Hi xxxxxxx!
How are you doing today? 
I’m rather good. It always feel nice meeting new people from other countries and cities. I live in Russia. 
My country is so big that it seems that life in the east should be totally different from life in the west. 
But to tell the truth it is not. I’ve talked to a lot of people all over Russian and found that all of us have practically the same life, the same problems and the same tradition only the weather is the only thing that differs. 
So I thought it would be really great to talk to people who live in countries with different culture, traditions and of course their own problems in ordinary life.  All these things are extremely interesting for me!
So what is your family like? Do you guys have strong family traditions or children rarely speak with their parents and prefer not to meet them often? 
Do you all live in the same city or may be your family spread all over the country? What is you city like? Is it big a small? Is it similar to other cities in your country or is totally different and have some extraordinary feature? 
Please tell me everything that you want to share with me about things that surround you.
What kind of relationships are looking for? I know that people  are looking many things that they lack in their lives. 
Ones look for friendship as they can’t find true and honest friends among the people that they live and work near with, others look for free love and one night relationship ,I believe that these people are not self-confident in and don’t believe that they can be loved, others look for true feelings as they lost hope to find a person whom they will be able to devote their life. 
What type of person that I described are you? Well, it is just my opinion. And I might miss something. Please tell me if you agree or don’t agree with me. 
It is very important to share opinions on different matters in order to communicate fruitfully. 
Could you also be so kind to send me you photograph? Or may be several of them? 
I think photograph helps very much to make the image of the person. Letters are great but I need a photo to make the full image. I may be don’t want to full myself in some way. 
As when you don’t see a person that you are talking to you create and imagine his or her look and then when you finally meet him or her you can be not even disappointed because he or her is less beautiful than you thought but he or she might be just totally different bay be even more beautiful but it makes you think that you don’t know this person at all and that he  or she is  a stranger. 
That’s why I’m asking for you picture in my first letter. I want to get you to know form different sides.
Hope to hear from you soon if you are open to communicate.
Have a good day!
Marina! 

Hello xxxxxxx,
I just came from  a walk and decided to check my e-mail box. I saw a  letter from you and decided to answer you immediately. 
It seems that we have something in common I mean the point of view on some things in life. So this fact made me glad when I’ve finished reading your letter and now I’m excited about writing letter to you. 
In my previous letter I asked you a lot about the place you live it and it’s my turn to tell about my city.
Well it’s not really a city but a village named Chandrovo  that situates not that far from a big city so that we have a possibility to go there for weekends and some people  have to go there for work every day. 
I know that they are not very happy about that fact though they can’t choose. 
There is no that much work in our village, it never was but when the crisis came all the companies that was situated in our village or nearby retire people or just close some for a period of time others forever. 
To tell the truth I have no idea how many people live in my town and I am rather ashamed of this fact I can only suppose that it is something about 5 000. The town is very beautiful with its natural beauty. 
There are no any skyscrapers or any ancient buildings. There are only several apartments building I live in one of it and others are private houses with its own territory. 
We are surrounded by forests where we still gather berries and mushrooms in the autumns and freeze them to make our cuisine more various in the winter. 
And the taste between mushrooms and berries from the store differs radically form the ones that we gather ourselves. We also have a river very nearby where we swim in the summer. 
Nowadays  it so happens that some parts of the river are sold out to the rich people that have their residence just near the river and make the beach of the river their property. 
According to the law of Russian federation it is illegal but they have way too much money so they don’t care about the law. Anyways we still  have some beautiful places to enjoy nature. 
When I just walk out from my apartment and make a few steps and there will be forest where it so wonderful to go for a walk. I sometimes like to go for a walks with my mother. 
I have wonderful relationships with my parents and I am proud of that as I believe it doesn’t happen often in modern world. So what are you relationships with parents? Are you friends or not? 
My mother and I are friends and I respect her for that. And my father has always dreamt of a son but it so happened that I am the only child in the family. 
When I was little he always took me hunting and fishing and though I am not a boy I know that he loves me very much. 
and I can say that we are happy family and I wish that soon I will have my own family and children and I will be able to make my husband as happy as my mom made my dad. I have a good example to follow!=)
And what do you think about family and marriage? I think family is the most important think that any person has, some people just do not understand that.  Rifht now my family is my mom and dad. We live in my apartment. It is not a very common thing for our country to live with parents after college but because of the crisis I decided to save my money and to spend them on something interesting rather than renting the apartment as the cost of the rent is more than a half of my salary. 
Moreover I have wonderful parents so living with them do not bother me at all right now. 
But of course as any person I dream of my own place to live with my man that I believe meet soon. So is it ok to live with the parents when you are more than 18 or after college for example? 
It was normal and even common thing to happen in Russia about 5- 10 years ago but time changes very rapidly and nowadays young people want to leave their homes and not to depend on their parents and what's sad don't want to communicate with their parents and they consider them old people that don't understand life. 
Do you think that’s right and that’s how it is supposed to be? As for me I don’t want to think that my children will consider me old-fashioned and won’t visit me only one or two times a year, I believe in strong family that celebrates all big holidays together with family friends.
Do you have any pictures with your family?  If you do, could you send me some? It is just interesting for me who you resemble the most your mom or your dad or may be even your grandmother or grandfather?=)
It was very nice to hear from you. I hope that our letters to each other will continue.
I think you understand that I’m looking for serious relationship here, I mean in the internet and I’m looking for a man who is serious in family question and who wants to get married and to have strong family later on. 
Just nice only friend chatting or free love letters are not for me. Those things I’m not interested in.
So if you like what you read I will be glad to see you letter in my mail box. If you don’t, let please not waste our time.
I sincere hope to hear from you soon…
Marina!!! 

Good evening my dear friend xxxxxxxxx,
How was your day? Mine was rather good. It wasn’t extremely busy but still I had something to do. 
They days seemed to be rather short for me even though I worked my usual time from 10 in the morning till 7 in the evening with a short break.
I had a chance to meet one friend of mine while my break. She is marries and just born a baby, little beautiful girl named Katerina.
My friend Olga doesn’t work right now because her baby is only 4 months old. So these pretty girls spend all their time together bringing each other up=) 
Will it be interesting for you to know about my friends? I’l tell you only for Olga for the first time and if you get bored let me know.
And from my turn I want you to know  that it will be very interesting for me to know about your friends in the childhood and may be they are people who you are still talking to.
That’s actually about my and Olga’s friendship.
We’ve been going for one school since first grade for ten years. And we used to be the very very very best friends.
It is impossible to describe, how much fun we had together and how many interesting things we had done.
There was a company of young people when we were 14- 15 and we had great parties and what not usual for Russian teenagers we didn’t smoke or drink or used drugs.
You might not believe that but it is true. We were not only about learning school lessons we loved to hang out with friends but we have never tasted all those “bad” things that teenagers do.
We knew how to have fun or to make other people laugh without “additional help”. So we had a great youth together with Olga but then after school our ways of life became apart.
By the way I have tried alcohol and smoking later on in the university but I didn’t like it so I do not smoke and do not drink alcohol at all.
After school I decided to go to the university and to continue my education. And Olga decided that her role in this world is to be a good wife and a good mother.
So all these five years that I have studied in the university Olga had been trying to make a family. And finally she succeeded.
Now she has a decent husband and a beautiful baby-girl and we started to become more close to each other again as she felt that she achieved something very important in her life.
And I do agree that having a good family and healthy children is very important and this is actually happiness that now all people have.
But back in those days I truly couldn’t understand why she is wasting so much time on men who she thought could be her husband and who was not very good in general.
She could spend the best part of her life (that’s how usually years in the university are called among students in Russia) having so much fun and getting to know so many new things.
I do accept her point of view but I think it is not the way to make a family looking for a husband in each man that you meet.
It should be a feeling that you are ready to live with this person till the end of your life no matter what. And it is impossible to feel that when you meet a person for the first time.
So now we don’t hang out with Olga though we are back to our friendly relationships and I should say that I am extremely glad of that.
Tell me how your school and college years were like? What interesting and crazy thing have you done when you were young? What your friends were like? Guys who liked to study carefully or to hang out and to go on parties? 



Diesmal gab's keine Bilder. 

Good evening my darling xxxxxxx!
I’m writing to you again in the evening, it is time of the day when I have a lot of free time as the majority people in the world do. But to speak frankly sometimes I feel very lonely in the evenings… Do you have this feeling at all? 
I like evening because I have an opportunity to rest after  the work, to meet my friends, to watch an interesting film or to cook something delicious but… as the times flies and thoughts about loneliness come to me more often.. and sometimes when even my parents are home I feel lonely with every cell of my skin. And I can’t say that I’m not communicative, I do have rather many friends who I meet with from time to time but then when  I come home I feel that I miss something that I need much more than that.
All of my friends have families and children and we mostly meet on Fridays and tell each other everything that happened in our lives this week. That my walk with my friend Olga was kind of exception and I should say that very pleasant exception.  And other people that were in my life in college or in school either moved to another bigger city, got married or became heavy- drinkers. So there are not that many people that is interesting for me to talk to. And only my girl- friends who speak practically only about their children are people that I want to see and to talk. I don’t have children but when  my friends tell stories about them or just discuss their problems    I like it and I take part in their conversations as I will be  mother in future too. And I love to play and to spend time with kids because there are very open and they just start i getting to know our big world and it is so wonderful to help them do it. My own children is something that I
dream of with all of my heart. But I don’t want to have a baby just for myself like some feminist women do. I want to give a baby to my future caring and loving husband who will be happy to share this pleasure and responsibility of growing up a child with me. I think that kids that don’t have a mother or father or whose parents are divorced are very unhappy as they love both of the parents and can’t choose one. For child to grow healthy physically and mentally both parents are just required. And I’m sure that I will have such a family, my own small world or even a planet that will consist of my husband and my children. I even can imagine how happy we will be spending evenings together.
Now that  I haven’t met a person that will be a part of me yet, I do get prepared to this moment to come. I like to cook very much and I think that a woman even in the modern world o f fast food should feed her family with delicious and healthy dishes. I cook Russian traditional dishes. My favourite ones are cakes with potatoes. I love trying something new every time that I cook. I also love Italian cuisine for example. I do a very good lazzania and pizza. And I try to make them very Italian. And what do you  like to eat? Is there something special that you can eat often or may be that you have to eat often because the lack of the time?
Or maybe you like to cook yourself. You know I often hear form TV and from my own friends that men are better cookers than women but to tell the truth I’ve never meet one who cook better than me or who at least can cook something more difficult than fried eggs…=) Would you disapprove that? =)
I love to cook for someone. If I don’t invite my friends with their children over I cook just for my parents but it always should be not only for myself. I don’t feel comfortable living just for my own self, only egoists do so. By the way soon I’m going to do the kids party. Olga when we met the last time is going to baptize her baby-girl and she wants to make the party. She asked me to help her organizing that and I of course I agree. I love kids so much so their happy faces will the best gift for me. And  after I do so I’ll of course tell you how was it, ok. I’m not sure right now but we plan to do it in a week or so.
So tell me what would you like me to cook for you? You can desire everything you want or even several dishes. And I promise that when we meet sooner or later I’ll cook that for you. And if I haven’t cooked those dishes before I promise to learn how do that, I hope that will be something very special.
Have sweet dreams, dear xxxxxxx!
Marina!

Hier ist neue Post von Marina. 

Milii moi xxxxxxxx, zdravstvuii! 
That how the phrase ‘Hello my darling’ sounds in Russian. The first lesson of Russian language can be considered finished.=)
You know I started thinking about you and about us after I wrote you the previous letter and still can’t stop to do that. You are always on my mind when I get up, when iam at work and especially when I come back home from work.
It’s been not so long since we started talking but I don’t how you became very close person for me. For me you became the man who I looked for I think. I want to talk to you about everything in the world and more about you… I don’t afraid to seem silly to you or to say something that might seem strange… Misunderstanding can happen between all people even between though who speak the one language and have the same picture of life. And it is very surprisingly for me that we don’t have such problems yet. I mean for it is very easy to understand you and I feel everything you tell me. And how is it for you? Is talking to me a pleasure to you and would you like to bring our friendship to the new step?
After my last serious relationship that was 3 years ago I’ ve never met such man like even someone who would be close to you… and here you are, a person from another country, living your own life and not realizing all the realities of our my life… and we find something in common.. I would say a lot in common… isn’t it amasing?
You know i imagine so vivid us doing something together…mmm… for example playing table- tennis or valley-ball in the summer or may be ice-skating or skiing in the winter.?? Well these all are mine hobbies. Cooking is not the only thing that I like to do when I have some free time. Or we can try to do together everything you would want. What would be that? What do you see us doing together? I hope you see something=) and it’s not just my dreams…
But I should say that my dreams are very very sweet. And if in my dreams we have an opportunity to be together then I’d prefer not to wake up…
There are so many things that I want to tell you but I can’t find the right words for them in English, there are no enough epithets and metaphors to express everything that is not just in my mind but also in my heart and in my soul. We Russian people don’t have feelings in our head (though physically it is supposed to be so…) We cherish kindly feelings for our friends and our family with all of our open heart. And if we hate someone then we hate with all of our heart. But as for me I’m not an aggressive person. I can’t even say that I hate someone because I always try to find in any person something that I can love him or her for and if she or he offended me for some reason I would hardly take vengeance. I would prefer to forgive that person and let it go…
And what about you?  I don’t think that you are aggressive but it is interesting for what would you say.. Are you able to forgive the people’s offense or would you take the revenge anyway? Or are there such things that you can’t forgive. For me, there are. It is betrayal. Betrayal is something that I can’t go over with and because of that I don’t betray and I can’t even imagine myself betraying someone… I think there is can’t be another reaction to such an action..
My darling, my eyes are sleepy and I can hardly ever see what I am typing… I do write to you everything I think and what comes to my mind. I am trying to be open with you in all my feelings and I truly hope that you appreciate it…
I kiss you good night. Have wonderful dreams...
Marina!



Zitat:


Ein bisschen weiter bin ich schon. 

Marina hat geschrieben. 

Solntse moe, dobrii vecher xxxxxxx!
It means Good evening my sun! We usually call ‘sun’ a person who lights up our life. And you do light up mine so I can definitely say that you are my sun. And if there would be clouds in the sky I will still smile because I know that I have you in my life and this thougth is enough to make me smile and to feel loved.
This letter of mine will be rather shirt compared to the previous ones because I came home just for a several minutes just to write the answer to you and after that I’m going back to work and then in the evening my parents and I we are leaving our town to visit our relatives who live 500 kilometers from us. It is a rather long road so we are going there for 1 or 2 days.. I’m not sure if they have internet over there because the town they live in is small too. But if they do, do not doubt that I’ll write you from there. I also have to say that 
I’m so glad that you too want to meet in real place and to tell the truth I was worried writing you previous letter that you will answer that it is not time yet for us to meet or you are not ready for that or something else. I think if you write so I would be so ashamed that I hurried. But I thank god that our thought are so similar and we practically think about the same things… Could I be ever happier than that? May be only when we meet…
You are idea to come to you for me make sense. And I think I might have a friend who works in a travel agency and tell me all the details… I’ll try my best to find it our as soon as possible.. We don’t have travel agencies in my city so I have to go to the city where I studied in the university. I know that there plenty of agencies over there in spite of the difficult economic situation in the world in general and in our country especially.. and the politicians say that situation going to be only worse..
Anyways I’ll try to find everything out  when get back home. I’ll try to keep in touch with you during my long weekend! I promise that I try my best to do so!
Take care xxxxxxx! Have a wonderful day! And I hope my trip will be ok and nothing bad happens with me during my way there or back!
Marina!

Jetzt die Adresse von sweetheart. 

Hello my love xxxxxxxxx!!!
My darling I so am glad to see your letter. Dear why you so long didn't write to me. I the last time have written to you on April, 29th. And today already on May, 5th. I will be glad that you to help me with money. xxxxxxxxx I now will write you the data.
My full name and surname: Marina Rybakova
The country: Russia
The address: Polevay 9
The postal index: 424000
xxxxxxxxx you to me too write please the data. I will look forward to hearing my sweet. At last we will meet. Kiss Marina.

Der Ausweis ist da. 

My darling I thought that you have forgotten me. It to have a good time with friends. Dear and you when will help me with money? I have written you the data. I only don't understand what for to you my passport? It is not difficult to me to put a copy of my passport. But there all is written in Russian. And you will understand nothing. I will look forward to hearing. Kiss Marina.