... in response to Your vote for agencies..., posted by jamesss on Oct 25, 2004I have used and liked many agencies. Timing is extremely important. Personnel change, they form new agencies and dilute the talent in particular cities / regions.
I have used the full service agencies and or tour groups:
A Foreign Affair - 1 tour in 1999 to St. Petersburg
Anastasia (paid for socials Kiev 2001)
BeHappy2day (Tver)- worked with them to locate current fiance scheduled to marry later this month (everything is working out great - she has been here for 50 days or so with me on fiance visa). Since last October I have been to Tver and at least visited their office three times and have been to Russia four times since I met her.
Lifetimepartners (Tver) - Met a former girl I processed a fiance visa through them in late 2000 and visited her again and worked with them early 2001.
Mordinson (Kharkov) - went through them late 2001.
Love for Life (Sochi) - One time, excellent service, excellent people - best time I ever had looking for a prospective wife, but they are out of business. Hard to compete in that city and a hard location to get to.
Firstdream - worked with Jack on a letter writing campaign / visit girls in Moscow and St. Petersburg trip I put together with him. I worked with Firstdream people in each city - had one St. Petersburg girl I ended up seeing again at a later date in Sochi. I found a good girl but she was one I just could not marry after spending more time with her. Everything connected with Jack was excellent and his prices are relatively low. With him you pay for what services you want. He is best for a guy with some experience, who knows what services he needs and wants, who agrees with his approach and who is not lazy.
For me every experience was great, though in hindsight the worst ones for achieving my goals were (do not recommend):
1. Anastasia - joke of socials Kiev 2001 in late July / early August - seems like they just invited girls off the street.
2. Mordinson - not the kind of customer service US guys are accustomed to. They tried their best but they just do not get it. They may be in cahoots with the girls do just show you a good time without commitment - I can not be sure, but that was my experience ie. poor.
3. AFA - nice people, overpriced, ok for a guy who is afraid and has never been over. However, the socials seemed to me to be planned, though with a slim to none chance of really being able to meet my life parter at one of their events. Definitely better than Anastasia, but again there are much better approaches to showing up for their socials or really burning money and going on one of their full service packages.
The best experiences for me were with Firstdream, Lifetimepartners and Behappy2day.
If I had known what I know now, and experienced what I have experienced I would have to recommend a guy contact two people:
1. Jack Bragg
2. Marc Dayton
They offer different programs and slightly different approaches, but I trust both of them and know they sincerely want to hook guys up. Do you want to go to Ukraine or Russia? Jack is THE man for Ukraine, and he offers excellent advice and works with excellent people in Russia as well. Although I have not been on his Ukraine tours, I am sure they are the best out there. His approach maximizes your chance of success. If you want to go to small cities in Russia, with what I believe is the best full service package that exists, Marc has a foothold in a new city called Ivanovo (I personally have not been there) as well as Golden Ring Brides / Lifetimepartners in Tver. Lifetimepartners has an excellent Canadian guy named Richard living there who directly works with and helps a guy (if the guy is smart enough to listen to him) find an excellent girl for him. I liked the full service agency approach best because I received highly personalized service and attention.
Now, you ask - why am I reluctant to say anything about the company which helped me find my girl? I think Behappy2day could be an option for you. I only received the best service from them, and their owner does live in Tver and oversees their operations. I do not like that they sponsor tours with Anastasia. Richard used to work with Behappy and now he works for Lifetimepartners in Tver. I think Lifetimepartners gives you the ability to search with a full service agency in two cities - plus a North American on the ground can definitely not hurt.
There is a third agency in Tver called Tverromance - which has many of the former Lifetimepartners interpreters which have formed their own agency. They too could be right - though I have no personal experience with them.
How are things in Tver right now? I do not know for sure - though I know there are alot of pretty women there (though not necessarily in the agencies). Moscow seems to be expanding its influence and recruitment of girls for Westerners is split three ways or so. Still, I recommend at least looking at the websites for all three agencies.
I have had bad luck with letter writing and have had my best success with just looking at the websites, writing general introduction letters to the women, seeing if they are interested and just going over when I find enough that are interested in me that fit my description of what I have been looking for. I like the one on one attention. Timing was never right for me - so I never was able to go with Jack on one of his tours. Ukraine makes alot of sense because you can cover alot of ground fairly quickly. The Tver full service agencies (Lifetimepartners and Behappy2day) were my best over all experiences. I just liked to go to one location for 10 days to two weeks and at least make a vacation out of it. One caveat - if you really want to vacation go to vacation spots in the Ukraine or Russia when the weather is nice.
I did not mean to ramble - but my answer is not easy. Alot depends on how lazy you are and how much you want to spend at a time / where and when you want to go.
Although I have not used them for anything other than buying addresses, you should look into the Angelica network as well.
Best of luck.
