Elena's Models-the most respected dating agency.


Read our exclusive interview with Elena Petrova-the owner of "Elena Models"

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MS: Hello Elena!

To start our conversation, I want to give you a complement - You look great! A bright example of a beautiful Russian woman that drives men wild. Surprising how you manage running such a successful business as a director of a dating agency with affiliates in several countries as well as being a good mother to your kids. I know that you have a great family and two wonderful kids that demand attention. By the way, would you share your family photo with our readers?

EP: Marina, thank you for the compliments!
You also look very good :-)

Combining business and family is not a trick for Russian women. Most women’s magazines in Russia have an article on this topic in every issue, since the majority of Russian women are working. So I don’t think I am doing anything special. It comes quite easy.

I get up at 6, run 2 miles, wash and dress, wake up kids, feed them, make their lunches, and take them to kindergarten. This all takes 2-3 hours. I work from 9 to 5, then collects kids, make dinner, eat, wash kids and play with them until about 8 p.m. when they are tired and it’s time to go to bed. When the kids are asleep, we have some time of our own. I don’t work on weekends; it’s family time.

My husband helps me with kids, since we have two and they are small (2 and 4), and when one helps one kid, the other helps the second. Basically, we do all the things together. I am sure I would not be able to manage all this on my own! (Especially, conceiving two kids :-)

But as I said, I don’t think I am anything special. I was just very lucky in my business and I know I am lucky in my family life, too. I’ve got a wonderful husband who supports me in everything.

MS: May I ask how did you meet your husband? Was it through the Internet? If yes, did you have this feeling from the beginning that he is exactly who you were looking for? In your opinion, can you fall in love through the Internet?

EP: No, I did not meet my husband through Internet, even though I did have my data in several Internet agencies and met some great men this way – we just did not click. I met my husband through a newspaper ad. He placed an ad in Russian newspapers, and I responded. We corresponded for a year, and then he visited me in Russia and we fell in love, and married in half a year. Yes, I did have a special feeling about him from the very beginning, and he also had this feeling about me – after just a few letters, he stopped writing to other girls and only visited me during his trip to Russia.

I don’t think our meeting would be any different if we met through the Internet. Anyway, it happened in a very similar way: correspondence, personal meeting, marriage.

I am currently finishing the book "How to find and marry a girl like me" where I will tell my story in great detail - for the first time.
Of course, one can fall in love through Internet! I hear about it nearly every day from our clients.

MS: Alright, lets talk about business. I know that your agency has been running for five years now and is very successful. Perhaps hundreds of people, from different countries, found each other with your help. Throughout all that time, you've seen many destinies come together, life stories. Could you please share some unusual or funny story with us?

EP: Every story is special in some way. I remember one story where a client, let's call him Mark, wrote to me with request to translate his letter. He had seen a girl, Irina, on another site that captured his attention. For a week or so he could not get her out of his mind, and decided to buy her address. By the way, he was not looking for a Russian woman or thinking about Internet romance at all, he was just checking on an Internet project and came across a Russian dating agency, where he saw Irina's ad. Now, he decided to learn about Russian women and came across my site Russian Brides Cyber Guide, trying to learn more about Russian culture. This is where he decided he would translate his letter. He only had Irina's postal address. He was writing her a letter every 3-4 days, translating it and forwarding it through us to Russia. We did not receive any responses. Then we made some checking and found what was the phone number at the address. I called, and somebody on the other end said the apartment had been sold and Irina moved out. He was the new owner and he did not have her new address. Mark wrote to the agency where he purchased Irina's address and they said sorry, we will replace the address. But he did not want address of another girl. I said, OK, we will find Irina. Through our partner agency in Irina's city we tracked down her new address, and they have sent somebody to deliver the parcel to her. The next day Mark received a phone call from Irina, but he was not there. Mark was so excited. This entire search was over the course of 2 weeks, and he was very anxious. The next day he received an email from Irina where she said she already met somebody and is getting married. Too bad. Mark decided he would join our service and subscribed to our Weekly Ladies Catalog. He was corresponding with some girls but nothing special. Then he decided to write to another lady, Jana, who was our member for already quite a while. He wrote to Jana, and she said, sorry, I am currently corresponding with somebody else and we are getting serious. Mark asked me what to do, and I said to him, if you really like Jana, ask if you cannot write her just as a friend. So he did. To cut the long story short, in just a few weeks Jana refused the other guy and asked Mark to visit her. They met and clicked.

This was one of the most amazing stories how two people found each other, seemingly by pure luck ..........

I could tell you many other stories that started from guys getting involved with a scammer that wrote to them through Internet personals pretending to be a Russian woman seeking marriage, and then the guys who never thought about a possibility of meeting somebody internationally started to look for more information on "her" city and found my Black List of dating scammers and their "sweetheart" on this List. Mike first wrote to me after he was contacted by a "Russian woman". She asked him for money and he was worried. After he had read my "Anti-Scam Guide", he realized he was corresponding with a scammer. He was very glad that the Anti-Scam Guide saved him lots of money, and decided, as a gesture of gratitude, to subscribe for one of our services, Weekly Ladies Catalog. In just one month he met Alla, and since then other women did not interest him. They got married in less than a year. They visited us on their 1-year anniversary, and we made this photo. After initial shock, they decided to give it a try and joined our agency, and met and married our girls. It's amazing how sometimes things work in life!

MS: You mentioned scammers. Can you tell us more about this phenomenon? It seems like every site talks about them. What do you do to ensure your site is clean from scam artists? Is it only Russian women that are scammers and we cannot find them in another countries?If not, then why does everyone talk only about Russian scammers? What is so special about them comparing to scammers from another countries?

EP: Scammers are criminals that use Internet to earn a living by perpetrating fraud. There are many Internet scams that are well known, such as Nigerian scams, chain letters, etc. Dating scammers use Internet to perpetrate fraud preying on feelings of lonely people. Russian dating scammers pretend to be Russian women seeking marriage abroad. For most part, they are males that use photos of young pretty girls and some other women to receive money transfers. Like any scam, it is only organized to get your money. There are no real things involved. Most dating scammers quickly "fall in love" with men and ask them to send money for visas and tickets to the guy's country. And of course nobody ever arrives. This is the typical "Russian dating scam". It is not even real people. All letters are prewritten. It is a pure fraud scheme.

No, it is not only Russian scammers that use dating sites for scamming. I have come across women-scammers from the USA, Mexico, China, etc. I think everyone talks about Russian scammers because Russian women are very popular and scammers use this popularity to their advantage.

It is never a good idea to send money to somebody you never met before, so the simplest anti-scam advice is to NEVER SEND MONEY!

In our agency, we use various means of checking all submitted information, but most of all, we ask all our clients to inform us immediately if any of our girls asks for money. We also say on our Russian website where women submit their information that we do not allow money requests in our agency and will report all scammers to Russian police. I can honestly say, we don't have many problems with scammers and our database is properly checked. Scammers seldom try to use agencies like ours that utilize strict security policy; they prefer large Internet personals where anyone is invited to place a free ad and where profiles are not screened. I think if all websites used strict policy and properly checked submitted information, there would not be any scams.

MS: Elena, how about those couples that found their happiness through your agency? Do they keep in contact with your agency, or let you know about their family life together?

EP: Yes, we do keep contact with some of them; the others just inform us they have found somebody and are no longer available. Basically, our agency just offers means for marriage minded people to find each other. Their success is their own accomplishment.

We know about some children born in families that met through our agency, and we are always happy to receive such notes. It is this feedback that we are working for.

MS: You offer various services on your website. Which of your services is the most successful?

EP: You know, if there were one service that would work for everybody, it would be the easiest to just leave this service and let everybody use it! :-)

The truth is, different people are successful with different services. Some people buy 1 address and get married! But this is rather untypical.

Our most successful services are the Weekly Ladies Catalog where we list all our new submissions, and for only $8 a week men can email to all our new girls; and Personal Listing in Gentlemen’s Catalog, where we publish men's ads on our website and women can write to them. We publish personal email addresses of men and they correspond with women directly. Those two services produce the highest number of marriages and are very successful.

For men who would like to ensure their success, I would recommend Platinum membership that combines those two services and also gives unlimited access to addresses of all girls from Elena's Models (11,000+ profiles).

MS: Can you give a suggestion for men thinking about finding a Russian wife, how they should start their search?

EP: I would suggest, start from educating yourself. Read books written by people who came through this experience themselves – not the people who just talked to somebody who did. Forget about all the nonsense that you have heard from Media about Russian women being gold diggers and scammers, and from some Russian marriages agencies portraying Russian women as "mail order brides". One cannot order a wife, and the vast majority of Russian women are sincerely seeking life-long partnership and marriage. Russian women are just human beings and all they want is to be happy. If you are seeking a partner and not a "mail order bride", you will be so much more successful with Russian women.

I think Russian women are wonderful.
It's not unexpected though: I am one of them! :-)

MS: Elena, I would like to congratulate you on the making of the most successful and honest agency. It truly has a value and respect from costumers all over the world!