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CORRESPONDENCE GUIDE
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| WRITING YOUR FIRST LETTER |
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| A. DATING YOUR LETTER |
| Start your letter by writing the date on top. It will help you keep
track of how long it takes to get a reply. Postmarks can provide the same
information, but they are often hard to read. It will also help to clarify
things for the lady if your letters arrive out of sequence. Please note that
in the CIS the date is written "backwards". First the day, then the month and
then the year. To avoid confusion, spell out the month like this: 5 March 2007
or March 5, 2007. |
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| B. GREETING |
| Fort your first letter a simple "Hello,..." will do just fine. Be
aware that Russians might find it slightly awkward if you start your first
letter with "Dear..." In Russia, the word "Dear" means that you know the lady
you are writing to and you feel affectionately towards her. When you receive a
reply from a lady, then you can start your second letter with "Dear..." |
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| C. USE SIMPLE VOCABULARY & PROPER GRAMMAR |
| Keep your letter short & uncomplicated. Most ladies will not
understand slang, abbreviations, or expressions like: "let's get down to
business", "the ides fell through", etc. Use short sentences. If she has to
struggle to read what you've written she might just give up, especially if she
is receiving letters from other men that are easier to read. |
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| D. TYPE YOUR LETTER |
| Do not forget that your handwriting might be very ornate and
attractive, but still difficult for others to read. Before you send a
handwritten letter, show an example of your writing to your friends or
co-workers. Ask them if they have any difficulty reading it. If they do,
definitely type your letter. Include a handwritten note at the end of the
letter. It should explain that you are typing the letter so it will be easier
for her to read. Ask her if she prefers you to type or write in future letters
and tell her you will be happy to switch. If you prefer to type all of your
letters you may want to include a personal handwritten note at the end of each
letter. Do not send Xeroxed copies of one letter with a recipient's name
written in on top. Every woman wants to feel special and wants to see that you
made an effort in writing a letter just for her. |
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| E. SEND A PHOTO WITH YOUR FIRST LETTER |
| A letter without a photo has little or no chance of getting a reply.
We highly recommend putting on a suit and tie and having your photo taken
professionally. Look directly into the camera and do not forget to smile.
Looking bored, tired, too serious, unhappy or disinterested will just hurt your
chances. As will photos with you wearing sunglasses, photos that are taken from
too far away or a photo that is too old or crumpled. |
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| F. WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT |
| Keep your letter friendly and positive. Tell her your age, height,
weight and occupation. Tell her about your interests, hobbies and your outlook
on life. Ask her about her family and tell her about yours. Be interested in
her native language and culture. Tell her you would enjoy learning whatever she
wishes to teach you about it. Financial security is important for these women,
so mentioning that you won your own home is suggested. If you have had a stable
job for many years, tell her. Stability is very important. If you have
dependent children living with you, let her know. If the children are living
with your ex-wife, make it clear that your future wife will not be expected to
raise them, unless of course something unforeseen happens. Be polite, sincere
and show interest in her as a person. Make a compliment to her picture, but do
not go overboard praising her beauty. It is a good idea to say that you are
able to comfortably provide for your wife and family. Keep the size of your
letter to 1-2 pages. Sample of letters can be found at the end of this guide.
Do not brage about your wealth. If she is sincere, she probably wants to know
you as a person, not just a source of income. Do not go on and on about
beautiful she is. Most women want to be accepted as human begins. They want to
believe that there is more to them than good looks. Do not use the word "love"
in your first letter. Do not tell her you love her or propose to her. At most,
tell her that you are interested in finding a lifetime partner. Do brag about
how good a person you are. Do not mention how painful your recent divorce or
describe failed relationships with other women. Do not ask for a photo unless
you are sending one. Do not ask intimate questions or mention the word "sex".
Russian culture is more conservative. Do not send nude or half-naked photos of
yourself, even if you have a great body to show off. Do not make your first
letter too long. Do not write in pencil. |
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| H. CLOSING |
| Close your letter with "Sincerely yours..." or "Hope to hear from
you soon". Do not mention "Love" unless you have had an extensive relationship
and are clear on your feelings towards each other. |
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| MAKING YOUR LETTERS STAND OUT |
| Use nice stationary. You can buy attractive writing paper in any
store that sells postcards, office supplies store, etc. Do not sue the
envelopes that come with it. (More info on envelops in "Making sure your letter
gets to her") You can also check with your local printer for prices on custom
stationary. If you want to be creative you can use stickers to decorate your
letter or draw little pictures and cartoons on it. Avoid getting your letter
too cluttered. Some men spray perfume on the letters. It is nice if the letter
smells good, but make sure other people also find the scent pleasant and do not
drown your letter in it. If the lady states she likes animals, send her a
picture of your pets. Pretty postcards (of the area where you live for example)
are always a good idea. Send your letter by Registered Mail or US Postal
Service Express Mail. It is expensive, but we are sure the lady will be much
more impressed by the price sticker on it than you are. She will feel that you
are that much more interested in her than other men who just send regular
letters. Send her a letter by US Postal Service with "proof of delivery
requested". After you receive that card back saying that the letter was
delivered, send her flowers.
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| MAKING SURE YOUR LETTER GETS TO HER |
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Letters to Russia addressed in English are almost always undeliverable. Russian
Postal Workers in general do not know English or other foreign languages. It is
very important for your address to be properly written in Cyrillic. If you
bought your addresses from us, make copies of the address lists that we sent
you, cut out the Cyrillic version of the address and glue or tape it to the
envelope. Keep the original and some extra copies for future use. Do not try to
copy the Cyrillic letter or translate English version to Russian by hand. Make
sure that the address is positioned closer to the bottom of the envelope than
to the top. Make sure that when your letter is postmarked, the postmark will
not cover part of the address. This will cause the letter to be undeliverable.
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If you are replying to the women who answered your Gentleman's Catalog and have
trouble reading the handwriting, simply make a good coy of her address, cut out
the return address and tape it to the front of your letter. Ask the lady to
type/print the address for you next time.
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Send your letters by Airmail. Surface mail can take 4-6 weeks. Use envelops
marked "Airmail" or print the word "Airmail" in big letters across the front of
the envelope.
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Make sure your letter has enough postage. It would be really embarrassing for
you if the lady will have to go to the Post Office and pay extra to receive
your letter.
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Avoid using colorful stamps or anything that can attract attention to your
envelope. If the Russian Postal employees thing your letter interesting they
will open it. Unfortunately, they never glue letters back together and forward
them, even if the contents are of no interest to them. Most of these people are
looking for money, nice stamps, attractive postcards, etc.
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It is a good idea to keep copies of all letters that you send out. That way if
the girls says she never received your letter, it will be easy for you to send
her another copy of it. US Postal Express Service letters can only be delivered
to certain cities in the CIS. Please check with your local post office. NOTE:
Letters to Latvia, Lituva (Lithuania) and Estonia do not require the Cyrillic
version of the address.
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You can avoid many of the problems associated with sending mail to Russia by
using Anastasia's "Mail Forwarding Service". See attached flyer giving details
of this wonderful service.
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| MAKING SURE HER REPLY REACHES YOU |
| Make sure that you typed or printed your name and address on the
envelope AND on the letter itself. Type some address labels and include them in
you letter so the girl can glue them to the envelope. Do not put abbreviations
in your address. |
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| Instead of writing: |
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John White
371 E. Southland Dr.
LA, CA
32098 USA |
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Write: |
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John White
371 East Southland Drive
Los Angeles, CA
32098 USA |
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| Many of the women who are listed in our service only make $60-$150 a
month in salary. Most of them have trouble paying the postage costs. If you
would like to help the lady with postage, consider our Russian and Ukrainian
return envelopes. Each envelope has enough postage to enable a letter from
Russia or Ukraine to anywhere in the world. Another neat thing about these
envelopes is that you can write your address on them and not worry about the
lady misspelling any part of it. You can also include Russian post stamps
offered by other companies, but if you just send the stamps the lady can always
use them for writing to somebody elsel. IRC (International Reply Coupons) you
buy at your local Post Office are not accepted in most CIS Post Offices,
regardless of what US Postal Service personnel might tell you. Even if the
Russian Post Office accepts IRC's they might give far less value for them than
what they cost. Therefore, including these with your letter is more expensive
and less effective than the return envelopes. You can order the envelopes on
our Order Form. |
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| WHAT IF YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT HER |
| Men who placed ads in our Gentleman's Catalog enjoy many responses.
And of course they are not interested in all the women who write to them. In
that case, a brief note of thanks is more polite than leaving the letter
unanswered. If you receive a letter from a girl and you are not interested in
her, it would be really nice of you to pass her letter to a friend who would
enjoy corresponding with her. You can also always send her letter to us and we
will try to help her find new friends. This also applies if you decide you
don't want to write to a certain lady after corresponding with her for awhile.
Sample letter will provide you with some ideas on what to say. We suggest that
you return to the girl all photos she sent you. It was probably expensive for
her to take them to begin with, plus she might now have any copies of some of
them. |
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| WHAT IF YOU RECEIVE NO REPLY? |
| Do not get discouraged. This can happen for all of the following
reasons: Allow at least 8 weeks for the reply to reach you. Your letter will be
delivered in 14-21 days, depending on the city where she lives. All mail going
to Russia goes to Moscow first. The letter might take 14 days to reach your pen
pal in Moscow, but 3 weeks to reach a small town in Siberia. There might be
plenty of reasons why the girl cannot reply right away. We have even heard of
girls in small cities not being able to reply because their post office was out
of stamps for 2 weeks. Also 7-14 days for her reply to reach you. If after 6-8
weeks you still have no reply, write her again. Letter do get lost or opened,
even if you did everything possible to anticipate it. If the letter was
returned as undeliverable, please send us a copy of the envelope and we will
replace the address with another one at no charge. It is possible that a lady
did not reply because she is involved in corresponding with somebody else.
However, if you really like the girl write her again in 5-6 months. Things
happen and people change their minds, so at a later time she might be glad to
hear from you. The above is true in more cases than you might think. Some of
the most popular girls from our previous catalogs are still available for this
reason. |
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| SAMPLE LETTERS |
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| A. |
| Hello Natasha, |
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I saw your picture in the Volume 15 of "Anastasia" catalog. I would
like to correspond with you and get to know you better. I liked your picture
and biographical information. It looks like we have a lot of similar interests
and you seem to be a warm and caring person.
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is John White. I am 42 years old, 5'11"
and weigh 180 pounds. I included a couple of recent pictures of myself. I am
employed as a computer programmer in a large firm. I have a college education
in Computer Programming. After college I started working for the same company I
am with now.
My family is not large. My mother and father are retired and live in the state
of Florida. I also have a younger brother who is married and has 2 children.
They live about 100 miles away from me, here in California. My interest are
sports: swimming, tennis and basketball. I also like old movies, photography
and reading (especially science fiction). I love animals and have 2 dogs. I
live in my own house, so the dogs have lots of space in my back yard. I also
like nature: long walks in the park or on the beach and hiking. I like to work
hard, but I also believe in enjoying life. I like to travel during my vacation
time. I enjoy going out with my friends to dinner or a movie, but sometimes I
just like to have a quiet and relaxing evening at home with my favorite book. I
have never been married, because I have been always devoting a lot of time to
my career. I feel that it is very important for a man to be able to provide a
comfortable living for his family. I achieved my career goals and now would
like to try to find the right woman to settle down and have a family with. I am
looking for a peson who is warm, caring, sensitive, compassionate and family
oriented. I believe in love and faithfulness. I hope to have a family based on
love, respect and mutual understanding.
I hoe you found my letter interesting and will answer me soon. |
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Sincerely,
John White |
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| B. |
| Dear Natasha, |
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| Thank you for your last letter. I really enjoyed corresponding with
you and learning about you and your country. However, I feel that it would be
better if we both start looking for other people to correspond with. I did not
know much about you when I started writing you, because Anastasia provides
limited information on each person. In view of the letters that I received from
you I can see that our view of family and life are very different. I hoe you
will hear from other men and find that special person you are looking for.
Thanks again for writing me. |
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| John White |
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| C. |
| Dear Julia, |
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| Thank you for answering my ad. I wish I had time to correspond with
everybody who has written to me, but it is impossible. Since I cannot continue
to write you, I sent your letter to Anastasia (the Russian-American
introductory company who placed the ad for me) and asked them to help you find
a new friend. Thanks again for writing me and I hope you will find that special
person you are looking for. |
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| John White |
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