All Mike Berkowitz says he wants is an attractive, undemanding young woman to marry and help him start a family.
He says he tried American women, but it didn't take.
So the 59-year-old retired Santa Rosa electrician has turned to the Baltic region, for the 49th time.
Over the course of five years, thousands of dollars and through one alleged scam, he remains an advocate of the mail-order bride market, where brokers match foreign women with American men for money.
Berkowitz has even gained a national profile, having appeared recently on the syndicated Tyra Banks talk show.
"Out of 49 women I've dated, one lady scammed me, who I was engaged to," Berkowitz said. "One out of 49 isn't bad."
Sitting outside a downtown Santa Rosa cafe on a hot afternoon, the 1.72m Berkowitz wore a white 49er football championship hat, flowered shirt, shorts and socks with his sandals.
During the talk show he wore a sports jacket.
Banks, a supermodel-turned-talk-show-host, set up a show about mail-order brides, taped in Los Angeles during the spring and recently airing on the Oxygen channel.
Berkowitz was asked to represent the men who seek them.
Berkowitz drew the ire of Banks when he said the oldest woman he's dated in his quest for a mail-order bride was 35, and she gave him a bad time about the age gap.
Still, Banks credited him for being honest in his motivation: From Russia and the Baltic region he can find and date the type of attractive, younger women that won't date him in the US.
He came to Santa Rosa in the mid 1970s via Chico and Arcata. An electrician by trade, he was divorced about 20 years ago. He has no children but still hopes to, he said, another reason for his search for a younger woman.
His turn toward mail-order services, a multimillion dollar industry of hundreds of companies, began in 2002, after hearing that the number of eligible women far outnumbered eligible men. True or not, he was hooked.
In about five years, he said he's made the 20-hour flight to cities such as Kiev, Ukraine, and St. Petersburg, Russia, about a dozen times, at about US$5,000 a trip.
He described many of the women he's met as "Playboy Bunny after Playboy Bunny," who typically wear tight-fitting clothes and look good because they take care of themselves and don't eat fast food.
"I used to date blondes," he said, but he now favors darker-haired women with blue or green eyes, who are taller than him, have undemanding personalities, aren't competitive and want children.
But don't accuse him of being shallow.
"What's the difference between picking a woman there and picking a woman here?" he said, explaining that most people are attracted to a type first, then work on whether they mesh.
The personality requirement has been tougher to match than the desired physical attributes. Of all the women he's met, he said only one has been undemanding.
Many of the 49 women he said he dated only once. He had several dates with some, and he's been engaged twice.
Last fall, Berkowitz brought Elena, 35, home to Santa Rosa.
She lasted 40 days. He sent her home after she began complaining about little things, such as his snoring, he said.
"It's not what I wanted. I can get that here," he said.
About two years ago, he met Sofia from Ukraine. After a brief courtship, they were engaged and he gave her an expensive ring.
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