Anastasia International Review - Stunning Russian and European Brides

First Look:

Anastasia International is centered on helping you find a beautiful Russian or Eastern European so-called mail order bride. The site’s profiles are comprehensive, allowing you a better peek into each Russian lady’s eyes and into her mind, but the site suffers from a complicated pricing scheme and some new problems with spam.

Pros

• Anastasia International focuses exclusively on Russia, Ukraine and the other former Soviet republics, with over 23,000 up-to-date ladies’ profiles. Inactive profiles are deleted each week.
• One of the site’s best services is direct phone calls to your Russian lady with a live interpreter.
• The company has physical offices that you can visit (in the US and in the former USSR), and customer service by phone.
• Online since 2001 and owned by David and Elena Besuden, a Russian/American couple that met through an introduction service, this site knows the ins and outs of the business.

Cons

• To contact or even read messages from the Russian women you must buy ‘credits’ and redeem them.
• Spam is a growing problem on the site. During my review I received many unsolicited emails from Russian ladies, and to read them all would have required paying for a lot of credits.

How it Works

Like other Russian bride sites, you can search the personals listings on Anastasia International by things like age, height and eye color. More interestingly, you can find women based on their English-language ability, astrological sign and even sort them by “Beautiful ladies first”—although I’m not sure who makes that determination! In any case, they’re all very beautiful women from the former Soviet Union, and you’ll have a difficult time choosing. You can join the site for free, but you have to buy credits to write/read messages from the girls. This adds up quickly as every email you send or receive costs 1 credit, although the price does include translation. Anastasia International also offers pay-as-you-go services for calling the Russian lady of your choice (with or without an interpreter), sending flowers, as well as help in visiting Russia and joining a romance tour.

Anastasia’s search feature is pretty comprehensive, and this is one of the few online dating sites that lets you search by keyword. This expands your search options a lot, and means you can find Russian ladies who might be interested in an activity you like. Try different keywords and see what you come up with! Another suggestion is to check the box for ladies with birthdays coming up soon. It’s a great icebreaker to start off your conversation, and gives you a wonderful excuse to send flowers or a special note on her day. She’ll see that you’re thoughtful, kind and generous right from the start! This site has been in business for a number of years and was always considered trustworthy, but lately the site seems less capable of policing spam or responding to customer service questions. I received lots of emails from women even before filling out my profile completely, which makes me wonder about the validity of all those Russian girls. My advice is NOT to pay to read emails of any girls you haven’t written to first.

Final Thoughts

Anastasia International was one of the first Russian bride sites to offer the whole package of services and romance tours. It has gorgeous Russian women with active profiles, which means it’s possible to find the Russian bride of your dreams, but it also has some less genuine spammers who send unsolicited emails. Until this problem is cleared up, I recommend caution with the site. Only use your credits to read emails of ladies you have contacted first. Russian girls rarely make the first move!