Here you have my honest opinion and comments from the tour! I have been looking for a new wife for about 5 years, using different marriage agencies and writing hundreds, maybe thousands of letters. I have had many different meetings in Russia, Ukraine and other CIS countries, mainly one-to-one meetings. I found a woman that interested me, wrote her a couple of months or more, and decided to meet her in person. Such was also the case this time, I thought... I started to correspond with a woman through marriage agency "Anastasia" (www.anastasiaweb.com) and felt the connection to her, so gradually it became clear to me that I wanted to meet her in person. Writing letters through "Anastasia" is not cheap, you pay both ways, and there is no possibility to exchange phone numbers, only addresses. After some letter exchanges I received a letter from Oksana, saying that the woman I was writing with, was a client of her agency. If I signed up for a tour I could write freely with all the women I wanted in her agency. So I decided to take her up on this offer and signed up for the tour. I was a little skeptic sending such a big amount of money to an agency I didn't know anything about. Sure I read the clients opinions, but of course they could have been written by the agency themselves :-) Yes, I am always this suspicious, there are so many scammers out there. I was assured a little by the fact that I could use the "PayPal" system, they usually don't support scammers. After some days I received my documents that I needed for the visa, and sent it to the Kazakhstan embassy in London. After about 10 days I received my visa and I booked the plane tickets. So everything looked fine, and I was looking forward to meet the woman I was writing to. I arrived in Almaty in the morning of 29th August 2002, a little tired after a long trip, and little sleep on the plane. Air Kazakhstan insisted on serving me food even if it was way past my usual bedtime:-) Getting through the passport control and filling out the customs report went unusually fine (one time in St.Petersburg I had to wait nearly 2 hours in queues). After about 30 minutes I was through and outside the airport... There I was met by Oksana (president of Oksanalove), Marina, the woman I had been writing, and her friend, also named Marina. I hadn't seen photos of Oksana, so I didn't know how she looked, but I recognized my Marina, more beautiful in real life (of course most women I met on the tour was more beautiful than on the photos - the photographer needs to do a better job :-)) I spent the first days with Marina, but sadly the connection was not there. Marina didn't understand much English, but I speak and understand a little Russian, so it helped a little. But I felt that I should at least be a gentleman and hang in until after her birthday the next day :-) On the next day was also the first socials... I felt that after Oksana picked me up at the airport I was left to myself... but maybe it was my own fault too, Oksana told me to call her anytime if I wanted her help. But I also knew that she was busy arranging everything, picking men and women up at the airport and train stations, so I didn't want to be a bother... So as this was my first tour like this, I didn't know much of what to expect about these socials. I was told it was going to be 6 men and about 20 women, but this was not the facts... I heard some rumors that Oksana had advertised on TV to get some new women too, but I didn't know if it was true or not..until I arrived down in the discotheque where the socials took place. When the men walked through the door we had the eyes of maybe more than 200 hundred women and also the local TV station on us. Being a shy person I didn't feel comfortable in this situation, but at least we were popular :-) Also I was a little hang over after I met with some of my countrymen the night before, who persuaded me to have some tequilas with them. As I usually don't drink, there was an unexpected and unpleasant side-effect of this, headache and dry mouth... All the men had to hold a presentation in front of all these women, and I was not mentally of physically prepared for this :-) Also my native language is not English, so it makes it even more difficult, but I think I managed to keep myself together anyway. And what doesn't break you, makes you stronger :-) After these introductions, women could ask questions. To loosen the atmosphere Oksana had arranged some games for us, and we had to pick out a woman as the partner in this games. Of course I picked my Marina, but I guess that this wasn't a good idea :-) Because of the TV coverage (which was to be only local in Almaty, but wasn't!), the parents of Marina got to see their daughter move an egg up inside one leg of my trousers and down the other. For me it was quite pleasant, but for her conservative parents, I guess I didn't make a good first impression :-))) After the questions, we could finally talk to the women, and I was surprised of the interest I was given. Many beautiful women tried to get my interest, but sadly I couldn't speak with them all. Some gave me their phone numbers and went, maybe to work, or maybe they didn't like the TV and the setting too. Unfortunately I hadn't prepared a system to keep all the phone numbers apart, so the mystery was which phone number went with which woman :-) Apart from the social being a little hectic, I enjoyed them more and more. It's very pleasant to be the center of attention once you loose the initial nervousness and shyness. On the 3rd and last socials I even held my introduction in Russian, and got some laughs :-)) I have given my comments to Oksana about the setting of the socials, I know she will try to do better, I was told it was only the second tour like this, so there will definitely be improvements :-) Oksana also arranged a trip to the Medeo skating rink (it was closed for repairs) and to Shimbulak mountains, about 3000 m above sea. After we had lunch at a typical Kazak house, and this was the best part about the whole tour. I prefer small crowds, and on this trip we were 6 men and our dates + Oksana and the guide. Unfortunately time flies too fast when you have fun, there should have been more days like this.... After I dropped Marina (or we dropped each other) I arranged meetings with many other women, starting at the beginning of my stack of phone numbers :-) It's one of the advantages with tours like this, if things don't work out with one woman, you can easily find another that is interested. On my one-to-one meetings before, it was easy to feel disappointed if things didn't work out and you had spent money and time/vacation for nothing... But the downside of being so popular is that it's more difficult to make up your mind and choose ;-) So, I decided to meet with Anna and Tatiana at the same time, they are friends and it was one of the first phone numbers I received, but of course because of the missing filing system I didn't remember how they looked :-)) At the agreed time I waited outside of the hotel and a stunning looking women approached me... but was this Anna or Tatiana :-) Fortunately the first thing she said was that Anna was still at work, so my intelligence said me that this had to be Tatiana :-) Even if it had been 3 days since she gave me her phone number, she was still interested in me, and I grew more and more interested in her. From her photos she looks good, but in person she looks close to Pamela Anderson, and I liked her personality also :-) I had many other meetings, but it grew more and more obvious that I had Tatiana mostly in mind, so now I have invited her to my country, and things look really promising for the future :-) So, I have no problems recommending a tour like this or using the services of Oksana's agency. As far as I know the women on her site is real and looking for a husband. But some of the youngest women, like my Marina, are not serious enough for marriage. Oksana knows many of the women, and gives good advice, but ultimately you must trust your own feelings. Most women receives many letters from men (even if some doesn't admit it themselves), but many men don't meet them in person, so to show that you are really serious, take a tour to Kazakhstan :-) Women appreciate action, not only words ;-)) Best wishes! Tommy (writeme@netcom.no)