Obtaining new Russian Passport in the US

[baron555 934]

OK, so my wife and son are over in Russia and before she left Moscow to travel to her hometown, she applied for new 10 year Russian passports for herself and little Leonid. Today, with one day left, she went to the passport office and retrieved her new passport but they screwed up his birthdate and told her it would be two weeks more to reprocess. They jump on the plane back to the US tomorrow. They told her they would hold it at the office but of course could not send it.

So he still has until into 2014 validity on his current Russian Passport.

I'm too lazy to search back, so please folks enlighten me what we could do here in the US to obtain his new passport. We live in the Chicago area by the way.

Tnx, Phil

[SMR 368]

OK, so my wife and son are over in Russia and before she left Moscow to travel to her hometown, she applied for new 10 year Russian passports for herself and little Leonid. Today, with one day left, she went to the passport office and retrieved her new passport but they screwed up his birthdate and told her it would be two weeks more to reprocess. They jump on the plane back to the US tomorrow. They told her they would hold it at the office but of course could not send it.

So he still has until into 2014 validity on his current Russian Passport.

I'm too lazy to search back, so please folks enlighten me what we could do here in the US to obtain his new passport. We live in the Chicago area by the way.

Tnx, Phil

My wife renewed her passport at the consulate in NY. There is a list of documents listed on their site that are required to renew the passport. Nothing too extraordinary. We also got a Russian passport for our son at the same time. That involved getting him recognized as a RF citizen. Once again, the documents weren't extraordinary but an apostille on his birth certificate was required. We had to appear in person as some of the documents need to be officially notarized and you can't really find a notary recognized in Russia in the US other than at the consulate.

If I understand and remember your situation, you don't have to do the citizenship for Leonid so you should be able to apply by mail. However, you will still have to pick it up in person as they don't mail out the new passports. The fact that you started this process in Russia may complicate the issue, but I'm not experienced to comment on that. Unfortunately, it appears that your consulate for Illinois is in Washington, DC. . That makes travel inconvenient, to say the least. I recommend trying to contact the embassy by phone and email as the policies seem to vary and are in constant flux.

[baron555 934]

Perfect, tnx for that info and a trip to DC can be made. We'll give them a call as ask for help; maybe Russia can send his corrected passport to them and we pick it up (best case).

[misha_ 8]

Unless they got their act together since I got my passport there (unlikely), the process is very Russian. For one, getting through to them on the phone usually takes a few days. Submitting the documents is in person. The documents are also very Russian: they make perfect sense to the consular employees and nobody else. You can save yourself a step if you bring your internal passport and get it stamped there. Otherwise, you won't be let out of Russia the first time you go there until you have it stamped. Which takes a day. Meh.

I heard going through a company that specializes in preparing the passport documents makes the process a lot less frustrating and it is a few hundred bucks well spent.

[ONA 133]

I'm going through the process right now. I went to DC Consulate (luckily, I work about 10 minutes away from the place, so getting there was a relatively painful process for me - the hardest part was to find a parking spot).

Calling the embassy is not as crazy as some people would think - I was able to reach them on my first try. The problem was that the date when I called them and the closest possible appointment date were 3 months apart (I called in late December, I had my appointment scheduled for yesterday: March 28th).

All instructions seemed pretty clear to me, your wife can have a look at them here: http://www.russianembassy.org/ru/page/%D0%B2%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BD%D0%BE-%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%85%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%8F%D1%89%D0%B8%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%8F-%D0%B4%D0%BE-14-%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%82

I was surprised by how many people did not read/didn't follow the instructions and were complaining about it

My appointment was scheduled for 2:00 pm. At 2pm exactly they let me with about 10 other people in the building. There were only 3 consulate workers and, like I said, some people didn't read instructions, which obviously caused delays, but I was out of the embassy by 3pm.

They said that the passport would be ready in 2-3 months and I can track the status of the case online.

Everybody in the consulate was surprisingly polite and patient. Overall, so far I have enjoyed dealing with the consulate more than with USCIS.

Edited March 30, 2013 by ONA