel all over Russia or go to the expense of bringing the ladies to some other city to meet you. It is important that you try to find ladies that interest you from one or two geographical areas.

Plan to meet several ladies!!

You should never plan to travel halfway round the world to meet just one lady; the cost is too great and there are several things that could happen that would cause you to be there to meet a lady who fails to show, learnin you. This is another reason for using the services of an agency. If you do travel to meet just one lady and something happens that prevents her from being there, an agency could help you meet other ladies in the city you are in.

How long will it take for a lady to respond?

It depends on the method you use to send your letter. If you send your letter by email, expect anywhere from 3 or 4 days up to a couple of weeks. If you send your letter by regular mail, expect four to eight weeks or even more depending on where you and she live.

Without saying, email is the fastest way to communicate, but it is not instantaneous like we are accustomed to. A letter sent to a Russian woman most often arrives at an internet café or an agency where the lady receives her email. She may check her email only once or twice a week, or she may have to travel a great distance to pick up the letter.

Typical email forwarding scenario: (The best way to communicate with your lady) You write your letter and send to the agency you are working with, addressed to the lady that you would like to correspond with. In most cases, the letter is forwarded to the agency's local office in the lady's city. Once the local office receives the letter, it is translated if necessary and the lady is notified by telephone (if she has a telephone) or by mail. The lady goes to the local office to pick up her letter or the letter is mailed to the lady. Once she is able to go the local office to receive her letter, she may or may not respond immediately. She may take the letter home to read it, although she may decide to respond to the letter right away. In most cases they like to take the letter home to digest everything that you wrote and respond accordingly. Once they have written their response, they will take the letter back to the local office where the letter will be translated and sent back to the US office where it will be then forwarded to you. See: http://www.special-lady.com/marriage_agencies.html

Things to take into consideration:
Very few Russian ladies have their own email or have a computer. Access to the internet is not common except at internet cafes which are expensive for them to use. Computers and internet is an expensive luxury in Russia. Some ladies who live in the more modern cities such as Moscow or St. Petersburg may have their own personal email address and semi-regular access either at work or through an Internet Cafe' or a small number have a computer at home. The fact that they may have internet access still does not overcome communication problems if you cannot communicate with her in a language understood by both, which means you still need a translator and the above typical scenario still applies. The difference is that the agency can forward the letter to her email once it's translated.

Here is a list of common reasons you may be getting low response: Your letter may not be interesting. Take a look at the letters you are sending. Are they interesting? Are they easy to understand?

If you are sending repeatedly letters to same the woman and getting no response, she is probably not interested. Try other ladies.

If you are writing letters to ladies through one agency and your response rate is low, then try another agency.

Other letter writing tips or helpful hints. Here are a few things that have worked very well with other clients and may help you. Your first letter should be informative and interesting. Write a full page that gives them a brief description about you and your family, and your general likes.

The things you should NOT DO:

Never mention your dislikes. Never have anything negative in your letters. It is a sure turnoff. Always be positive and optimistic about life.

Never write something you're not able to expand upon or deliver. Most Russian ladies will keep your letters if they want to pursue getting to know you better. They will ask about something you wrote ten letters ago so make sure you are honest. Never use slang words. Write simple clear sentences. Good interpretation is important.

Don't speak about your business accomplishments. Most ladies do not care to know all the details. It is enough for them to know you are able to support a family. What they want to understand is you and what your personality is like and what your views are about life, relationships, and family.

Don't send a photograph of you and some friends drinking or at the beach with some woman hanging on you (use common sense). Never talk about "Russian" problems. No matter how much you think you know about Russia, you will never perceive it or see it as a Russian person does.

The things you should DO!!

Be energetic and enthusiastic about life and about meeting that perfect someone to share your life with.

Be kind and courteous at all times. Be a gentleman. Russian women love to be respected.

Always write with great curiosity about her and her life and interests. Make the letter equally informative about you as you are requesting information about her. Keep things equal. If you are not a good letter writer, ask your agency to edit your letter and advise you on changes that you might make. I think they will be more than willing if you pay for their services.

If the lady has a child, then make sure to ask about her child or at least mention that you understand she has a son or daughter. Russian women want to know that you have interest in the whole "package". The family unit is usually the number one priority for a Russian woman. If the letters you send cost the lady money to receive or respond to, make sure you offer to cover the cost in advance and make sure you note that in the message that her reply is already paid for. $5 - $10 USD is a lot of money for a Russian lady to send a letter back to you, so do not put the burden on her in the initial correspondence. Unless your letter is exceptionally good you will probably not get a reply simply because she cannot afford the cost of the correspondence.

The last and most important thing is to just be yourself. Write what you feel and try to avoid the things you should NOT DO. Keep things real and in perspective. Women of all cultures want a man who is realistic. Russian women demand trust, so do not break the trust with them early on. Be honest, be yourself, and most of all, be a gentleman.

How long has the lady been posted or advertised? Does it matter?

Of all ladies listed with the agencies, only 4 or 5% will find a husband abroad. More ladies give up and remove their information out of frustration and lack of resources than actually get married. The thing to know is that some ladies have been listed for six months, a year or even more but that does not mean very much. Good services keep in communication with the ladies and will remove ladies from their list if the lady has met someone else or is not interested in meeting anyone.

Russian women do not want to just meet anyone. They want to meet someone that they have an interest in as well. Russian women value family and relationships and will wait until they find someone who has same values before they will make a commitment to a man.

Are Russian women really so beautiful and are they for real?

Yes, they are. Most reputable services accep only applications and profiles only from ladies they actually interviewed in person. If this is the case, then yes the person you are writing to is a real person. The best way to find out if she is real or not is simply by corresponding with her via email once or twice then picking up the phone and calling her. You can hire a reputable interpreter to place a three-way call for as little as $1.50 per minute, including long distance charges.

Discuss the things you have written to her about. If she is familiar with your letters to her, then feel at ease. Also ask her to so send a recent photo or two. Keep in mind that this can be expensive for her to do. If she does not have one, then more than likely the agency can take a photograph of her for you when she comes into the agency to send and receive letters.

How long should I correspond with ladies before I travel to meet them?