Saint Petersburg

[Guido88]

G-Nome

No doubt the salons can be a bittch to find.

This is where cab drivers come in handy. Hop into one and say “Hichu Devushka” and they will take you to one of the many salons you were close to. They get a cut from the salon of what you spend.

Price wise you managed to find the most expensive in town. 6000 rubles for 2 hours is too much. I think the two sites you listed may have been linked, noticed a couple of the same girls advertised on both.

Other option get the two magazines Gandjim posted links for then call and have the girls come to you. Expect to have to make a few calls before you find passable English or call back later and you may have better results. You should be able to get 2 hours for 3,000-4000 rubles. Tell them what you prefer; frequently they will send a couple of girls and you can choose.

Here is a good link to start with.

www.spb.s09.ru

Guido88

[Garden Gnome]

History

How unexpected can life be? While I was posting a few months ago in the Moscow forum that I was going to Moscow, I ended up in Saint-Petersburg for three days (and two nights). So what to do? Internet connection is still old fashioned modem-style (at least at my place) so I was glad I did most preparation before I left, i.e. which sites are worth to visit so I can make optimal use of my limited bandwidth.
According to some posts SPB seems to have an active salon scene though it can be very hard to find the salons at all. So once in SPB I decided to concentrate on salons and indivudualkas (girls who work for themselves). It was not possible to get in touch with normal girls in that short time. Here are my two cents…

Preparation

I first tried to get in touch with some normal girls on www.flirt.ru (aka www.love.mail.ru and many other names…). But it also lists working girls. You can recognize them by a purple line around their photos. However for p4p this site is a drag. It uses lots of old photos from omen.ru, many from other (porn) sites with their watermarks still present, many scanned from magazines, and some even with the playboy logo still on it. Lots of references to non-existing sites, lots of references to traffic measuring sites. Some photos contained a shooting date of decades back, even some back to the 70’s with their orange-and-brown decoration. About 90% fake, I estimate. It is salted with megatons of spam pictures that lead to web sites telling Russian men how to give females an orgasm or how to run an Internet casino.
About the normal girls, I wrote about 50 (in one night) but got no response, so either their English is zero or no-one is interested (anymore) in meeting a foreigner with some cash to spend.

And with 66,000+ entries in SPB, this site rotated quicker than I could browse forward.

Total waste of time.

Lodging

To avoid problems with bringing girls I rented a medium sized apartment at Italyanskaya, close to Nevski Prospekt. It had a quiet and cosy backyard location which made it perfect for my needs.

In SPB

While in Saint-Petersburg I used www.kica.ru. This seems to be a more upscale site with some real beauties on it. It is more expensive too. Prices start at 3000 rubles per hour and some even 4000 or 5000 for one hour. I tried Maya (http://www.kica.ru/categories.php?cat_id=102). She looks as on the photos, but more important: she spoke perfect English so communication wasn’t a problem. She came to my place. Her service was standard (CBJ, few positions, no anal). She cost 6000 rubles for two hours. Nice, though a little expensive, and no GFE.

The second site I tried was www.kisski.ru. This site seems to have a “fair chance” policy for all girls because every time you press the “back” button of your browser to Kisski’s main page, the sequence of the girls is different, as well as their photos. This becomes a real nightmare when you browse back because you remembered a girl. Her main photo and location on the web page is different then. This site lists 30-40 girls and has no search capabilities nor does it list the services the girls provide. Prices start at 2000 – 3000 rubles per hour. Here I tried Sofia (http://www.kisski.ru/categories.php?cat_id=148). In reality she looked a little more overweighed and was certainly older than the 20 years she claimed. I guess these girls take pictures when they are still young and beautiful and use them for the remainder of their professional career. Her service was slightly better than Maya but still a little too professional according to my taste.

I also tried to find one or two salons but none of the operators I got on the phone spoke decent English. They tried to explain me the directions but it ended in a disaster while I was standing on Nevski trying to figure out what they were telling me while the traffic noise of cars racing up and down the Neveski prospekt reached sound levels that went way beyond the sound level that could be produced by my old Nokia. On a certain moment I understood that I was on the wrong side of Nevski, however crossing the street is equivalent to suicide and the nearest underground pedestrian crossing was at least 500 meters away. I had to make a 1 km walk for just 50 meters of street crossing. I just gave up. Maybe next time…

Concluding

Unfortunately I had too little time to prepare my visit. I was told to go to SPB earlier than expected, arranged a business visa for me within 48 hours and was literally thrown into the plane to have discussions with some weird guy who stank, obviously wasn’t sober and kept complaining using the only English sentence he knew: “too little money”. Exploring SPB on you own when you hardly speak any Russian is a real challenge (I only can say a few sentences like “kak dela?” and use machine translation for email and chat.). However I still think that Piter can be a good place to get laid when I had more time to prepare and more time to be there. It isn’t the quality, it’s all about finding your way in Russia at all.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I certainly hope that the author or somebody else will post a link to this report in the Reports of Distinction thread. Please Click Here for more information.

[Piper1]

I defer to your more extensive and more recent knowledge.
I posted mainly because Piper and I have chatted and share some values, so I thought my views might be of useful to him, even if the info was dated.

GT - yes, your views were useful to me. (Same values - you mean we are both very naughty ). In the end I'd like to enjoy both places eventually. How lucky we are to have the choice.

[Super6stud9]

Great info. What is the name in Russian for Pharmatex pill? по-русский язики

Never mind, just googled it, it is фарматекс



". Before the shoots most girls will insert a Pharmatex tablet (available at any pharmacy, and the girls will expect you to provide it) for birth control and to protect against gonorrhea and Chlamydia. Apparently most of the girls don’t use the pill because it has to be taken everyday and they either don’t want to bother or recognize that they aren’t disciplined enough to remember it every day. "

[Firewalkwithme]

I honestly believe you had some bad luck, as St.Pete women really are among the best I've seen and have spent plenty of time in both Russia and Ukraine and not only in the capital cities.

Hi Doc, as you are a senior here and I see your reports on all kinds of Eastern European boards I must simply trust your expertise. ;-) Maybe it was just bad luck but I think I have passed by hundreds and hundreds of woman (not only in Newskij) there and only very very few made me turn my head. On Khreshatik it's a different story and on Deribasovskaja... whooosh!! Awesome.

I'll agree with you 100% that Ukraine offers at least the same quality though, perhaps the question of "which is better" is just a matter of taste. I like both... but give the edge to Russian women because I like their personalities better. I find Russian women to be more honest and have more "dusha" (soul) than their Ukrainian sisters... whereas Ukrainian women do well on physical beauty and what I would call "hominess".

I think you are right here. Ukrainian women are more bitchy than their Russians counterparts. It's always unfair to generalize but from my experiences I wouldn't trust a girl from Ukraine unless I got to know her really really well. Their greed/need for money corrupted their moral totally.

Going to good clubs in either country will reveal more eye candy than you'll believe possible. I was recently at the opening of a new yacht club in St.Pete and even my Moscow friends were stunned. They said they'd never seen so many beautiful girls in one place... and the girls had culture and style too. Was amazing.

Damn! You should have called me! Yacht club opening sounds like a lot of fun. But then, most imporatant is always who do you know and whom you are introduced to. In Peter we only went to Datscha, Red Club, Marstalls... not the best places to go when you want to meet some hotties.

Wasn't my last time in Pieter for sure. BTW I did meet one nice girl there ;-) And the culture of that place is stunning.

[Gentleman Travel]

I disagree that Help disco attracts "lots of eager young semi-pros looking to make a few bucks". It attracts hardcore hookers whose dream client is an unexperienced foreigner without any Portuguese that they can easily overcharge, and then some. But of course, granted, I don't know when you went to Rio... which year? I first went there in 2002, and things were exactly the way they are now.

I defer to your more extensive and more recent knowledge.
I posted mainly because Piper and I have chatted and share some values, so I thought my views might be of useful to him, even if the info was dated.

By semi-pros I meant office girls and students, etc.
They were certainly all for sale, just not all were hardcore hookers.
Obviously it has long since changed and I am not surprised.

Always negotiate prices and services beforehand is a common advice we have given to anyone in Rio.

I agree in principle, but these girls did not want to talk about that at the front end. I don't know if it was part of the pretense of not really being a hooker, or whether they thought they could soak you for more in the morning.
But it was a problem and an added stress.

As to the circumstances where you "should have been safe in", I guess the only thing that matters is that you weren't and didn't know.

This is the thing that pissed me off most. It was almost like a random act of violence, and that is very hard to protect yourself against. Thoughtful and deliberate attacks you can prepare for - stupid and arbitrary attacks you cannot!

To tell you the truth, in Copacabana, you need zero game for the girls, ZERO. IMHO, nobody is impressed by anyone being white, they see so many tourists all the time, anyway. And the girls hanging out in or in front of Help or in other bars along the same lines (Meia Pataca, Balcony) are anything less than impoverished, but simply hardcore hookers preying on newbie tourists.
EA

I didn't really mean white. I just meant being a "Big Man in the Bar." Buying drinks and flirting with the ladies as you make your choice. One of the endearing things when I was there, was that these girls wanted to show off to their friends that they had bagged a man for the night. So there was a little bit of buying drinks and cigarettes for the other girls. Harmless fun and maybe a good investment if you are trying to create a GFE, but a waste of time and money if you are with a hardcore pro.

I didn't really mean to crap all over Rio, but it had always been a fantasy of mine, and the actual experience was somewhat disappointing. Whereas Russia and Ukraine have exceeded my expectations and I hold out hopes for even better experiences as I learn the game.

[Doctor_Skank]

Right. Haven't been to many clubs there. At least not the elite ones. But spent most of my time walking through the streets and despite the great summer weather the skirt-ratio was pretty low. Had been told before that the girls of SPB shall be the most beautiful. So that set the expectations high. For my taste Ukraine is a 100 times better. Can't say about Moscow.

Anyway. Had a great time in SPB during white nights. So I can recommend anyone to go and see it. It's a beautiful town.

FWWM:

I honestly believe you had some bad luck, as St.Pete women really are among the best I've seen and have spent plenty of time in both Russia and Ukraine and not only in the capital cities.

I'll agree with you 100% that Ukraine offers at least the same quality though, perhaps the question of "which is better" is just a matter of taste. I like both... but give the edge to Russian women because I like their personalities better. I find Russian women to be more honest and have more "dusha" (soul) than their Ukrainian sisters... whereas Ukrainian women do well on physical beauty and what I would call "hominess".

Could also be that Ukrainian women are more into displaying their goods these days. Regrettably jeans have replaced the miniskirt as choice of wear in Russia... sure you'll still see plenty of miniskirts, but the days were all women wore miniskirts to show off their legs are history... at least in Moscow/St.Pete. In the south and Ukraine, particularly the Black Sea coast, it seems that every women wears a miniskirt. Makes one happy to be a man... Going to good clubs in either country will reveal more eye candy than you'll believe possible. I was recently at the opening of a new yacht club in St.Pete and even my Moscow friends were stunned. They said they'd never seen so many beautiful girls in one place... and the girls had culture and style too. Was amazing.

One point regarding St.Pete in July:

1) there really are a lot of tourists there for the White Nights... especially on Nevsky, alot of the girls you'll see aren't even from St.Pete, many of the locals avoid the center like the plague to avoid the crowds during that season, especially during the day. They only go there if they have to. If you go to the top clubs (there are several good clubs now) that cater to the upwardly mobile, you'll find plenty of babes.

I also enjoyed White Nights in St.Pete. Especially if you get some sleep during the day, going out at night is great. It isn't my favorite season for mongering though, believe it or not I prefer the winter, despite the cold.

I like to go to the South in the summer and gaze at those long legs and tight butts in miniskirts that you mentioned..

[Firewalkwithme]

Which St.Petersburg did you go to?

I must have missed the short, ugly overweight girls when I've been there... maybe you were just looking at the tourists walking up and down Nevsky?

Try going to an upscale club and tell me again its not full of models.

As for the south, you are right... the streets are full of super hotties in mini-skirts in the summer... of which many are from Moscow and St.Pete on holiday.

Right. Haven't been to many clubs there. At least not the elite ones. But spent most of my time walking through the streets and despite the great summer weather the skirt-ratio was pretty low. Had been told before that the girls of SPB shall be the most beautiful. So that set the expectations high. For my taste Ukraine is a 100 times better. Can't say about Moscow.

Anyway. Had a great time in SPB during white nights. So I can recommend anyone to go and see it. It's a beautiful town.

[Dapa Man]

let me say a few words about el austriaco's comments. i do not want to seem too negative since i have always had a lot of fun in rio and for me it is somewhat of a toss up between the two cities.

as for the beaches, i believe i am correct. i could not walk in the sand because of the sh*t but i did spend a lot of time sitting in the outdoor cafes watching the great looking women in their swimming suits. i remember a young couple at a table near mine that changed an infant’s [CodeWord132] right at the table and then threw the dirty [CodeWord132] on the ground under the table. that kind of exemplifies the attitude people have toward cleanliness.

i did see something there i have never seen anywhere else. skimpily clad hags in their 60’s and 70’s being escorted by 20-year old body builders in their early 20’s. i assume this was the guys’ way of escaping poverty. they really earned what money they made for what they had to do in bed.

walking back to my hotel in the afternoon, i saw a drunk passed out on the street with a stream of [CodeWord109] running across the sidewalk from his cock, which was hanging out. i never saw anything like that in st. petersburg.

i took the cable to the top of sugarloaf but could not really enjoy the wonderful view because of the smell. the kiosks sold some sort of snack made from fried cheese. these rotten half-eaten snacks where everywhere. the trashcans had not been emptied in a long time and were totally full. i took a taxi to the top of the hill having the famous statue, i think it is called christ of corcovado. the ride took me by some of the most depressing shanty towns of squatters i have ever seen.

i maintain rio is only beautiful in photos. on the other hand the people are great and it is the people that make a place enjoyable anyway.

[El Austriaco]

since piper1 posted his questions on the rio board and i read some of the responses there, i decided to take a quick peek in here and see what you guys had to say. after reading some of the “facts” provided here on rio, i decided to correct a few glaring misconceptions, for those that are interested and possibly for piper1, so he can read them here. right off the bat, i have never been to st. petersburg, but i am considering taking a trip there later this year while i am in europe. if anyone is offended by me posting here without any information on spb, i apologize. i hope that with my standing on this board, i will be forgiven.

as to my credentials, i am frequent poster on the rio and several brazil boards, and i have several reports of distinction there, and in colombia as well. i have also reported on el salvador, dr, mexico, and venezuela. as to rio specifically, let me say that i lived there on and off for a total of nine months over four separate trips, i spent some time studying there, i speak fluent portuguese, so i feel qualified enough to provide some factual corrections.

i see in the rio forum that the help disco is still the main pick-up spot, as it was then. a real meat shop, but lots of eager young semi-pros looking to make a few bucks. of course the girls are beautiful enough, but now i am hooked on the slavic types.

just in recent months on the rio board, we had quite a number of reports on very offbeat spots, such as vila mimosa. help disco is still popular, yes, but more and more mongers are discovering places away from copacabana, especially (just like i did starting in 2004). many of these reports are in reports of distinction. the bubba guide always provides a very comprehensive overview of the many different options available in rio.

preferences as to looks are obviously that, preferences, but one of the main draws to rio for me is the wide variety of looks available, from blonds, brunettes, pitch-black hair, every skin color from pasty white to deepest black, and some indian and possibly asian features thrown in for good measure. not to say that the slavic type is not attractive, of course not.

i disagree that help disco attracts "lots of eager young semi-pros looking to make a few bucks". it attracts hardcore hookers whose dream client is an unexperienced foreigner without any portuguese that they can easily overcharge, and then some. but of course, granted, i don't know when you went to rio... which year? i first went there in 2002, and things were exactly the way they are now.

the biggest downer for me was the constant strain of trying to avoid being ripped off - by the girls, by the taxi drivers, by kids on the street - it never ends. i found that very tiring, and sucked the joy out of my trip.

ripoffs happen in rio, yes, just like anywhere else, but with a bit of experience and in-depth research, many can easily be avoided, whether in restaurants, cabs, on the beach, etc. i have traveled extensively in latin-america and i live in mexico, you know, and i wouldn’t say that rio is necessarily worse than anywhere else in that respect. these ripoff attempts and scams are also most common in the area around help, another reason not to be spending a whole lot of time there.

i was threatened by one girl in the morning because i wasn't offering her enough money (prices were not always agreed at time of pick-up, it was more informal than that, i guess to preserve the self-delusion that they were not prostitutes). i could not evaluate her threat, so i kept a chair against the door handle the next night, which cramped my style. i was assaulted another night by a knife-wielding idiot in circumstances that i should have been safe in. girl-militia rip-off teams were common-place.

always negotiate prices and services beforehand is a common advice we have given to anyone in rio. ripoff teams, like for threesomes, is problematic in rio, yes, and that’s why it is advisable to never take more than one to your apartment, ever. only to love motels, nowhere else. you can't take more than one into your companion-friendly hotel, anyway (the hotels know why).

as to the circumstances where you "should have been safe in", i guess the only thing that matters is that you weren't and didn't know. probably more than anyone, i have reported on security and crime matters in rio over the past three years, and there's an extension section on that matter in the bubba guide, too (which includes a lengthy post by, you guessed it, moi).

in may the beaches were cool and underpopulated. no "girls from ipanema"!

cool in may? compared to the 40+ c during carnaval months maybe, but cool? but why there are always girls on the beach, i have to agree with you, not as many as one would expect based on postcards and stuff.

that said, you might be able to get more "white god" factor out of rio, buying drinks and small treats for impoverished chicas. at that time, you could sit outside the help disco and have a beer or two before going in. so many girls would hang out there, hoping to get picked up before having to pony up the entrance fee. one of the great regrets of my life was not pouncing on a table of these girls, who were scooped up by some weak-chinned brit.

to tell you the truth, in copacabana, you need zero game for the girls, zero. imho, nobody is impressed by anyone being white, they see so many tourists all the time, anyway. and the girls hanging out in or in front of help or in other bars along the same lines (meia pataca, balcony) are anything less than impoverished, but simply hardcore hookers preying on newbie tourists.

the place in front of help is now called veranda help and still exists. there are still hundreds of girls there trying to pick up clients, and yes, some are still hoping to get taken inside, too, possibly. about your regrets of not hanging with some girls there, well, what can i say… what was the problem with just going over there or getting them over to your table? they are all hookers, anyway. no decent carioca woman would want to be seen within 100 yards of that whole area.

for me this would have been a better evening than going inside to hunt in the noisy disco, and having to dance!!

hunt? help is a self-service candy store, you just pick who you want. you certainly don’t have to dance to pick someone. i sure never did, and not only because the first time i went, i was on crutches (which, btw, did not prevent me from getting laid, so again, zero game required. the only game you need is cash).

i know you are not expecting to hunt for freebies, but at least in st. p you can pretend to play that game. but if you are used to paying $136 for an all-night, all-you-can-eat slavonic buffet in dubai it sounds like you would have a hard time beating that price in st. p. at the same time, when i was in rio, it was not particularly cheap, but i guess that depends on the proximity to the last economic collapse or currency re-valuation.

rio is no longer as cheap as it used to be, mostly because of the tanking dollar. but then again, when the r$ was at parity with the usd, it was even more expensive, so things aren’t all that bad, while certainly not as good as in 2004 or 2005.

rio only looks good in photos. there are condos along the beaches and every apartment owner has a dog that is walked on the beach so there is sh*t everywhere. the water is not safe for swimming because of ripp currents - people drown all the time. so the beaches are not a draw. the place is dirty, the poverty is more evident.

the areas where tourists are likely to stay, i.e. copacabana and ipanema, look just like in the pictures to me. as to the water is not safe for swimming, true, and nobody should go to rio for taking dips in the water, but honestly, that's pretty common knowledge, every tour book says that. as to the statement that this wouldn't make the beach a draw, ufffffffffffffffffffffffffffff. i just posted a long report about the cultural significance of the beach in brazil and rio in particular in the rio section. if rio's beach life is not a draw for someone, honestly, don't go. seriously.

is there poverty in rio? yes, appallingly so… in areas where you should never tread. as to general cleanliness, well, it’s a tropical country, what more can i say.

i think the easiest way to pick up a girl is to go to a bar.
they could be non-pro, semi-pro, or just fun-loving girls.

rio has hundreds of options to get girls, from termas to escort agencies, the copacabana cafes, cheap centro brothels, vila mimosa. all of them very easy. and as i said in my reply to gt, the girls hanging out in or in front of help or in other bars along the same lines (meia pataca, balcony) in copacabana are nothing but simply hardcore chicks on the lookout for bushytailed tourists, certainly not semipros or girls just looking for fun. no way.

there is much, much more to do in st. petersburg and the food is better.

i just posted a report in the rio section listing some of the more common entertainment options and activities that are available in rio, and even though i haven’t been to spb, i seriously doubt that it could compete with rio's variety (or that many cities actually could, for that matter). food is obviously a matter of taste, but have you ever been to a rodizio in rio? an all-you-can eat restaurant where they offer you about 20 types of meat, a huge salad bar, sushi bar, chinese food, cheeses, deserts, you name it?

thanks for letting me post here, and if nothing else, if someone would be nice enough to perhaps post reponses in terms of how these things are shaping up in spb, it would be helpful for me to during my upcoming trip. i will be doing my homework regardless.

and of course, if anyone is interested in going to rio and requires specific information, i am always willing to help. just pm me.

cheers,

ea

[Doctor_Skank]

I have been in SPB in July for one week and I must say that I was pretty disappointed about the eye-candy-factor. Most girls there you see in the street are not very attractive, quite short, overweight, with ugly faces wearing jeans and sneakers.

If you are really into the eye-candy mini-skirt high-heel model-type you should go to the south. Go to Ukraine. Kiev or Odessa. Nice to watch but also hard to score.

Which St.Petersburg did you go to?

I must have missed the short, ugly overweight girls when I've been there... maybe you were just looking at the tourists walking up and down Nevsky?

Try going to an upscale club and tell me again its not full of models.

As for the south, you are right... the streets are full of super hotties in mini-skirts in the summer... of which many are from Moscow and St.Pete on holiday.

[Dapa Man]

My experiences in St. Petersburg have been somewhat different than Firewalkwithme’s. I found the woman in St. Petersburg to be as good looking as the women in Moscow or Nizhni Novogorad, or Archangel.

Also, how can you beat St. Petersburg during White Nights for things to do.

There are standing jokes and stories about whether Russian or Ukrainian women are better looking. I have been with both and really do not know the answer. I personally prefer Ukrainian women because I think they are more feminine, if that is possible! But I have seen a lot of dogs in Ukraine also. I have also seen a lot of dogs in Rio.

But let me point out, women from Belarus are also extremely good looking as a group and I found it very easy to pick up a woman in Minsk. Belarus is also not so commercial because it remains similar to the old-style Soviet state.

[Dapa Man]

This is a tough one.

Rio only looks good in photos. There are condos along the beaches and every apartment owner has a dog that is walked on the beach so there is sh*t everywhere. The water is not safe for swimming because of ripp currents - people drown all the time. So the beaches are not a draw. The place is dirty, the poverty is more evident.

On the positive side, the people are fun loving and enjoy music. The pace is casual. The girls are more GFE. For $100-$150/night you can have a nicer hotel room in Rio. I think the easiest way to pick up a girl is to go to a bar.
They could be non-pro, semi-pro, or just fun-loving girls.

There is much, much more to do in St. Petersburg and the food is better. If you can pay ~$400/night , then you cannot beat the 3-4 top quality hotels in St. Peterburg. If you wear a business suit and have polished shoes, etc., it is easy to pick up a (non-pro) girl on the street in St. Peterburg. All you have to do is maintain eye contact and flirt a little. Find a pair and invite them for a glass of wine. They will decide after some socializing which one will stay the night. It is also easy to pick up a store clerk or hotel employee and the advantage is they would speak some English.

Unlike Rio, all the hotels have girls that work for them but they are expensive. They will knock on your door at night and the hotel bars are loaded with them. They will not cheat you because they know they will get in trouble if you complain to the security people (they actually work for the security people.) Every taxi cab driver - in fact everyone - is literate so you can always communicate with a note (in Russian). Cyrillic letters are no so hard but you have to do a little homework before going. The Metro (subway) is easy after one or two trips.

This is a real tough one. If it were me, I guess I would pick St. Petersburg but that is probably because I am a history buff. But I have had a lot of fun in Rio.

[Firewalkwithme]

I St. Petersburg in mini-skirt season wil have more eye-candy.

I have been in SPB in July for one week and I must say that I was pretty disappointed about the eye-candy-factor. Most girls there you see in the street are not very attractive, quite short, overweight, with ugly faces wearing jeans and sneakers.

If you are really into the eye-candy mini-skirt high-heel model-type you should go to the south. Go to Ukraine. Kiev or Odessa. Nice to watch but also hard to score.

[Gentleman Travel]

It has been many years since I have been to Rio, but I certainly felt it was over-rated when I went there. Mind you, I was young and inexperienced then, but still the experience fell far short of expectations.

I see in the Rio forum that the HELP disco is still the main pick-up spot, as it was then. A real meat shop, but lots of eager young semi-pros looking to make a few bucks. Of course the girls are beautiful enough, but now I am hooked on the Slavic types.

The biggest downer for me was the constant strain of trying to avoid being ripped off - by the girls, by the taxi drivers, by kids on the street - it never ends. I found that very tiring, and sucked the joy out of my trip.

I was threatened by one girl in the morning because I wasn't offering her enough money (prices were not always agreed at time of pick-up, it was more informal than that, I guess to preserve the self-delusion that they were not prostitutes). I could not evaluate her threat, so I kept a chair against the door handle the next night, which cramped my style. I was assaulted another night by a knife-wielding idiot in circumstances that I should have been safe in. Girl-militia rip-off teams were common-place.

In May the beaches were cool and underpopulated. No "girls from Ipanmema"! St. Petersburg in mini-skirt season wil have more eye-candy. That said, you might be able to get more "white god" factor out of Rio, buying drinks and small treats for impoverished chicas. At that time, you could sit outside the Help disco and have a beer or two before going in. So many girls would hang out there, hoping to get picked up before having to pony up the entrance fee. One of the great regrets of my life was not pouncing on a table of these girls, who were scooped up by some weak-chinned Brit. For me this would have been a better evening than going inside to hunt in the noisy disco, and having to dance!!

I know you are not expecting to hunt for freebies, but at least in St. P you can pretend to play that game. But if you are used to paying $136 for an all-night, all-you-can-eat Slavonic buffet in Dubai it sounds like you would have a hard time beating that price in ST. P. At the same time, when I was in Rio, it was not particularly cheap, but I guess that depends on the proximity to the last economic collapse or currency re-valuation.

2. As Tercar rightly points out, there's an endless supply of 'Russkies' in Dubai (there are probably more CIS working girls in Dubai than in the CIS!). For about US$136 (full night) I regularly enjoy beautiful and very GFE girls from Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, and many of the 'stani republics. For CIS, it's a fun bar scene in Dubai - no salons. Play a bit of pool with the girls, have a few drinks and laughs, then take them home for the night.

Remember the words of many moral philosphers...
"If you are tired of Russian pussy, you are tired of life..."