This was my experience with Dr Solomin.
I based what i thought about him before meeting him based on good recommendation from user exclide who is russian and a 1 diary from legs-correction.ru forum as well as some offhand remarks made there thag he is a good surgeon. I have also heard some good stuff from you guys but i did not take that into account since none of you have had him as a surgeon. No offense
Regarding his customer service skills, i was not too impressed with this but this is probabbly because i had just visited kurgan where they hook you up. Dont know how else to say this.
For example his english is not good and he does not provide any transaltion support so many times i had to repeat or eventually abandon questions.
When i asked about complications he just said "well you could die on the operating table". But not in like a dck head manner, more like a"it is impossible to predict" kind of meaning. None theless, i was unsatisfied with this answer and thought it was kind of unproffesional. So i pressed harder and asked him about the most common complicatiins, and he did not elaborate. his english sucked so i just let it go since i have done my resesrch and i already was told in Kurgan.
I asked him about visa and he said they provide no visa support. He said at best he could provide a letter saying that i would be a patient at his hospital, maybe that would help. I said sure thsnks but i know for a fact that wont work. First of all, the illzarov center said so. Second, from what i read online when researching russian visas. Third. I asked thr consulate and thats just not how it works. Russian visas are somewhat complicated and its more than just showing a letter saying i know this guy in russia. The invitation letter(which waht Solomin was offering was not) has to get approved by FMS and then the russian consulate after they scrutinize the hell out of it.
So i stopped asking questions about them helping me get a visa due to the fact i already researched this, his english was not good and he didnt seem to care about the topic. I figure if i eventually do choose solomin ill figure out the visa myself.
I then told him i have the three year multiple entry tourist visa and he said that will be fine. But ince again i know that will not be fine.
When i asked him length of time for 7cm he said 70 days for lengthening and 7 months consolidation. He basically told me for every centimeter you have 10 days per centimeter of lengthening and 1 month for consolidation per cm.
I like Solomins time frames alot more that the Illzarov center's because at the illzarov center they told me 7 months total for the distratikn and consolidation. Tbe distraction alone only being 40 days.
About accomodation.
He said be only accomodates his patients for the lengthening period. After than they have to find somewhere to stay. In my case that is not ok because that mean not only will i have to pay expensive rent in St Petersburg but also food, utilities, caretaker and transportation. I think most people on this forum prefer to go home to lengthen so thjs should not be an issue for most of you guys. I would prefer to stay at hospital because not only do you avoid thise extra expenses but you also lower risk of complications due to being under constant watch by proffesionals.
My overall assesment of Solomin is that he would be a good choice only if you are russian or know your way around Russia very well or if you are prepared to handle the bulk of preparations for visa and accomodatiins and aftercare yourself. He has a good reputation for a reason and that is because he gets the job done, never mind his demeanor.
he does the surgery bjt he is unable to quote an exact price because you dont pay the money directly to him. It goes to finance department. That is why i think he doesnt care about establishing accomodation and visas for his foreign patients. It is simply just not worth his time. That is understandable because from the way he put it and from what i read in russian forums, there are alot of russians doing CLL and LL. Hes simply the guy who does the leg breaking, and thats all hes gonna help you with.
I analyze the hell out of things before mqking a decision so its too early to tell who i will choose but right now i am leaning towards kurgan because they had a "dude, do you know what the fk your asking us to do to you here? You do ok, well heres whats gonna happen and this is the assistance well provide" approach.
Solomin on the other hand had the "yeah sure whatever man, well cut you legs open but you gonna have handle all thAt 'visa' and 'accomodation' bullcrap on your own man. All that noise is killing my flow" attitude.