Irina needs to renew her Russian passport this fall and she wants to do it in Russia because, for financial reasons, she feels she needs to remain registered in Russia. (she owns a nice apartment in Russia and has a half-interest in a second; and she also gets a pension of $100 a month) She has a friend who got a passport in 5 weeks, so she thinks that 8 weeks will be enough time. I am torn -- I hate to lose her for two months, but I don't want to create a situation where she has to forfeit her return ticket because her passport isn't ready.

This will be one of the new biometric passports. Has anyone had any recent experience with how long it takes to get one of these in Russia?

8-10 weeks is what I have been hearing. I am not sure if my fiancees new passport was biometric or not, but it took her 6 weeks to get it.

Might depend on where or time of year but my wife got hers in one month. It was not renewal but name change.

With most airlines you can change your ticket for a 100 dollar fee. I've done this with both british airways and lufthansa in russia. So if it takes longer or shorter, she can always change it.

My fiancée is waiting for her bio-passport. She was told around 60 days. As Eekee said, the ticket can be changed. I paid 3000 Rubles to change a Lufthansa ticket before.

Hi, Irina and Mike,

I just wanted to caution you about renewing the passport in Russia. I myself got stranded in Russia waiting for a passport and all the necessary checks. What will happen once she discloses that she is a permanent resident of the U.S. is that they will have to send all her documents to Washington, and check with the Russian Embassy in the U.S. on her status here. This will dramatically increase her wait--to the tune of several months, with all the bureaucracy in the middle (I believe I was told at least three months, but more realistically much longer). From what I understand, all individuals who are residing abroad are subject to this requirement. And they will never try to speed anything up on the account of your scheduled flight.
So, I would certainly check with your Russian Embassy on the current procedure (it happened to me about two years ago).

As for the tickets, you can always fly with Aeroflot, where a full refund is available as long as you cancel 24 hours in advance. I would be nervous to purchase with Lufthansa/Northwest, etc., because in addition to $100 penalty, they will charge the difference in ticket prices, which may rise dramatically if you buy on a short notice.

Best of Luck!

I was never charged a difference in ticket prices, and the tickets i changed with british airways were ordered in january and changed in the summer during the height of the tourist season.

Does she have to disclose she is a permanent resident?

Well, maybe eekee is right--I never changed or bought tickets originating from Russia. But if you buy them here, you certainly pay the difference between flights, in addition to whatever penalty the company charges for surrendering your previous flight. Essentially, you just terminate the first contract, pay the damages--a preset amount--and shop for a ticket afresh (which might be to your advantage, if prices go down). I was also surprised about Aeroflot policy of not charging anything and just terminating a contract without any obligations. They will just refund you the money--unlike the U.S. providers who would only give you credit.

As for disclosure, it's a personal decision. If you do it, you face the wait; if you don't, you run the risk of being denied a passport altogether for falsifying statement on your application. I think it is much easier to wait 5 months here, and do it through the Russian Embassy, if at all possible.

Well, i bought them in the US and changed them in Russia.

As far as I can tell, the OP's motivation for doing it in Russia is to not lose the internal passport. Wouldn't being an US permanent resident cause that to happen? I know people who have been permanent residents and kept their internal passports, but none of them were married so it might have been easier to hide.

Irina owns an apartment in Russia and is registered at that address. She pays the water and phone bills, votes, and receives her pension at that address. She can sincerely tell the Russia authorities that that is her permanent address. She will not confuse the issue by telling them that she 'also' lives in the US. They will see from the passport that she travels a lot and has spent a lot of time in the US. I don't think she is dishonest in telling them that she is a resident of Russia.

My question was based on the assumption that if Irina would not be eligible for a refund if she ovverstayed the return date on her ticket. Using an Aeroflot ticket purchased through airfare.com as an example (Orbitz reads the same), here is what they say about refunds;

- REQUEST CHANGE: Request a change before the first travel date.
- CHANGE FEE: Pay a fee of $200 (for Domestic Flights) and $350 (for International Flights)
- DIFFERENCE IN FARE: Additionally, if the new tickets costs more than the original tickets you must pay the difference. If the new tickets are less than the original, the airline will not credit the difference.

I take this to mean that by the time she finds out she isn't going to get her passport by the return date on her ticket, it will be too late to change the departure.

Thanks all of you for bringing out these issues. A lot of money and time is riding on the choices I make about this, and I want to make the right choices.

Well, I think that if you ask the airline and you ask orbitz or another travel service you'd get a different answer. i'd call the airline. This could just be the travel company's procedure, not what Irina would find if she walked into the office of the airline itself and asked to change her ticket.

Usually when you buy tickets you buy either a refundable or a non-refundable tickets; although as mentioned above aeroflot seems to have a different policy. But if you know for sure that you WILL return, don't worry about getting a refundable one if it's a lot more (sometimes it is 3x more) because you can change the date. Just not through the website of the 3rd party company.

Also, the fact that aeroflot refunds all tickets might mean that they are much stricter about date changes. British Airways, as I mentioned earlier, is 100$ to change it and you can do it anytime before you fly.

Mike,

I actually bought a ticket from Aeroflot myself--via their site, on the assumption it is fully refundable. They assured me (I spoke with several representatives in the Moscow office) that they have free 24-hour-in-advance cancellation policy. This seems to be a general norm for domestic flights inside Russia, so it is not all that uncommon. But I would certainly not buy their tickets via intermediary services (especially if the connecting flight is with a different company), and I would recommend you to verify it with the Aeroflot booking office directly. But again, they all assured me that it is a free cancellation.

Best of luck!

My fiancee is still in Russia but she will change hers soon! If you pay 300 rubbles in her city it takes only 3 days!

Welcome back, Mike.

For apartments, rent, water, pensions, etc., doesn't it only matter where her propiska is issued/registered, and not the international passport?

If she needs to get a new international passport, have her get it here before she goes and then while she's home simply update her propiska. Or, don't even worry about what it says on the international passport. Just have her do all her "business" like anyone else (those that don't even have an international passport) and then update her international passport separately.

Is this possible?

We just went through this same scenario recently. My wife is ethnic Russian, but is presently a Belarusian citizen. It's a different country, but is probably closer to Russia than any of the other former Soviet republics.

My wife sold her flat before moving to the USA because she had no one to look after an empty flat. She also gets a small disability payment from the government that goes into her bank account she left in Belarus and she will be eligible for her government pension in the future. So she also wants to maintain her Belarusian residency.

She never registered with the Belarusian government before she left the country. She took the train to Moscow and flew to the USA. Belarusians don't need visas to travel to Russia.

Her passport expired at age 45 and my wife wants to maintain her Belarusian citizenship and residency. She wanted to renew her Belarusian passport before becoming a US citizen.

Anyway, we were trying to estimate how long it would take for my wife to register a new propiska and get a new internal passport that allows for international travel so she can return to the USA without having to take a hefty charge for changing tickets. As it was she bought round trip tickets that allowed 1 month between departure and return. We hoped that would be enough time, but you never know. The worst scenario is that it could take longer and we would have to take a hefty charge for trading in her ticket. In our case the passport office promised to have it ready almost 2 weeks before she has to depart from Moscow. My wife is still over there and the passport office has promised to have it ready on April 16, but I won't relax until she has her new passport in her hands.

The main thing I wanted to point out is that my wife paid extra for expedited passport service. The USA also offers this to US citizens that want their passports processed quicker than normal. You essentially pay a premium price for premium service. I wouldn't exactly call it a bribe because it goes into the government coffers.

Anyway, your wife may want to pay for expedited service if it is an option for Russian passports.

Thanks, Slim, it's good to be back. Here's the problem: Irina, reading the Russian-language text on her Embassy's website, and me, after posting a topic on this subject two years ago, arrived at the same conclusion: in order to renew her passport in the US, she must first register as a US resident. Other people on this Forun have done this with no problem. Irina, however, worries about her apartment, which she does not want to sell. Even though there is no law preventing her from keeping it, she knows of cases in Russia where people have lost title to their apartments for very cloudy reasons, and she feels safer staying 'under the radar' by not changing her registration.

Peeja and Corey-Mariya: Paying an expedite fee is a great idea! I would willingly pay a fee to expedite the process. We are checking on that today.

eekee, October Filer: You might be right! I didn't look at the possibility of buying separate tickets (Aeroflot to Russia and my hometown to the nearest US Aeroflot gateway city) because that will add about $500 - $900 to the total airfare.

On its website, Aeroflot has a lot to say about changes, and I'm not going to pretend that I understand it all. Here are some relevant passages:

Fare rules (return) for a flex/ecoomy ticket ($1810 from LAX)
CHANGES
ANY TIME
CHARGE EUR 100.00 FOR REISSUE/REVALIDATION.

FLEX Economy
Changes Permitted

Fare rules (return) for a value/economy ticket ($1421 from LAX)
CHANGES
ANY TIME
CHARGE EUR 150.00 FOR REISSUE/REVALIDATION.

VALUE Economy
Changes Not Permitted

Note that the "Fare rules" and the definitions of flex and economy do not match. Two different web pages, two differennt anwers.

If I go this route, I will definitely speak to someone in the Aeroflot office, or even better, get Irina to phone the ticket agent in Russia where she would be handing in her ticket.

Thanks for the help!

I think that you'd be able to change a ticket you bought from Orbitz or whatever at the airline office. i had one from a private travel agent which said "NO CHANGES" on it and they had no problem with it. I think that the rules on these travel websites only apply to if you try to change it through them.

My wife renewed her Russian passport here in the US with the Russian embassy in Washington DC. When she talked to them they asked if she was registered with them as a US resident. She told them no. They asked if she wanted to register and she told them NO!

My wife has her propiska with our apartment in Russia. I am also listed as co-owner of that apartment which seems to help with staying and registering my visa when I am there.

It did take a long time renewing with the Russian embassy here, however. About 6 months total time. She also had them add in her married name (in the US also known as...) at the same time.

That's doesn't make any sense, because suppose she needed to renew and didn't have a green card, she can no longer return to Russia? Non-sense, the Russian consulate will let her renew without registering with them.

The website distinguishes between permanent residents in the US and registered in the US, permanent residents with green card not registered in the US, temporary residents without green card not registered in the US, etc., etc. Different rules for everybody. If you don't have a green card, they will renew your passport.

But see Neonred's post above. That's really interesting. They obligingly renewed his spouse's passport and never asked about a green card. irina wasn't planning to go back until the fall anyway, so we have six months to give this a try. Thanks for the information, Neonred.

are you guys talking about going back to Russian to renew an *internal* passport? or the foreign passport? I'm assuming they are still separate.

also, to the previous poster -- has an *internal* passport been renewed at the DC consulate? Or was it a foreign passport?

The Embassy will not be able to renew your internal document--only the one for international travel.

How will they be able to prove she has or does not have a green card. Just have her say she doesn't would be the simplest solution.

My wife says she sent a copy of her green card to the embassy with her request for the renewal as they had asked for it.

Yes, it was for the international passport, and they will not be able to do any changes or renewal of the internal passport at the embassy.

My step-daughter just renewed her international passport in Russia two months ago and it took less than two weeks, with the help of some "special" friends. Always good to know somebody.

I believe the russian consulate requires proof of legal status in the US. if PR card the way to prove someone is here legally, she'll need to have a copy of it. I don't think the consulate will go ahead and renew without the card, unless she has some other documentation to support her status.

Well I ask again, do you really think the consulate will not renew a passport for its own citizens, which is the only way he or she can return to Russia? What if she has yet to receive her green card? No renewal? I disagree. She can show her K1 from back in the day and claim she has no green card. I know they wont register without a green card. Thus someone stuck in say an AOS background check would be stuck indefinitely in the US? Makes no sense to me.

ummmmm couldn't this get her in trouble in the long run? do you really want to lie?

Why not just call the Russia embassy and ask? They seem to be very helpful when a Russian citizen calls and has these questions.

All this is making me think I ought to go check the expiration dates on my wife's passports. Both of them.

And then get added as a "co-owner" of her flat. It would be kind of cool to mouth off to the guys at the airport, "I'm back here to check on my property you low-level ID checker piece of dog waste." That way, when I'm getting out of jail, they can have an address for all my papers.

in such case they can just issue a re-entry permit; they do not have to renew:

В случае утраты паспорта либо истечения срока его действия для возвращения в Россию оформляется свидетельство на возвращение в Российскую Федерацию

i remember they were pretty strict about verifying legal status when i renewed

ah, found the requirement for legal status here (copy from the application):

К заявлению прилагаю:
• заявление о выдаче загранпаспорта на бланке установленной формы (два экземпляра);
• учетную карточку “Сведения на отъезжающего за границу”;
• 4 фотографии;
• копию загранпаспорта;
• копию
(документ, разъясняющий статус в США) **copy of document showing status in the US**
• money order на
долларов США;

This green card requirement has become a non-issue. Neonred's spouse told the Consulate she had one, and didn't want to change her internal passport, just her international one, and the Consulate agreed. What my wife read on their website was incorrect, or else she misunderstood something. She obviously can renew her passport without changing her internal passport first (or, she oould go to Russia in the fall and probably get it in a week just by paying a $10 expedite fee).

Slim, you won't go to jail for insulting an identity-checker. They have a great sense of humor. After they've finished laughing, they might even offer you a lift over to the domestic Sheremetyovo terminal. They will use the shortcut through the woods, because it's quicker. If they stop the car in the woods and ask you to go for a walk, however, you should refuse.

It may also depends on the consulate. I've heard that the Russian consulate in NY is more hardcore than the one in DC, for example, and are more difficult to deal with and more specific in their protocol.

I think we watched that serial. We got some movie from Moscowflix and there was a part in there where some guys got a ride through the woods and then they "took a walk." Two of the guys were crying when they made them start digging their own holes. One guy was just cursing and went right on digging. They only shot the two crying guys. The cursing guy they were like, "Well, you want a job?"

That's a good point.

Hey guys you can change your internal passport in the USA! Found a complany that does it)! I did not know this, did a google search and found it on a website http://www.russianpassportservice.com/en/r...anpassport.html

oops maby I am wrong i think this might have been for the international passport instead!

Yeah you have to change your internal passport in russia! Saw a website and got excited