When I was reading some of the recent postings on the different sites where men could meet FSUW, I reflected on my experience and was thinking, did I really visit all those sites? Anyways, I thought I would write a few words about the sites I used as it might just help someone sort things out.

So onto the reviews...

Big Pay-per-letter Sites:

Aweb – Yes, I have used this site and yes I have spent too much money on it (I never have said I was smart ), I could have really used a nice kick in the buttock early in my search as it would have saved a few coins that could have been spent elsewhere. Anyways, we all know their marketing is one of attractive women with nice and often suggestive photos and I am a man so what can I say other than it was effective . When I was active on the site, it was before the video chat craze, so I only shifted through the many spam e-mails. A couple of ladies I did chat with and even called a few to see about getting direct contact information, would you be surprised that one did not even know who I was (granted, I suspected this as the Aweb folks had a hard time getting hold of her). In the end, I never met anyone from this site as I would rate it poor based on the fact that you are never sure who you are communicating with, the price point is high as you paid for both letters read and received, and you are flooded by spam messages. The one positive was that you had a chance to contact that lady directly for about $40 which is the cost of a translated three way call (10 minutes). Now if you want to look at a lot of young attractive women, you will not be disappointed, but don't go in thinking it's a good option if you are serious about meeting someone.

Global Ladies – Was the first pay-per-letter site I used way back in lack 2006. Very similar to Aweb, in that you have lots of attractive ladies to choose from, but very little is written about them in their profiles. I actually stepped outside of my comfort zone to chat with a lady that was a less educated and accomplished than I'm used to communicating with in the FSU (she was in her 30's) and was making arrangements to meet her, but I received the sick grandmother excuse . Anyways, I found a lot of overlap in the profiles with Aweb, so pick your poison between the two or maybe just choose to live another day.

HRB – This one I only experimented with recently and for entertainment value (when it was being pushed by members of another forum), anyways it's worth taking a look at just because it's that bad, but not if you are really serious about meeting someone. First, you are hit with a tidal wave of spam e-mails (not to mention chat requests) from very attractive and much too young ladies telling you that you are the one for them (many commented that I had a nice profile, but missed my comment in the profile that if they wanted a response they would need to answer a basic question, I guess my pictures were just too good that they missed the words ). Anyways, I was curious so I wrote a wide selection of ladies from the too young, the maybe serious, to the obvious pro daters with the few credits I was allotted. With the too young, I noticed a few were on free dating sties with expected age differences which had upward bounds about 15 years short of my age (but on HRB they wanted to speak with me, but did not respond when I said hello on the free site, again it must have been the pictures). I also tried video chat briefly which they push heavily and found that the ladies responded at such a slow rate that it was close to useless. Anyways, the site had a few positives as you do not pay to open letters (at least in the first month), they allowed 3800 characters per letter which which might be a negative as it's really not that many if you are a little long worded, and they did have ladies online that would answer your question about the site (I asked what you would need to do to get direct contact information and was told you could request it after purchasing 1,000 credits which happens to cost $400 ). Oh, for humor, take a close look and the letters they post online about successful relationships as you'll notice that many of them are written by an agency and not the person (watch the video of the man who gives a testimonial after marrying a lady, who could not speak any English, on his first visit as he was happy that he could find someone who would fall in love with him through letters. I do wish him a lot of luck as he'll need it). Oh, the one obvious pro-dater did write a nice letter and answered honestly when I asked what she needs to have in a man as her response was “as man who likes giving a lot of presents”.

Overall, if you are new to the game then skip the pay-per-letter sites as I feel there are a lot better options with a much better chance of finding someone who is serious.

RussianLadies – OK, this site no longer exists. Thinking back to that time I was really green , fascinated with the process, and little afraid of being ripped off. Anyways, I do not remember the site being too bad as you paid a monthly fee and where in direct contact with ladies. I communicated with a few nice ladies, almost went to see one, but in the end had no contacts. A few years back the site was taken over by Club10 and has disappeared. Too bad as I would have recommended it.

Elenas Models – This is a site I would recommend to anyone starting out and it's the site where I found the contact information for most of the ladies I met on my different trips. I found the women to be more realistic in that you would not be flooded with letter, the profiles and pictures were more normal (granted there are plenty of exceptions), and the ladies are real and usually had a certain level of English skills. In many ways the site is very similar to what you would expect with domestic sites like Match.com, with the exception you are meeting ladies who live in another country.

eHarmony – You might be saying that's not an FSUW site, but if you open up your search radius to the entire world then you'll find more than a few FSUW in the FSU and resettled elsewhere in the world. But, these numbers are few compared to elsewhere like Brazil or the Philippines with the majority of matches I received coming from Australia, England, and the USA. Oh, if you have your search open to your own country, you just might find a good fit in your own country which does make things a whole lot easier.

Overall, you have a big advantage with these sites as the women seem to be serious about finding someone and you do not need to pay for direct contact information. The one negative that many mention about EM (which I had good success on) was the fact that the women get a lot of attention, but then if they do end up with you, you'll know that it's not because they lacked other choices.

I only used singles.ru and it was late in the game, like when I was totally burned out with the whole FSU adventure. Still, the site has so many ladies that it's easy to regain the candy store mentality that I think most of us have when in this adventure.

Now the site was not really free as I did pay $20 for the advanced search option which really helps in narrowing down your choices. Anyways, I did find my special FSUW on the site, maybe was not not instant love, but in 18 months of communication and seven trips (totaling over 4 months of face time) we both have fallen in love.

So I might be biased, but if I could not talk someone out of the FSUW adventure, then I would recommend them to search here first.

I have not met anyone from an agency, but I did correspond a little with a few ladies from them. I found the process to be a little clunky, but I know of a few people where this route worked for them.

A Volga Girl: I used it before it became famous from the National Geographic special. Anyways, it had a fairly small database, but struck me as being professional. It was not long after I had put my profile up on the site that the owner called me to validate who I was ( I thought a nice touch as it's good for the women). Also, they had a really helpful and nice lady named Helen running the office, not sure if she's still there, but I had no complaints about their service. I ended up talking to a few ladies outside of the site, but nothing existed to get me on the plane.

With Love from Voronezh: I talked to one lady from this site and did not stick around too long as I had a lady I met on Elenas Models that had me getting on the plane. What I found interesting was that I Googled the owners email which let to his posting on a car site, so I asked him about his car (seemed like he was a little freaked out by it). Anyways, the owner would had commentary in the letters that I was sending back and fourth with the one lady which was more than a little strange, but I liked it as it put a human contact in the translation. I did a search to see if this site even existed any more and did not find it...

Kherson Girls: I put a profile up on this site and did some searches, but never paid for any letters to be translated. It seems like a few people on the forums have met their wife on the site and I liked the fact that the site owner always made himself available on the forums to answer questions about his agency.

Ma Dam Marriage Agency: I have never used this site, but I know of one man locally who has found a really nice lady with the firm. He seems to speak highly of the agency and even though he's not communicating with the lady outside of the agency, he says the owner still gives him and his girlfriend a lot of positive information.

Overall, not sure what the future of the marriage agency business will be, but I think if one is persistent, then you can find a nice lady in the FSU without the help of an agency. But, there is definitely something old school about using an agency.

OK, that's about all I can say about the different sites I used...

That was a really nice summary and I think can help people a lot. It only took $ 100.00 worth of credits at Global Ladies to totally turn me off the pay by letter format. When I did my tours through European Connections (the owners of Global Ladies) one of the other guys on the tour had been spending $ 800.00 a month writing gals from G.L. and had nothing to show for it.

There isn't anything I would disagree with in your post and will second your good coments about Elena's which is where I met my wife.

I do think a few more decent agencies are Cindy Agency in Ukraine and Russian Pearls in Barnaul RU (my wife was a member there but I met her through Elena's).

I can personally vouch for Elena's models and Khersongirls.

Ladagirl used to be good, but there are too much rumours it has been sold to a big agency now.

Methinks a site is as good as the lady you are looking for..

Veta found me at Luckylovers.net..

I'd NEVER, EVER use a pay by letter ( mug's game.. find a lady that speaks some English )



Edit: I think EM must 'suck' as apparently Elena tells her 'ladies' that most men on her site are 'shy '

Turbo,

I think I'm not so untypical of many men who get into this search, it happened because I was in the candy store of touched up pictures. EM was one of the first sites I was on (I still found my way to the pay-per-letter sites though) as I first ran into the FSUW while on match.com where I would get scam letters which had me thinking, can this really be real, which lead me to that site as Elena does have a page talking about scams. Still, I was spreading my bets (could we say I had FSUW fever which is never a good thing for the somewhat uninformed as I was at the time) and spending money with the pay-per-letter sites as I equate using credits to playing a slot machine as it's easy to loose track of how much you spent (I'm sure I spent over $1,000 which I just chalked up to entertainment expenses as it did not pinch the wallet any, but for those with a tight budget, I can see how one can easily put themselves in the hole).

Moby,

I would rewrite that to say, "The quality of the site improves with your ability to find the lady you are looking for one it".

I probably should have said.. having tried many..many more than once..

"A site is 'good', if it THE site where you find each other".. there is a HUGE element of luck / good timing involved ;)