Tour History
Odessa February 13 — 21, 2004
It’s Sunday evening, and I have just returned from Valentine’s Day tour in Odessa. I was as a senior assistant for this tour. The work was difficult at times, but those were very eventful 9 days and there were many pleasant moments.
I worked together with 2 other assistants – Irina and Karina, with our American representative – Randall, and our tour manager - Sasha. Karina and Irina are locals and have already run 17 Anastasia tours in their city. As for me, I work fulltime in the Anastasia Moscow office and go to work on tours occasionally. I really enjoy this job, and I try to take advantage of new opportunities. Why do I enjoy this job so much? On every tour we have several couples that meet and fall in love, and some of them even get married right in the tour-city! It may sound weird and unbelievable but it’s true…and it’s very rewarding for us to know we helped in some small way to bring these people together. This tour was no exception. Though, in fact, the tour itself was exceptional: one couple got married and two decided to apply for a fiancée visa. St.Valentine’s holiday has done its part.
The group consisted of 25 men. They arrived in Odessa on Friday, 13th of February. Do you believe that Friday, 13th is a mysterious day? I don’t think so…it has always been a good day for me. The flight was delayed by 45 minutes and we had arrived at the airport early. The building seemed to lack central heating and it was very cold and freezing inside. We were frozen through to the bones. I forgot to say that the weather in Odessa was unusually cold for this time of the year.
When the plane arrived, the passengers started to walk out of passage. I can’t say exactly why, but we do always recognize our clients among men arrived. Probably, a special sparkle in their eyes gives them away.
We gathered all the clients in one place and discussed their flight. I should say that this moment, the moment of establishing first contact, is very important as it sets out our cooperation with every particular client in future. Well, as I expected every newly arrived person commented on the heating in the airport, or to be more exact, its absence.
Some of our clients had lost luggage. It happens quite often, and this time we had two cases. I imagine how upset they were about this experience. Joe and Ernest had no carry-on luggage with them, so we all realized that this would involve a lot of inconveniences.
On our way to hotel “Chernoe More” (it stands for the Black sea hotel in Russian) I told the clients about the city of Odessa, and then I taught them some of the most common conversational words and phrases in Russian. It was fun!
On arrival to the hotel we started checking in right away. It actually took only about 15 minutes because the ladies at the Reception desk were well prepared for our arrival.
The Briefing meeting and Optional dinner were scheduled for the first day. The briefing was held in the conference hall of the hotel and lasted for an hour and a half. The agenda included a lot of items: general information about the city, safety tips, about the hotel, its surroundings, transportation in the city, exchanging money, and cashing traveler’s checks. We emphasized the Socials because it is the main means AnastasiaWeb provides to meet new ladies. We also explained to the clients some national features of the Ukrainian ladies, how to start a conversation with them, etc.
We went to the Steak house restaurant for the Optional dinner. There were about 20 of us and we really enjoyed the evening talking with each other. Our clients were very much impressed by the beauty of the waitresses (the first Ukrainian women they met), so they couldn’t wait for the Socials to come…
Next day the Socials came. All our clients looked fancy and excited. There were 500 women at the first Social and about 200 at the second and 300 at the third social. The third Social was held in the city of Nikolaev, located 200 kilometers from Odessa. We traveled there by bus.
Everybody did their job during the Socials: assistants helped the clients, interpreters translated for the clients and helped them to communicate with the ladies, photographer took the pictures of the most beautiful ladies, the DJ played good music, and the VJ carried out contests with ladies and gentlemen involved.
After the Socials were over the gentlemen had the rest of the week for dating with the ladies they met at the Socials. The assistants that worked in the Hospitality center located in the same hotel also helped the gentlemen to arrange dates with women.
Every morning we had breakfast in the hotel. To many clients, it was not a very good one. It’s obvious that standards of living are different in the Ukraine from those in the USA or Western Europe. Therefore, the quality of the service is much lower. Eventually, most of the gentlemen even liked this experience. I live in Russia where the service is not much better than in Ukraine, and frankly speaking, breakfast and the hotel itself were rather good to my mind. I think the problem was merely a difference in expectations.
The worst thing of the tour, in my opinion, was when one of the clients, Mike, had his wallet stolen. Mike was actually one of the happiest clients on the tour because he got married to a very beautiful lady called Lena. While he was very upset and discouraged by loosing money, he knew his own priorities and did not let this trouble spoil very pleasant moments of his life. I am sure that Lena appreciated this choice at its true value.
During the week we also had some time for excursions, which were very interesting and informative. Everybody liked the second one – the Catacombs. Odessa is built on catacombs, artificial tunnels that appeared as the result of quarrying out limestone from underground that was then used to construct the city. When we were in one of these catacombs our guide suggested that we should blow out our candles and stay in a complete darkness for an instant. It was a feeling that is hard to describe in words…
In general, the week was very eventful. Nobody stayed in their rooms. There was no time to rest. What I could judge from the gentlemen’s talks at breakfast is that most of them didn’t have more than about 5 hours to sleep any night because they always went somewhere to dine out and to dance. Randall took care of all the arrangements. He organized dinners for our clients and got everybody together. On the last night, assistants also joined the group. First, we went to the restaurant “Hutorok” (which means khutor) to taste the national Ukrainian food. We sat at one long table all together, and everybody enjoyed the last night before leaving. During that evening many gentlemen looked like they were unwilling to leave. Very many also promised to come back. After dinner we went to the nightclub “Palladium” and danced till morning.
The final day of the tour, Saturday, came. Time seemed to have flown by so quickly. We all met in the lobby, and many ladies were there to see off the men. It was a very touching parting.
Well, Valentine’s tour was over, and I came back to my normal life. But for some of the guys whose hearts started to beat faster and who finally found woman of their dreams in Odessa, the term “a normal life” now has a new meaning. Believe it or not but it’s a story based on real facts.
Author: Olga Postoyanova
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