Dear Elena, This letter is overdue, but we did want to tell you that Elena and I found each other through your website. I think our story might be a little unusual in that I had been engaged to another Russian woman that I met here, but who decided to reconcile with her ex. Elena had been engaged to a French man, but that didn’t work out either. So after each of us had been engaged to someone from another country we each continued our search. I had actively tried the common dating websites in the United States, but had no success and had figured that perhaps I would remain single. I was seeking to hire an intern at work and a Russian woman applied. She and her husband had come to the US for his work. She seemed to be well qualified, but I knew nothing about her university in Kazan so I went online. Many websites for Russian brides appeared. I was intrigued. Many seemed to be exploitive, but I was impressed with the quality of the woman I saw here and with the business approach taken so I signed up. I first attempted to contact Elena in April 2010, but no response. After a couple of months I noticed that she was still online and her profile was so intriguing that I had to try again. Someone from America was not her first choice. I usually sent rather long letters and fortunately, Elena was trained as a translator. I always appreciated her emails, as I know that she took time to thoughtfully respond. We soon started to Skype and I knew I had to meet her. In October 2010, I visited Moscow and was completely captivated by her. It was there that I knew I wanted to pursue her. Elena loves all things French and so we decided to visit Paris and met there in January 2011 for a week. It was both delightful and difficult. It was delightful because we could visit the Paris tourist sites and spend time together. It was stressful because there were some cultural differences that came into play and created some stress. Both of us came close to ending our relationship, but I knew that I had found a unique woman and wanted to work through and understand her. We continued to correspond and to Skype. Elena was very international and had traveled to a number of countries, but had never visited the US. I felt that she really needed to see the US and meet my family in order for her to make a good decision and so she came in July 2011. I should mention that I had attempted to obtain a tourist visa for the first woman I met, but the American Consulate rejected her application even though she fit perfectly the legal requirements for the visa and had previously been to the US on business. Some consular officers are too concerned about marriage fraud and simply don’t look at the facts if an American man invites a Russian woman for a visit. Elena is trained as librarian, loves her career and wanted to continue in her profession. A local university was interested and extended an invitation to her to visit and examine their program. The visa was issued. During her visit, we explored my hometown, visited by extended family, and visited the university. She was immediately accepted and loved by my extended family, saw where her new home might be, and had a warm visit with the Dean. Over the past year I had learned that she was not only beautiful, but that she was smart and well educated, cultured (I now like Russian ballet), positive in outlook with an outgoing personality, responsible and adventurous. I knew I wanted to be with her and asked her to marry me. She said yes. We immediately visited an immigration attorney to start the process which took about nine months. I was able to visit her again in Moscow where I met her parents who were delightful. She again came in December for our family Christmas celebration. Finally, she came in May 2012 and we were married in July 2012 at my parent’s church. At the same time we were working through the visa process, we were working through the university acceptance process where we learned that getting foreign university credentials evaluated is not a simple task. Elena was accepted as a graduate student in library science and is about 50% done with her program. I am quite proud of her as she needs to read and study graduate level materials and has maintained an “A” average as a graduate student. We would certainly like to say thank you to Elena’s Models for being the vehicle that brought us together. Once some of the different cultural perspectives are understood, I would say that I appreciate fully the Russian family values that I see in Elena and cannot imagine how much poorer my life would be without her. James (USA) & Elena (Russia)