Hello, my name is Elena. I was born on August 7th, 1977 in a wonderful Russian city Saint-Petersburg, world famous for its unique beauty and colorful history, often called "northern Venice".

Igrew up in a strong , loving family. My parents have been married for 28 years . My father is a Navy officer, the Hero of Russia. He worked on an atomic submarine for many years.

Due to the fact that I was growing in the family of a military man, I was traveling a lot in the former Soviet Union and had a chance to get to know the culture of other nationalities and to respect the values and principles of other people.

As anybody, I had a life goal since childhood. It may sound commonplace, but my goal was to get married, make a happy family, give birth to a child, or better three children, from the loving husband, only! and to share the life together, taking care of each other, respecting and supporting each other. When I was only four and people asked me, "Lena, what do you want to be?" I answered "A wife and a mother!"

I was brought up in an old traditional manner, as they say now. My parents' traditions taught me to appreciate the family relations, love, respect parents, be responsible for the family, children, remember about the soul and self-respect.

I was learning from my parents their attitude to life, their mutual understanding and respect, their tender love and devotion, from my father's attitude to mom, my younger sister and me, and that made a valuable contribution to forming my look at life and ideal of a man: strong, self-confident, the head of the family, but also kind hearted, loving, patient, a supportive father and husband. The man, who respects woman's personality, respects her wishes. The man who is ready to understand and accept you as you are. The man who is loyal and honest. The man, who is fearless in a critical situation, and as the head of the family, is ready to take control over the problem, instead of just sitting by and letting you solve it by yourself. The man who values love, sincerity, confidence and understanding in family relations and in life. The men who wants and is ready to be a father and child for him is the greatest joy in life and not a burden. . To me, a family means mutual love, confidence, respect and devotion. As I understood later, in the new generation of Russian men, my ideal of a man was hard to find or maybe even not exist anymore .

I have never had any problems with meeting a man. Since the time then I decided to start my dating life when I was eighteen, and until I got married at the age of 21, declarations of love and proposals of marriage were an every day event. Declarations of love, romance, passion, promises of incredible financial stability and so on and so forth, but there was no sense of faith, no feeling that he was the one with whom I would like to give birth to children, there was no feeling that he was sincere and honest, that he saw and understood my personality, not infested just my body.

I believe, it is impossible to build strong relationship on lie. To me it is important to trust my partner and be sure he trusts me, to know that he is aware of my opinion and respects it. That was the reason why I used to break my relations with Russian men. Russian men have a saying: "Don't put all your eggs in one basket", which means that a wife, a girlfriend and a lover are three different women.

I was 18 when a friend of mine brought me a newspaper with an advertisement of "A Foreign Affair" agency. It said that the "A Foreign Affair" agency gave Russian women a chance to meet foreign men who wanted to wind a Russian Wife.

After I thought it over, I decided to give it a try and sent them my photo and profile to see what would work out. "Who knows," I thought, "maybe my soul mate lives farther from me than I think:"

Soon after, I started getting hundreds of letters from men from all over the world, who were looking for a wife. They were men of different age and social status. My phone began ringing day and night long! Those made me start learning English, because I didn't enjoy talking by means of an interpreter.

After a while, "A Foreign Affair" agency organized the first meeting, "Singles' Night", and I was invited. I was a little bit scared of going there, because I could not imagine how it all would look like, how people would choose each other and how I was going to communicate! I did not speak English then!

When I arrived at the party, I was nicely surprised! All my fears disappeared at once. It was a very well organized party, where single people, looking for a lifetime partner, got together. Nobody was choosing anybody like in a store, and professional interpreters were there to help people talk. I was impressed by the courtliness of American men towards Russian women, their respectful attitude and sincerity. At that meeting I met my future husband (we both did not know that then). I was a little late for the meeting after college, so he was already talking to a girl, with whom he was corresponding at that time. Because of that, our first communication was fleeting. But we remembered each other's names.

I was meeting other men, corresponding,dating, going to the "A Foreign Affair" agency "Singles' Night", and saw him with his girlfriend sometimes when he was visiting her on a tour. I knew about his engagement, he knew about mine, we had common friends, and it was like that for four years. It came about that my relations with the man to whom I was engaged, ended.

On February 8th, 1999, as I knew later, it was Ken's 37th birthday, I was invited to another "A Foreign Affair" meeting and I decided to go.

I was sitting at a table alone, watching the dancing couples when Ken came up. We were both surprised to see each other again, because each of us was supposed to be married by that time. We talked and after a few seconds knew instantly the reason why we were there at the"A Foreign Affair" agency "Singles' Night", again. We were talking all evening about what had happened meanwhile, about ourselves, and it was for the first time when we looked at each other differently. After the end of the party Ken invited me to a restaurant and we had a wonderful evening together. His personality fancied me, and I was very much surprised that I had not paid attention to him before! He asked for my phone number and permission to call some day. He called me the next morning and asked me out for the inviting to the restaurant and after bowling, just as good friends. He came to my house to picked me up with an adorable bouquet of flowers and a big box of chocolates.

With every minute I realized that I liked him more and more, that we had so much in common, and enjoyed the same things, it even seemed not possible that two people can have so mush incoming ! We spent every day together since then and at night we talked on the phone.

Finally on Valentine's Day Cupid's arrow pierced our hearts! After that day we been together almost all the time , and couldn't go without kiss even for a 5 minutes. Very soon we knew everything about each other, every detail of our lives ! We promised we would under any circumstances tell each other lies, and would never ever keep secrets from each other. We realized we were deep in love. Ken asked me to be his wife and I said "Yes".

The next day we applied for marriage at the Civil Registrar's Office, declared our decision to friends and parents and set the wedding date for April 25th. We decided to get married in Saint-Petersburg, not to apply for fiancee Visa, but invite Ken's friends and family to Russia. It was a wonderful wedding! We had official registration in Civil Registrar's Office and right after that we had amazing wedding ceremony in the church Kazansky cathedral there in God eyes we have been pronounce "The Men and Wife"

Its happened that at our honeymoon we conceive our first child . Our daughter Angela is 3,5 years now. She is the most joyful and the most important in our life.

We have been married for 5 years already and now . And I can tell that I am absolutely sure that we made the right decision We having the happy and thankful for every single day that I have spend with my husband. We have the family that I was dreaming about, I am loved and I love the man that I respect and proud of what he does and will do in the future. He is an exceptional person, a perfect husband, a true caring friend, a wonderful lover and the best father for Angela that can ever be!