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Stardog
Frequent Guest
Joined: 12 May 2005
Posts: 12
Location: USA
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 Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 7:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Jutrzenkapolska wrote: | | Well what do you expect if you hang out with junkies , punks and goths, Stardog. |
LMFAO!!!! OOOOOhhhhh.... did I strike a nerve?? Sorry. My comments were probably out of order, and like I said...I didn't mean to offend, and DID say that there were some good ones. And also said that perhaps you weren't one of the shallow ones, but you have proven yourself to be exactly that. What's wrong with Goths and Punks? Alot of them are VERY intelligent, they just prefer to live outside the mainstream. BUT, forr the record......the ONLY people I actually "hang out" with are NOT goth or punk. Friend #1: a cop, Friend #2 and his wife Works for UPS And My Girlfriend- Legal Seceratary, VERY beautiful and VERY down to Earth. Other than that, I stay to myself, I don't drink, and I don't do drugs. |
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Stardog
Frequent Guest
Joined: 12 May 2005
Posts: 12
Location: USA
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 7:48 pm Post subject: |
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| e wrote: |
Star: Wont say that your wrong, but then again, i've seen that in lots of foreign women too. Probably more often than American chicks. Go to any Russian bride hunting website and see if some of those women fit your profile. You'd be suprised. |
As much as I think a Russian woman may make a good bride for me, I already have someone here who I love very much. So that's a big no on the Russian bride thing. BUT I have seen those sites you mention. They are all very educated it seems and most look pretty good. But the thing I like best is that they have been deprived of so many things that are taken for granted here, that they would probably be more appreciative of say, a middle or lower middle-class husband than women here are. |
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e
VIP
Joined: 23 Apr 2005
Posts: 654
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 8:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | They are all very educated it seems and most look pretty good. But the thing I like best is that they have been deprived of so many things that are taken for granted here, that they would probably be more appreciative of say, a middle or lower middle-class husband than women here are. |
Star: you misunderstood what I said. But then you said it in your repsonse. Its because they have been deprived of those things are why a majority of them are on those bride-hunting sites: --to jump ship to the west where they can get those things. Thats why you see some of them here in the US or Europe with guys they wouldn't be caught dead with in Russia: for green cards for them and their kids and access to jobs, money, opportunity, etc. Its not just Russia either but women from all over the world. I've personally known of 3 instances where this has happened including an ex-girlfriend of mine. Not to say that all of them on those sites are like that, but most of them are.
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Jutrzenkapolska
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Joined: 16 Sep 2004
Posts: 534
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 10:12 pm Post subject: |
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You said the majority of women in the US will sleep with men for money or drugs. That's out of line.What kind of women do you know?! Hey, I'm an American and I've never slept with anyone for money, drugs, or because he talked with an accent  Have you Cyndy?
And btw, what do you think it shows about you that you issued a blanket statement generalizing close to 150 million of the world's people? Even if you've sort-of retracted it... |
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Stardog
Frequent Guest
Joined: 12 May 2005
Posts: 12
Location: USA
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| Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 4:05 pm Post subject: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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Lol....why do you need Cyny's help to bash me? And I never retracted anything. I stand by what I said. And that's ALL I got to say about that! Everyone is entitled to thier own opinions, just remember that.  |
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e
VIP
Joined: 23 Apr 2005
Posts: 654
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| Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 7:23 pm Post subject: |
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If I recall, it was actually blaked who made that blanket comment about women in America and drugs and sex. It was actually Polska and Cyndy who who went and made a blanket statement calling you and all goths and etc junkies and bad bad people and so on.
Anywho, to put things back on course regarding the point of this thread. I found this nice photo blog about Kiev. The place looks great and it defrocks Blaked and everyone else's crap about Ukraine being a misreable place:
http://www.trekearth.com/search.php?phrase=kiev&type=&search=Go
Last edited by e on Thu May 26, 2005 7:56 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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e
VIP
Joined: 23 Apr 2005
Posts: 654
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| Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 7:38 pm Post subject: |
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Someone emailed me this article about Ukrainian bride chasing that you never hear about: when the girl comes to the US with the creep she marries. Also an interesting look at the type of guys who do the Sex tours and bride chasing. Call it the dark side of Winston if you will.
| Quote: |
From Russia, for love
By Jane O. Hansen
December 6, 2004
Those who hear Katerina Sheridan's story wonder how she could have been so foolish. How could she marry a man she hardly knew and go to a land she had never seen?
But the college-educated woman is neither stupid nor naive. Whatever doubts crossed her mind, whatever risks she knew she was taking, paled in the face of a lifelong dream and the desire to escape a harsh reality.
Like young women everywhere, Katerina grew up with the hope that someday she would find her prince. Her personal fairy tale had a Russian motif: The hero would brave the cold of Siberia to rescue her from her homeland, a place with little opportunity and little hope for love.
THE ARTIST: Katerina grew up in a family of artists, surrounded by Russian opera and ballet, and dreaming about the prince who would rescue her from the hardships of Siberia. 'Because I'm an artistic, emotional personality, you can create a person you fall in love with.'
Katerina became what many call a mail-order bride, marketed along with thousands of other "beautiful young ladies" by a company based in Atlanta.
Her journey began when a friend suggested she submit her photograph to a catalog produced by European Connections. The 12-year-old, family-run business calls itself an international marriage broker, "the first and largest" to arrange romance tours overseas. Its Web site boasts a database of more than 30,000 women, all from the former Soviet Union, making it one of the largest mail-order bride companies in the country.
Katerina was 22, tall, blond and striking, and she described herself in the catalog: "Live a healthy lifestyle, am romantic, kind, honest, faithful, loyal." She also possessed what many men want in a mail-order bride: "old-fashioned values."
In the world of international matchmaking, that phrase is meant to describe what some people say American women lack. It means the women put their husbands first, rather than careers. They're sexy, well-groomed and would not be seen in public wearing sweat pants or a baseball cap. And they have no expectations of being treated as a man's equal.
They typically come from impoverished countries where they have fewer rights or opportunities and where violence against women is often condoned. American men appeal to them because they have heard they are more respectful of women, more devoted to their children and more capable of providing for their families. Each year, a few foreign brides lure men into marriage under false pretenses, then abandon them once safely in the United States. But most are simply searching for a better life.
Like Katerina, these women often know little about the men they're marrying. While U.S. immigration laws require foreign brides to undergo intense scrutiny of all aspects of their lives, the men who court them need reveal only what they choose.
Six years after becoming an international commodity, Katerina's strawberry-blond hair is darker and less coiffed, her makeup more subtle than in her catalog photo. Her wide-spaced brown eyes, pert nose and full cheeks are the same, but her smile appears more genuine than the alluring gaze in the photo. And instead of wearing a low-cut black blouse, she's dressed this day in khaki cargo pants and a T-shirt.
Her story is nothing like the one she envisioned — not a fairy tale, but a cautionary one. She's willing to have it told, in part, because so many women who came of age during the fall of communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union are searching for husbands the same way she did. A study this year found 119,649 listed on Web-based marriage sites, 655 of them from Katerina's hometown.
The men who typically seek mail-order brides are white, middle-aged and financially secure. Many are just shy, or gun-shy from divorce, still hoping to start families but having trouble meeting younger American women of childbearing age. Others are "dominating control freaks who wanted a wife just like Mommy," according to the author of a landmark study for Congress on mail-order brides. Robert J. Scholes recommended the men be screened because too many were expecting "a totally submissive sex slave."
The federal government doesn't keep tabs on internationally arranged marriages. (European Connections alone estimates it has facilitated as many as 12,000 since it began.) Nor does the federal government record how many of the women in those marriages are divorced by their husbands, deported or victimized by abusive men. But some experts say the men hold all the cards, and the inherent imbalance of power is a recipe for domestic violence. They support a bill before Congress that would rein in the unregulated industry which, according to immigration experts, has more than doubled in the last five years.
Although Asian women used to dominate the trade, today business is booming for those marketing women from the former Soviet Union. Like Katerina, the women are driven to escape a country in political and economic upheaval, where alcoholism and unemployment are rampant among men, and women are taught their only chance to survive is to marry young and well.
Soon after her photo was published, in the May-June 1999 catalog produced by European Connections, Katerina began receiving an average of 10 letters a week. Most of the suitors were Americans, but English, French and Spanish men also wrote her. By June 2000, she got her first letter from an Atlanta man.
In his letters and weekly phone calls, Frank Sheridan seemed so kind and attentive, more "excited" than the other men who wrote. From the picture he sent, she considered his looks "in the middle." She didn't care that at 45, he was 22 years older. The only question was: Would he come to Siberia?
"A woman's pride, you don't go off to him," she says. "He as a man, he has to make some effort. Because we know we are beautiful. Let him come and fall in love with you. That was the whole fairy tale."
From an early age, Katerina was in love with the dream of what life could be. She grew up in a family of artists and was enrolled in the arts university. Her real-life fantasy was one of adventure and included the "kind, caring, loving man" she described herself as seeking in her catalog profile. But many suitors were not willing to travel so far to meet her. "Only the brave come to Siberia," she says.
Frank was willing. He told her he couldn't wait to see her. He called her his "Siberian princess."
"That's what makes the fairy tale complete," she says. "He gave me hope for myself. I'm going to see another world through him."
In a short time, she began to develop feelings. "When you are waiting for somebody, you're creating the prince in your mind," she says. "You feel in love with somebody because he comes here, because he spends money on you, he spends money on the trip."
Russian art and literature are rich with fairy tales. As a child, Katerina watched them come to life onstage, in the Russian ballet theater where her mother created costumes. And she listened whenever her mother read aloud the magical tales. When she became an artist herself, it was only natural that one day Katerina would re-create the Russian fairy tales.
Her paintings capture colorful rainbows and flowers and powerful men in elaborate costumes. One depicts a fair-haired prince in a flowing blue cape. He has dashed in on his horse, his shield and spear ready. Below him is a fair maiden on a golden horse. The two gaze into each other's eyes.
The painting hangs today in a shelter for battered women.
The shiny red truck
Frank Sheridan was known around Cherokee County by his big red truck. The fastidious plumber, owner of Able Enterprises Inc., kept that Ford pickup so clean and shiny, people said you could see your reflection in it. He also dressed well for a plumber — crisp white button-down shirt, his graying hair neatly combed.
A divorced father in his mid-40s, Frank lived alone in Towne Lake, a subdivision in Woodstock where houses sell in the $200,000s. He owned a yellow stucco, two-story home with three bedrooms, a green door and a two-car garage that he bought in 1996 after moving from Connecticut.
Among those who hired Frank to do plumbing work was Brett Douglass. In 1999, the two learned they shared an interest in motorcycles and began riding together — Frank on his Harley-Davidson, Brett on his 1100 ACE.
Like Frank, Brett was divorced. To meet women, he had recently subscribed to "A Foreign Affair," an international marriage broker based in Phoenix that rivals European Connections as the nation's largest. Brett showed Frank the company's Internet site featuring thousands of photos and mini-profiles of women from around the world — including Colombia, Costa Rica and the Philippines, but primarily the former Soviet Union.
A Foreign Affair, like European Connections, does most of its business through the Internet, where it operates a Web site called loveme.com. Subscribers like Brett pay an initial fee of $95 to get as many as 100 addresses from the company's database of 40,000 women. If they remain members, they pay $19.95 each month for an additional 100 addresses. Or, they can purchase individual addresses for $9 apiece.
As on many matchmaking sites, patrons of loveme.com can search for women by age, height, weight, hair color, religion, country and how many kids they have. On some sites, men can also narrow their prospects according to whether the women speak English, smoke or drink.
For serious suitors, A Foreign Affair conducts 11-day romance tours similar to those run by European Connections that cost up to $3,500 for round-trip airfare and lodging at four- and five-star hotels. In July 2000, Frank and Brett joined 17 other American men and one Brit on a tour to Kiev, Ukraine.
The trips include three "socials" — dress-up affairs with food and champagne where 20 men meet and mingle with as many as 200 women. Like a game of musical chairs, each man rotates from one table of women to the next. His assignment is to talk briefly to each of five women at the table, determine whether he's interested and, if so, get a phone number for a later date. Interpreters stand by to help.
Although it may look like a cocktail party, the social is designed with efficiency in mind — so the men can meet as many women in the shortest time possible, until they experience that flash of chemistry with just one.
During his time in Kiev, Frank dated at least one woman he met at a social. His treatment of her shocked and sickened Brett, who had never observed Frank with women before.
Embarrassed by the details now, Brett says Frank had cozied up to a young, attractive concert pianist. She was 18 years old. "He always picked on the younger, more vulnerable types," Brett says. After Frank took her out, he bragged to Brett that he'd forced the young woman to perform oral sex. "And when I say forced, I mean forced," Brett says. "That was the point I realized he was a creep. He was an animal."
Although Frank was already corresponding with Katerina, he did not try to meet her on that trip. But two months later, after many love letters and phone calls, he flew to Siberia, just as Katerina had hoped.
Escape from Siberia
Her hometown, Novosibirsk, means "New Siberia," but is known as "the Russian Chicago." It is Russia's third-largest city, where the Ob River cuts a swath through the middle and winter snows can freeze your eyelashes into icicles.
Katerina and her mother waited five hours at the airport after Frank's plane was diverted because a smoky bog blocked visibility. Her mother considered the delay an omen. When the plane finally landed and Frank appeared, the moment was less than magical.
He looked different. "Older, unhappier, not as much exciting as in the letters or over the phone," Katerina says. Most of all, she noticed he wasn't smiling.
But in the next 10 days, he would rewin her heart, or at least her mind. They walked along the Ob River and watched the magnificent sunsets. She showed him the theater where her mother worked.
For 35 years, her mother has made costumes for the stage, drawing and painting intricate designs on simple fabric. As a child, Katerina would lose herself in the magic of the old, massive, ivory-columned State Academy Opera and Ballet Theater. She watched from backstage as troupes performed operas and ballets, such as "Swan Lake" and "The Nutcracker." She hung around as the performers put on their makeup. Sometimes she dressed up in their costumes and shoes. They all knew the little girl and called her by name.
Now they welcomed her American friend. And as the days wore on, Frank began to smile again and grew back into what Katerina had created in her mind: a sensitive, caring American — so much more open than Russian men.
At the end of their time together, Katerina was nonetheless unsure about her feelings for Frank. After all, she'd known him just 10 days. But on his last night in Russia, Frank did something that would begin to melt her doubts.
They were dining at an outdoor café. It was a cool, breezy evening in September 2000. Frank handed Katerina an engagement ring and asked her to marry him.
She was shocked. In Russia, engagements are sealed by verbal agreement, and there is no custom of ring giving. Katerina couldn't wait to show the diamond to her mother. She told Frank she wanted to think about his proposal, then ran home with the ring.
At the airport the next day, she gave it back to him. Everything was moving too fast, she told Frank. She needed more time. If he would wait, and return to Russia, she would give him her answer then.
At home in Atlanta, Frank promptly applied for the fiancée visa he would need to bring Katerina to the United States. Under American law, she would have 90 days after her arrival here to marry him or go home to Russia.
"I started thinking more yes than no while everything was on the process," Katerina says.
But the complex procedure of getting the visa would require a lot of Katerina. Under federal immigration laws, she would have to undergo a thorough medical examination, pass a complete criminal background check and travel to Moscow for an interview at the U.S. Embassy, where officials would probe into her marriage and family history.
Frank, on the other hand, would need to do little other than sign his name. And while he could get all the information gathered about her, she would know only what he chose to tell her.
It would take nine months for Katerina's fiancée visa to be approved. While she waited, the story of another young bride from the former Soviet Union would make headlines and prompt outrage in the United States. Anastasia King was murdered by her husband in Washington state, never having known he had been married before to another mail-order bride who had obtained a restraining order against him.
King's death, as well as a similar murder in 1995 of a bride from the Philippines, would prompt introduction of the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act now before Congress. The federal legislation would require any U.S. citizen planning to marry a mail-order bride to first undergo a criminal background check. Before his fiancée immigrated here, a U.S. consular official would inform her of any criminal convictions or civil orders against him. She would also receive information about her rights in this country should she become the victim of domestic violence.
"Unfortunately, women meeting their husbands through brokers frequently have little opportunity to get to know their prospective spouses or assess their potential for violence," Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington, testified before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July. Cantwell estimated that more than 20,000 women from around the world have entered the country in the last five years after going through international marriage brokers. Many, like Katerina, are from countries that fail to prosecute domestic violence — including Uganda, Nepal, Pakistan, South Africa, Jordan, Uzbekistan and Peru.
Two of the largest international matchmaking organizations, A Foreign Affair and European Connections, have lobbied against the federal legislation, saying it's designed to put them out of business. Preston Steckel, co-owner of European Connections, and John Adams, co-owner of A Foreign Affair, say they support the intent of the legislation but oppose some of its provisions. Steckel says his company already informs women in its database that domestic violence is a crime in the United States and tells them what to do if they become victims. And he agrees criminal background checks on the men should be provided to prospective brides before they marry. "She has to provide it, so he should too," he says.
But they oppose requiring every man who wants to use their services to first disclose whether he has ever been in trouble with the law. Steckel points out that the far larger domestic matchmaking services such as Yahoo Personals and Match.com do not have to collect that information — and would be exempt under the proposed legislation.
Shortly after the bill was introduced, more than 1,000 Russian women who were attending socials operated by A Foreign Affair signed a petition against the legislation. They believed the measure could cut off their chance at happiness, stability and family — the very things Katerina was pursuing.
She knew nothing about American law and the protections guaranteed to women. But she wasn't thinking about that as she eagerly awaited Frank's return to Siberia. And although she would glimpse a side of him she hadn't seen before, it would not keep her from pursuing her dream.
It was January 2001 when he returned. The temperature was 40 degrees below zero, and the pipes had frozen in the apartment Katerina shared with her mother. There was no hot water, and the sun was down by 4 p.m. One dark snowy afternoon, as they walked back from a grocery store, Katerina ran ahead to get out of the cold, telling Frank to hurry up. Furious at her impertinence, he dropped the groceries in the road and screamed he no longer wanted to marry her. He was returning to America.
"I never saw him that way," she recalls. "I got scared." Katerina convinced herself it was just her harsh, cold homeland that had gotten to him. She understood, and she forgave.
Four months later, a letter arrived from the American Embassy in Moscow, summoning Katerina for her formal interview. In June 2001, Frank returned to Siberia to accompany her on the three-hour flight to Moscow. Katerina said goodbye to her mother, her best friend. If the interview went well, the couple would continue to the United States.
When Katerina envisioned her new home, she saw the arid plains and wide, open spaces of the American Westerns she'd watched on TV as a child. But it was Atlanta that welcomed her on July 5, 2001. Katerina had two overwhelming impressions: She'd never seen so much green, or felt such humidity.
Frank's house in Woodstock was better than she'd imagined, very neat and clean, and the well-kept cul-de-sac was lovely. On their first night in America together, they sat down for a meal Frank had prepared: a can of Progresso chicken noodle soup. There was no such thing in Russia, where women are expected to cook from scratch.
Katerina was thrilled.
Housework and sex
Almost immediately, Katerina's life would become a lonely, monotonous existence.
Like many mail-order brides, she had been plucked from a familiar land and dropped into a strange suburb where she barely spoke the language, knew little of the culture, had no money, no group of friends and no identity of her own. She had never learned to drive, so Katerina could go nowhere. Each day, she remained home alone in the big, empty yellow house.
At night, when Frank returned from work, he would remind her he'd spent a lot of money to bring her to America, and he expected something in return.
He was obsessed with cleanliness. He demanded she leave the sponge on one side of the kitchen sink, the soap on the other. Daily, she was to clean and straighten everything inside the stark, sparsely furnished house. If the dishes weren't out of the dishwasher or dinner was not on the table by the time he got home, Frank flew into a rage.
The only reason he had brought her here, he told her, was for housecleaning and sex.
In her loneliness, Katerina turned to her art. She had brought postcards from Russia to help her cope with homesickness. Several depicted Russian fairy tales. She would paint three of those scenes during that isolated time.
In July, they were married by a justice of the peace, in time to meet the 90-day deadline stipulated by the fiancée visa. Katerina would have the church wedding of her dreams in September 2001, but by then, she would no longer hold any illusions that Frank was her prince.
The openness she'd found attractive in him was gone. "However he was over the phone, in the letters, to others, he was not that. He wouldn't say what he thinks, how he feels. It was like two strangers living together. . . . There was just no bond." She missed her mother. She missed people she could talk to, who could understand her. She started thinking about life in Russia. What would it have been like if she had stayed?
On her wedding day, Katerina looked like a model for a bride magazine. She wore a white satin gown with appliquéd roses that she had designed herself and had made by hand in Russia. After the ceremony at the Russian Orthodox church in Cumming, the couple held a reception for their 35 guests at the Towne Lake Hills Golf Club. Katerina was excited to see her mother, who had come from Russia for the wedding. Katerina's only other friend at the reception was Brett Douglass' wife, Yelena, who was from Ukraine and also spoke Russian. The two brides had come to the United States at the same time and grown close as they struggled to learn a foreign language and culture.
Brett and Yelena's marriage would become what Katerina had envisioned for herself. Brett treated his bride like his soul mate. He took pride in her work as she moved eventually into the position of accountant. He regarded her as a remarkable mother to her young daughter. He felt Yelena had completed his life.
Although the Douglasses were there the day Frank and Katerina wed, Brett hadn't felt comfortable with Frank since their trip to Ukraine. Brett had grown up in a violent family, and he recognized an abusive man when he saw one. Before Katerina had arrived in this country, Frank had shown Brett videotapes of himself having sex with other women. "He was filming them without them knowing it," he says. "I was really concerned. I realized there was a real dark side."
The two couples rarely got together anymore, but the women continued to talk by phone weekly. That bond would prove to be a lifeline for Katerina.
A call to 911
Katerina was increasingly afraid of Frank. He seemed to grow angrier and more controlling by the day. Even on their wedding night, he exploded and threatened divorce when she collapsed in bed, exhausted. Frank had expected something more.
At least he never hit her.
On Oct. 5, 2001, less than a month after the wedding, Frank discovered Katerina had unplugged the television without his permission. She would later tell police that as she tried to block him with a pillow, he began beating her about her hips and buttocks. She ran down the hall. He knocked her down and dragged her by the legs toward the bedroom.
"Mrs. Sheridan had visible bruises on her arm that appeared to resemble a hand print," the Cherokee County sheriff's deputy would later write in his report.
Katerina locked herself in the bathroom, but Frank jimmied open the door. When he began closing the blinds and locking the doors, Katerina started screaming, hoping neighbors would come to her aid. She locked herself in another bedroom and waited.
By morning, Frank was gone. The telephone lines had been cut.
Other than Yelena and her husband, who lived too far away, Katerina knew only one other couple she could possibly turn to. They were friends of Frank's. That morning, she walked nearly five miles to their house, then waited outside until they returned from work. She was too frightened to go home, she told them. They let her stay the night.
The next morning, a Canton police officer — another of Frank's friends — took Katerina home to pick up her clothes. But by then, Frank had changed the code on their garage door, locking her out. Katerina had never been allowed to have a house key of her own. The officer called the Cherokee sheriff's department to report that Katerina was the victim of domestic violence.
Later that day, Frank showed up at the couple's house where Katerina was staying, looking for his wife. As Katerina cowered behind a dresser, the woman told him she wasn't there. But he later returned, and the woman suggested they all talk. Sitting around the kitchen table, Frank told Katerina she had no choice but to come home. Part of Katerina still wanted to work out a marriage that was so new. They all agreed the couple should kiss and make up. So Katerina went home with her husband.
Although Cherokee sheriff's deputies filed a report on the incident, including a statement from the woman saying she'd seen the bruises on Katerina's hips and buttocks, no arrest was made, no charges filed. A detective would later try to reach Katerina by phone, leaving several messages with Frank for her to call. She never got the messages.
For the next several months, Katerina tried to figure out what to do. She realized the relationship was doomed. On Feb. 9, 2002, she told Frank she wanted to return to Russia.
What happened next is disputed. According to the Cherokee police report, Frank called 911 saying his wife was chasing him with a knife and had stabbed him in the wrist. Officers found Katerina sitting outside on the front steps and one ordered her to show the knife. When she failed to respond, the officer drew a gun, and handcuffed and later arrested her. Police found the knife in the kitchen.
Frank told sheriff's deputies that he and his wife had argued over "milk" and that during dinner, she had thrown food on him, then grabbed a kitchen knife and begun stabbing him. Katerina told police they had been "arguing about the marriage" when he grabbed the knife, came toward her, then suddenly turned it on himself.
Later, Katerina would describe the stabbing as a confusing, out-of-body experience. When police arrived, she didn't respond to them, she said, because she didn't understand what they were yelling at her. She didn't see their guns because of the bright lights they were shining on her.
"I thought it was a misunderstanding. It will go away soon. Something has happened accidentally, and they're going to find out I was innocent. Because I knew my truth, I thought they're going to learn my truth."
For some time, though, the truth would be Frank's.
After deputies transported Frank to the hospital, they took Katerina to the Cherokee County Jail, where she was charged with aggravated assault, a felony. Bond was set at $15,000.
Only 24, Katerina had no money and no proof of her identity. Frank had taken all of her papers. But she remembered one telephone number: Yelena's.
Katerina would remain in jail for 18 days, but that first day was the worst. When she learned how high her bond was, she believed she would never get out. "It's a morning you think it would be much easier to die than see everything."
To pass the time, Katerina began reading the Bible, and soon she joined a nightly Bible study, praying with the other women in jail, most of whom were there on drug charges.
More than a week passed before Frank came to visit. If she would behave, be a "good, nice wife," she says he told her, he would post bond and she could come home. In hindsight, Katerina believes that had Frank visited her sooner, she would have agreed. "But even in jail, you can get used to life," she says. She told Frank she wouldn't come home until he proclaimed her innocence. He laughed at her and left.
Something had happened to Katerina as she sat in that county jail, so far from the old Russian theater where she'd imagined becoming a ballerina. She didn't know that a confederacy of strangers had been plotting her release since the night she called Yelena. But she realized she could survive, on her own. And suddenly she knew she wanted to remain in this country.
"While I was waiting, I thought I was the happiest there is," she says. "I don't have everything but myself and the Bible. That's what the real happiness is — when you don't have anything."
It suddenly seemed so clear. She'd made a mistake marrying Frank, but he could no longer get to her. She had no one but herself to answer to. And she would not go back to him.
"Just myself — that's the real truth," she says. "I didn't need anything. That's when I started changing."
A rescue by strangers
Meg Rogers was watching television late on a Sunday night when she got a call from a friend. Neil Parker had raised money for the battered women's shelter that Rogers heads in Cherokee County, and he was calling about a woman in trouble.
Parker had met Katerina Sheridan only briefly, at the wedding of one his employees, Brett Douglass. Now Brett and his wife were telling him that Katerina was in jail, accused of stabbing her husband with a butcher knife. Brett believed the charges were bogus and that Katerina was a victim of domestic violence.
She's a mail-order bride from Russia, Parker told Rogers, young and scared and with no friends except her husband's. Would Rogers help?
As head of the Cherokee Family Violence Center, Rogers had to be careful. She didn't want to vouch for someone who might be violent. But her gut told her Brett Douglass was probably right.
"I knew that mail-order brides don't have power in the relationship," Rogers says. "So it would be very unusual for her to be aggressive or jeopardize her status here."
Until 1994, the immigration status of a woman in Katerina's position was tied to the support of her American husband or fiancé. Before marriage, and even after, a violent or abusive man could hold over her the threat of deportation if she complained to police.
Today, under the Violence Against Women's Act, abused women can apply directly for permanent residency, without their American partners' help. The number of women who have done so has grown steadily, according to a 1999 report to Congress. Citing limited facts and data, the study failed to prove a link between mail-order brides and domestic violence. But it did find that lack of regulation over the booming international matchmaking trade means "the potential for abuse in mail-order marriages is considerable." It called for better monitoring by the federal government and "education of vulnerable women" — like Katerina.
By the next day, Rogers was in touch with Brett, and the two began conspiring to get the young woman out of jail. They soon realized they would need her husband to bail her out. But he seemed content to let her sit there. "He was punishing her," Rogers says.
So they hatched a scheme. Brett and Yelena would urge Katerina to tell Frank she had decided to change her ways and become a good, compliant wife. Once Frank paid her bond, law enforcement officers would escort her to Rogers' secretly located shelter for battered women.
Rogers sent a Russian interpreter to comfort Katerina and assure her she would have a safe place to stay once she got out of jail.
As the day drew near, Rogers grew nervous. Several people had roles to play if they were to fool Frank, and the ruse could easily unravel. Rogers hardly knew Brett, who was communicating the plan to Katerina through his wife during their visits to jail. And she'd never talked to Katerina, who was putting her faith in people she had never met.
On the night of Feb. 27, 2002, nearly three weeks after his wife's arrest, Frank went to the office of Bail Bonds R Us, less than a block from the jail, and paid a portion of her $15,000 bond to bail her out. The bondsman, James Turner, then went to the jail to sign for her release. Frank waited behind, expecting Turner to return with Katerina.
But under the cover of darkness, after Turner walked in the jail's front door, Katerina was led out the side and into the car of two sheriff's deputies, who whisked her away to the shelter.
That night, a furious Frank called the shelter hotline, impersonating the bondsman and asking that Katerina be returned to complete some paperwork. When the ploy failed, he called the bondsman and accused him of having an affair with his wife. Finally, he tried to revoke her bond by withdrawing his name, meaning he would no longer guarantee that she would appear in court. He forfeited his $1,500 down payment on her bond just to see a bounty hunter go after Katerina and lock her back up.
" 'I brought her over here, and I made her,' " Turner recalls Frank saying.
Although Turner, a former private investigator, wasn't easily swayed by sympathetic tales, he too would take a risk for the young Russian bride. He saw how alone and vulnerable Katerina was. She was Frank's obsession.
"It was what you think about when you think of a mail-order bride," Turner says. "She came over here to make better, and he basically wanted a slave."
Turner warned Rogers that Katerina should turn herself in, but if she didn't, he would be in no hurry to find her.
Rogers immediately went to work on the district attorney to get the bond reduced and the charges dropped. Although Katerina was safely in the shelter, she was at risk of being picked up and returned to jail. In addition, under federal immigration laws, she could be deported if convicted of a crime.
Frank, with both goals in mind, began badgering the district attorney's office with warnings that Katerina was a flight risk. At the same time, he started divorce proceedings and contacted the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to withdraw his support for her visa and get her deported.
It didn't take long for Cherokee Assistant District Attorney S. Kevin Barger to see that Frank wanted Katerina behind bars not out of fear, but because he wanted to control her. Frank had impersonated the bail bondsman and even called Barger's office, "unequivocally" threatening to alter Katerina's immigration status.
In April, Barger dismissed the charges against Katerina, finding that Frank "with his own behavior rendered himself unbelievable." By then the state had also issued a temporary restraining order against Frank, banning him from any contact with Katerina.
If Frank was angry before, Rogers reasoned, now he was dangerous.
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cyndy22
Lounge Wizard
Joined: 15 Oct 2004
Posts: 1078
Location: massachusetts
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| Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 8:31 pm Post subject: |
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E,
All I said was that my impression of Srar's initial photo was that it looked a little scary and that perhaps his persona scared off some women. I did not say he was bad in any sense, so please don';t put words in my mouth.
I will say however that physical attraction is based on alot of things for men and women. Like it or not 1st impressions do get noticed and matter atleast initially when we meet others. And people have theor own preferences for what type of partner they are more attracted too. For example I find men who are personable, interested in a variety of things, articulate, generous, show warmth and have strong character appealing. There needs to be some chemistry too. I have never been attracted to a guy based on wealth or drugs, yet I am not attracted to men who are lazy either and avoid work. I admit that I do find some accents sexy, but not all and it is just not the accent but additional aspects of the person that makes this man attractive. For example there is a Polish guy I know,, who I find attractive. He is easy to talk too, smart, has a sense of humor, is kind of good looking and warm. His Polish accent adds an exotic quality and cultural appeal. I joke around and tell my Polish friends that if I wasn't married I would be all over this guy. He even brought me roses when he came to a party at my house! But he is not perfect either. He is twice divorced and gos out with much younger women. He is in his early 40's and his new girl friend is 18. |
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overseas_expat
VIP
Joined: 11 Jan 2005
Posts: 612
Location: Moscow
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| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 12:59 am Post subject: |
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You actually read that tedious treatise??
Yikes! Not me. congratulations on your patience.
To e: the abridged version from now on, if you please. I'm not slogging through a wwWinstonWu essay like that. I have a life. Get to the point-- the first rule of journalism. The original article and post weren't half that obtuse. |
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Jutrzenkapolska
VIP
Joined: 16 Sep 2004
Posts: 534
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| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 1:53 am Post subject: |
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Whew! That was a badly written and needlessly long article but I got through it. Terrible what that guy did to the poor woman.
I don't want to get into a flaming war here but I've lived in the US my entire life and I've never seen what this guy is talking about. I think it must be the women he knows.Maybe he should take a closer look at them, what age they are, education, background, history, etc. and report back to us.  There's gotta be an explanation somewhere.
Hey, we helped Wu out by informing him that his girls were obviously scammers, that he was doing all the wrong things and by making it clear that those women were in no way representative of the rest of the country; he just managed to pick all the bad apples in Russia. |
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cyndy22
Lounge Wizard
Joined: 15 Oct 2004
Posts: 1078
Location: massachusetts
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| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 2:31 am Post subject: |
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PLEASE,
I had no interest in reading E's lamenting post. Thanks but no thanks.  |
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e
VIP
Joined: 23 Apr 2005
Posts: 654
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| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 9:17 am Post subject: |
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Sorry about the looong article folks. I didn't think it would be that long. It may have been badly written, but made a nice point about the type of guys that go bride hunting and sex chasing in Russia/Ukraine something you almost never hear about --especially on this website. Also wanted to bring this thread away from the pissing war between Polska/Stardog/Cyndy/Blaked and back to the orginal topic.
Polska: Again: you keep insinuating this stuff about Stardog when he didn't really say any of it, it was Blaked. You should be attacking him. Stardog kinda sorta agreed with him initially only to retract most of it later. Its unfair to continue to assume things about someone you really don't know. Not all American women are shallow and materialistic, but you'd be dishonest if you were to say that none of them are either. |
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blaked
Lounge Lizard
Joined: 29 Dec 2004
Posts: 180
Location: Moscow
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| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 8:54 pm Post subject: |
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| e wrote: | | If I recall, it was actually blaked who made that blanket comment about women in America and drugs and sex. |
Not so... American women are extremely prudish and the only girls in the US of A that will sell it for cash need the cash to feed an addiction. They'd rather rob you though. The US isn't the worst place in the world to find sex, but it's not a haven for one night stands, unfortunately. You have to settle for a fat girlie with low self esteem if you want it quick and dirty. |
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e
VIP
Joined: 23 Apr 2005
Posts: 654
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| Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 10:52 pm Post subject: |
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Uhmmm...thats not what I saw you say:
| Quote: | | You can also always get tattoos (call them 'tats') and piercings, stop eating meat and pretend that you're into obscure bullshit music and films. The easiest way to get sex from beautiful girls in the US is to sell cocaine. |
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vorteks
VIP
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
Posts: 571
Location: European Union
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| Posted: Sat May 28, 2005 12:03 am Post subject: |
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You can try the french accent, it works quite well also blaked, tested and certified  (It works with cops as well, well most of them ) But the touch and feel of us chicks was weird...way too technical, they lacked imagination and sensitivity in the relationship, as if they had to keep control all the time. |
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