Hi everyone!

I'm a US citizen and am engaged to marry my fiance in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. He is a Russian citizen, born/raised there.

Where and how can I obtain a document/certification/anything that proves that I am single and have never been married/divorced?? I know that this type of "Eligibility to Marry" document is required to marry in Russia.

However,now I see that the USA doesn't have this type of document...!?! What should I do? Is there an alternative option acceptable in Russia (maybe they accept an affidavit of some sort)? What have other people done in similar situations? I need to acquire this document while still within the U.S., prior to coming to Russia. The State Dpt. sites, embassy sitrs, etc. are not much help at all and I am not sure what else to do. Any and all help, suggestions, advice is more than welcome. Thanks.

I should add that I have very little time before I leave the States, so I need to get this cleared up and finished ASAP!

Thank you so much!

P.S. I apologize if you guys see this post elsewhere----I've cross-posted this in other forums/topics since I have such little time to get answers. )))

In addition to the help you'll find here from other knowledgeable posters, I'd suggest having your fiance head over to ZAGS and ask them how they handle foreign marriages. Given that your fiance lives in StP, it's probably not at all likely that they haven't dealt with this before.

Z

In the U.S., this is done by self-affidavit (in fact, the affidavit is integrated in the marriage license applications here).

The U.S. embassy has webpages with a sample affidavit and instructions on how to proceed. As always, expect the process to be unnecessarily overcomplicated.

Just to complete your post see below:
http://moscow.usembassy.gov/consular/acs.p..._id=acsmarriage
http://vladivostok.usconsulate.gov/wwwhacsmarryrus.html

Yup, Anka, it really is that simple!

Just follow the instructions on the embassy site Satellite gave, and to add from personal experience-

I'm not sure if you can do this in the States ahead of time, but, you print out that silly form, bring it to the embassy, get a consular officer to stamp it after you sign it in his presence for $30, then bring it to the ministry of foreign affairs. For their stamp you'll need to wait, as stated, five business days w/ no expedited option, but MAKE SURE YOU GET THE SBERBANK SLIP AFTER DROPPING OFF THE FORM!! This slip you will need to bring to a sberbank to pay for the stamp, and of course their lines are always awfully long (-don't forget to ask, kto posledny?? amidst all the babushkas paying for their cheap natural gas-!!). The thing is, if you forget to pay before going back to pick up your svidetel'stvo, the kind bureaucrat will send you off to pay, and with sberbank's notoriously long lines, you may not make it back before lunchtime! So, make sure you take this slip and go pay before the five business days are up.

The passport translation part is pretty self-explanatory, just make sure it's notarized, and make sure the Cyrillic version of your name matches your visa/svidetel'stvo, not just the translator's opinion of how it translates. THIS part is important, because you'll see on this and many other similar sites the woes of English-speakers married to Russians with name problems-getting plane tickets, etc-since when translating from English to Russian back to English you'd be surprised all the variants that pop up!!

Lastly, I'll add that when I ran into some trouble at ZAGS and the worker wanted something on the svidetel'stvo (I don't even remember what!) changed, with a stamp added, the kind consular officer added the stamps to my corrections free of charge (this was at the Moscow embassy), so you may run into that trouble.


The funniest part of the whole experience was when I asked the consular officer whether he needed proof of my not being married ever before notarizing my svidetel'stvo- he said that he could care less what the doc said, it was just for the Russian officials! Perhaps at the ministry of foreign affairs they do this ever-so-necessary double-checking, but I somehow doubt the credibility or expansiveness of any databases they have access to!!

Hope that helps, and good luck with scheduling your registration,

Nick

Quite frankly, I think you can sign the form in the U.S. before a notary public, get an apostille on the notary's signature (you'll be doing that also for your birth certificate anyway), and then submit that to the ZAGS Russian officials.

It actually is quite odd to me that Russian officials accept the U.S. consular officer's notarization without an apostille, but as the embassy has said, special Russian regulations make this possible for U.S. citizens only. (U.S. consular officers can notarize for anyone, including non-citizens, but their notarization is supposed to be valid only in the U.S.!)