I came through a cliche type of divorce in 1994, you know the type where you think you win but financially & emotionally you loose.
I thought that by working hard I might be able to “get on top” again. I found myself very busy but also very lonely.
I decided to reply to some adds in the local paper to meet some ladies, I even placed an add myself, but I found after meeting with a few ladies that I admired the coffee more than the conversation. It’s hard to look across the table & wonder, “Is this the one for me?”
A friend of mine & I were looking through the Trade & Exchange in July 1996 & my friend made a comment, “Why don’t you write to a Russian lady?” His next comment was, “If you go & it’s OK then I’ll go.” So off I went to this agency which was run by a Russian couple. I was nervous on this first visit, I wasn’t sure, but I wanted to be with someone; someone who will be my life partner not there today & gone next summer. I found that the general feeling I got from New Zealand girls was that they were not looking for long term (maybe I’m wrong).
I looked through 100’s of ladies & decided to write to 20. It was suggested that I might want to advertise myself with their agencies in Russia. All they needed would be some details about myself & a photo. To which I thought why not? The gentleman took a shocking Polaroid photo, translated what I had written about myself & gave me copies of the ladies details than I had chosen. The whole process took 2 hours.
Over the next week I discovered writers cramp. I wrote 20 letters of about 2 pages each & sent them off by standard post (this was July 1996). Elena was not one of these women.
In late August I received a note in my mailbox to collect an international registered letter from the local post shop. Great! My first reply. I even now cannot express how good I felt. This was Elena’s very 1st letter. I looked at her photo & read her letter over & over .She has chosen me & I liked what I saw in her letter & her photo. I spent that night writing my reply to send the next day. After a few weeks I hadn’t received a reply, so I had a photocopy of my letter. I decided that I would try again (November 1996), this time the letter got through! To this date the original letter has never been delivered. I received a reply early in January 1997 & by March we had our 1st phone conversation.
Many letters went back & forth over the next 9 months. We even got engaged during this time!
I had no money to go to Russia, so I went & got another two part-time jobs to earn the air fares. I worked a total of 92.5hrs minimum per week. This was my choice – I wanted to be with Elena.
Finally, with hard work, saving and a loan (special thanks to Mum & Brian) I had enough money to borrow the balance & buy the airline tickets: Elena’s, her sons and mine. Now I was off. I flew Korean airlines via Seoul Korea to Moscow. The trip seemed fast.
It took about an hour to process all luggage & go through customs but I was there. I walked towards this huge glass wall with hundreds of people staring, waving & calling out to their friends & loved ones. Above all this noise I heard a familiar voice. I finally saw her for real.
I was so tired I forgot to even give her a hug, I just couldn’t believe that this kid from Kawerau (Bay of plenty New Zealand) had spread his wings so far to meet that someone special.
Moscow was huge. The metro train system was the most efficient thing there. I wanted to see everything, but I had a reason for being in Russia & it wasn’t for sightseeing.
The second day in Moscow we were off to immigration to start the long process of residency for Elena & her son Kirill. I learnt patience here, standing outside the New Zealand embassy waiting for up to 2 hours in the early October autumn. We had several days like this. I even now can’t understand why the embassy couldn’t have been more helpful & told us all the items we needed on the first visit.Finally we had all the papers, but Elena had to go to an international medical clinic for clearance to say she was fit enough to leave Russia. This was were we received the bad news we didn’t expect.
Elena was told she had a problem with her thyroid gland & we were told “yes you can go to New Zealand provided that the London international medical council approved Elena’s file”. We were told this could take up to six months!
At this point we were devastated. I had come so far & had no job back home. I was prepared to stay but I knew I couldn’t.
We decided that now we had done everything we could with immigration, Elena would take me to her home city to meet her son & her family.
Chelyabinsk is an industrial town of 1.5 million 2300km down the Trans Siberian rail to the Southern Ural mountain region. It takes 2 nights & 1 day to travel.
Meeting Elena’s family was worth it . Her parents are very educated people & I learnt a lot from them. Alexander & Natasha both work as teachers in two of the Universities in the city.
Sadly, the day came when I had to travel home & leave Elena & Kirill in Russia. Neither of us knew how long it would take our papers to be finalized. Leaving Elena & Kirill was so hard but I knew there was nothing that I could do. We could only wait.
The trip home was long, 57 hours by train back to Moscow, 9 hours wait. Then 11 hours to Seoul, 12 hours wait. Then 9 hours to Fiji, 2 hours wait & finally home another 4 hours, a total of 93 hours (no sleep).
Most of the way home I sat with two Russian businessmen who tried to cheer me up with whiskey. One good rule about flying, don’t drink lots of alcohol at high altitude!!
After a lot of telephone calls to the New Zealand Embassy in Moscow we finally got an approval from London, YES Elena could finally come to New Zealand! They arrived in Auckland on 23/12/97. This time I got my wish, Elena & Kirill were here for Christmas & I had a new job to support us.
Elena & I married on 14/2/98 Valentines Day in the grounds of Nathan Homestead Manurewa.
We didn’t have a lot of money so we lived in my uncle’s boarding house (special thanks uncle Don) in a room no bigger than 4m x 3m for the first seven months. Then we house sat for 4 months. After that, Elena found us a small house to rent in Manurewa.
The immigration process we started took time, but in just over one year, we had it, lucky I had learnt patience in Russia. Firstly, we applied for a Work Permit then a Permanent Residence Visa.
In November 1998 we talked about helping other Russian ladies meet good men after one of Elena’s friends said that her situation was the same as what Elena’s had been. Four weeks later we placed adds here for her and she got a good response. Sadly her husband found the letters & we did not hear from her again for a long time. She decided that she would stay with her husband as she felt that learning to start again could be more painful than the life she had. We pray that she will be OK. (To this day, we have not registered her with our business). But this Idea Created a small business for us that we ran for 5 years between New Zealand and Russia.
Elena & myself are not well off & highly educated people, we are just us – a Kiwi & a Russian, who want people to know it doesn’t matter what race you are or what war you’re in, when you meet the right person love has no limits.
We don’t know how busy our business would be, but we will never forget the reason we started – we want to see people happy.
