Finding love abroad: 4 success stories

By JENNIFER GOLDBLATT, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published May 20, 2002

Wade and Olga

[Times photo: Daniel Wallace] Wade Kimball wanted a wife who was was "traditional, intelligent and pretty.'' He found that in Olga Lutzenko from Ukraine. She was 19 when they met and had a college degree in music. They've been married nine years and have two children, Kaliste, 7, and Isaac, 2.

BROOKSVILLE -- Before the Internet, before e-mail, before worldwide cell phone calling plans, there was Wade Kimball: 27, disillusioned with dating, channel-surfing on his couch in Beaumont, Texas.

Phil Donohue that day featured men who found mates through mail-order catalogs.

"Most of the guys were 40-something and divorced and looking for the same thing I was. I wanted someone who was traditional, intelligent and pretty. And it was hard to find. I went out to clubs and bars, and I didn't like the materialistic attitude."

Male-ordered brides American men dissatisfied with American women are finding love half a world away. But what are these Russian, Asian and Latin American brides finding?

He sent away for a catalog, picked 18 women and sent letters asking about their backgrounds and philosophies: "All the in-depth stuff that you have to play games with on dates."

The replies began arriving two months later. Olga Lutzenko, a 19-year-old from Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, had a college degree in music and was taking English classes. She included a phone number.

After 18 months of calls and letters, he proposed. He went to Ukraine to meet her, with the understanding that they would call it off if they didn't find each other as interesting in person.

They married Jan. 16, 1993.

Kimball, 37, works for a human resources company. After nearly a decade of marriage, two kids and a move to Hernando County, he says he and Olga are still wildly in love.

"This was a kind of a shot in the dark. But it's like every other thing in life. It's got its big, bad and ugly. But we're still doing it and going strong."

Keith and Olga

LARGO -- Divorced for more than two decades, 47-year-old Keith Klontz had found only friendship material and gold diggers in the personal ads.

Three years ago, he logged on to americansingles.com, where he found Olga, a nurse from Tashkent, Uzbekistan. They exchanged letters and e-mail for two years.

Klontz, an engineer with Fisher Electric Technology in St. Petersburg, was well aware that some women are just after citizenship or money. But his trust was cemented when he traveled to Uzbekistan and found that Olga, her family and her life were just as she described them.

"Somewhere along the line I realized that I was just totally at ease and at peace with her."

He proposed before he left for home.

Olga asked for time to consider, and they made a date to meet in Thailand. There, they decided to apply for a fiance visa so that Olga could come to the United States.

"But it was still on the basis that, 'If it's not right for you, it's okay to decide not to do this,' " Klontz said.

About a week before Olga arrived in Largo, he learned he had Hodgkin's disease. He told her he would understand if she changed her mind. She stayed, through every doctor's appointment and every treatment. They tied the knot Oct. 27, 2000, three years to the day after they met.

"I didn't want to come to America. I wanted to marry a good man," said Olga. "I could have stayed in my own country."

"I thought I was looking for the American woman, business-minded, ambitious, successful," said Klontz, whose cancer is in remission. "She is a great person and a success in her own way, but not the American stereotype."

Kevin and Veronika

[Times photo: Janel Schroeder-Norton] Kevin Nelson met Veronika Tikhonova, a 31-year-old hairdresser from Saratov, Russia, over the Internet. He flew to Saratov to meet her last April and pro? posed after a two-week visit. They married Dec. 14.

NEW PORT RICHEY -- Kevin Nelson, 41, is an electrical assembler with flight simulation company CAE in Tampa.

"I have very little free time. I work a lot of hours, and that doesn't leave a lot of time for going out to bars. Not that I would really be into that if I wanted to meet my wife that way."

There was just something about foreign women that he liked. "They're more traditional; it's hard to explain."

Nelson had been divorced for about a year when he wrote his profile into love@aol.com, a link to classified ads for AOL members. One woman who responded wanted Nelson to buy her a cell phone so she could stay in contact. Another wrote that she had invested all her money in a phone company that had gone bankrupt; she wanted him to send $500 so she wouldn't be out on the street.

"Like I really believed that," Nelson said. "I think I'm a pretty good judge of character."

Finally he found Veronika Tikhonova, a 31-year-old hairdresser from Saratov, Russia, who shared his fondness for dancing, the beach, shopping and amusement parks. They corresponded for four months.

"It was convenient to come home at night, write to her, call and just do it in what little free time I had," he said.

He flew to Saratov to meet her last April and proposed after a two-week visit. They married Dec. 14.

"A lot of my girlfriends here had been interested in how much money I made or the car I drove," Nelson said. "With Veronika it's not like that at all. It's just the love between the two of us."

Mathew and Natalya

[Times photo: Steve Hasel] Mathew Zummo and Natalya Russkya met through the Family International Catalog. For nine months, they talked every Sunday evening for three hours, and then he went to Russia for a two-week visit. They married April 2, 1995.

INVERNESS -- Natalya Russkaya wasn't in the market for a husband or a green card when she put her picture in the Family International Catalog in 1994. She ran a commercial photo studio, and the California catalog company was a customer. She volunteered to put her photo in for a test run.

Three months later, the responses flooded in. Mathew Zummo sent a letter she couldn't ignore. A father of two and financial planner, he included pictures of his young children and a multipaged questionnaire about her values, education and feelings about motherhood.

"He was extremely intelligent, a great writer," she said. "When I read the letter I was like, 'Wow, what a guy.' He seemed like such a caring person."

For nine months, they talked every Sunday evening for three hours. His phone bills were ridiculous. He proposed, then came for a two-week visit.

"It was absolute chemistry," said Natalya, who was living in Blagoveshchensk, Russia.

Three months later, she traveled to the United States with her young son. Mathew and Natalya were married April 2, 1995.

Together they run a financial planning business in Citrus County. Natalya, 34, sells property and casualty insurance. Mathew, 49, provides estate and financial planning.

They plan to adopt one another's kids.

"Everything's working out," said Natalya.

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