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Client: Lynn Frieda
From: London, UK
Trip: Business trip to Moscow
Tour: Izmailovo flea market
Where: On a hill; nearby old-style fortress
Date: March 11th, 2007

Lynn Frieda, freelance photographer from London, asked my services to organize for her photo shooting of a series of places in Moscow for a special edition of Departures Magazine (owned by American Express and based in New York City) about Russia.

Organizing photo shooting in Moscow for photographer from "Departures" magazine
(continued from News from Moscow)

Lynn also had requested a special photo shoot near St. Basil using a car from "Pink Taxi" (Moscow transportation service created and run by women to be special taxi service for women). Here we had some problems with a guy from Federal Security. Because we were in the area of Red Square, all professional photo shooting using professional cameras need to have special permission from the Administration of the Moscow Kremlin including payment of a fee. Because I had such short notice for the photo shot, I was not able to receive official permission which is a difficult and complicated process. During our "lovely" (read "intense") conversation, when the security officer insisted that we delete the pictures from the camera's memory card, Lynn even had a thought that he can take away her expensive camera or even send her to prison (this man looked very strict and hard). ). When he asked me to delete the pictures, I tried to translate Lynn his request/order slowly, giving idea that she has to pretend to delete these pictures at least to delete some pictures but not all. Of course it was some risk that he could check her camera, but I tried to keep talking with him to divert his attention from Lynn. After finishing my confident talk I showed Lynn that now we can and after checking that we moved away on enough distance, I impatiently asked: "Did you delete them all? ?", but she responded: "No, I've got all pictures! "

So, at the end of our work everything was OK and we able to accomplish the main task and my client, Lynn Freida, left Moscow with a lot of interesting pictures and exciting memories!

With BEST Regards,
Arthur Lookyanov
Personal Guide & Driver in Moscow
Last Edited: March 23rd, 2007

Random customer's Responses & Recommendations.

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Steve
From: Boston, Massachusetts USA
Date: 2006-12-20 15:29:33

Arthur is absolutely amazing. I was so lucky to discover his website as I was preparing for my first-ever trip to Russia. I read in detail all the recommendations from his other clients, and I studied his web site at length. It was clear he was a consummate professional, and after I emailed him with a few questions (that he replied to very quickly) I enthusiastically booked his services as follows: airport meeting/pick-up at Moscow’s SVO airport (flawless), three full days of driver/guide service throughout the city and countryside (comprehensive, well planned, and really fun!), a stunning Moscow Night Tour drive, and drop-off at SVO airport (where he came inside the airport and stayed with me until I was safely in the correct line, which would have been wildly confusing if I didn’t have the benefit of his help).

I can’t say enough good things about Arthur. His English is fantastic, he’s knowledgeable, professional, detail-oriented, customer-service focused beyond words, dependable, honest, friendly, and has a great sense of humor – I could go on and on but you get the idea. One thing that I particularly liked was the way he collected details about what I was interested in seeing and doing. Then, he added his own thoughts and recommendations and together we created a customized tour plan for each day that far exceeded all of my expectations. He also demonstrated a brilliant ability to adjust on the fly if I wanted to modify the plan—no request was too difficult for him. One thing really stands out: since I was traveling alone, Arthur even brought along his camera to take pictures of me as we were touring around so I could be in the pictures. That meant so much to me.

In short, Arthur’s enthusiasm for what he does—and for his country—made my trip memorable and magical. Hiring Arthur will make your next trip to Russia even more spectacular, and I give Arthur and his services the highest recommendation possible.

Thank You Arthur!