JayFromTexas

We've considered it. We vacationed in Turkey last summer. Thanks for your input.

I don't have a 2 day itinerary. I was responding to the suggestion of bussing into Russia. I figured that would be a 2 day adventure.

I'm heading to Moscow. Wish I had a cheaper way there that didn't take 2 days.

Thank you for your recommendations and offer. She will be there from beginning to end. I don't have an itinerary yet, but will likely fly through Istanbul on Turkish Airlines.

I am a US citizen and have been to Russia twice, most recently this past summer, which was well after the war in Ukraine started but before the mobilizations started. I am aware that the US State Department has Russia rated "Do Not Travel" and that there are risks involved with traveling there. My question is, have any US citizens here had a firsthand, recent experience traveling to Russia? Is it too risky to travel there now? Thanks in advance.

Thanks for sharing your story. You should fill out your timeline to help others here.

@pushbrk is it ok to mail 2 I130 applications together or would it be better to mail the mother's and daughter's separately?

There are at least 2 members here who filed both an I130 and an I129f/k3 application to speed up approval of the I130. In both cases, they got their interviews months earlier than the standard I130 timeline. My spouse to be has an 11 yr old daughter. I know we have to file a separate I130 for her, but do we need to file a separate 129f for her too? Also, I've seen discussions here where a spouse's I130 was processed faster than her child's I130. Is there a way to request the 2 I130s be linked in some way and processed in a similar timeframe and subsequently request the interviews to happen concurrently?

That is an option but we won’t be in the same place together until May1. That would get us filed 2 months earlier.

We're aware of the risk. At this point, the son doesn't want to come, but might change his mind when the time comes. He is at University and isn't living at home at the present time.

True, but he turned 18 recently and we have until October 2025 to file as F2a. If we file my spouse's I-130 in July of this year, she should get her greencard in early 2025. We should have a 9 month cushion, but anything can happen in the next 2 years.

We're likely to go IR/CR1 due to various reasons. I understand that pursuing a K1 will allow the son to come here sooner, but as long as he will be eligible for an F2a visa, I think that will be soon enough. I've been reading about the process and it looks like the immigration process for an F2a son of a beneficiary is essentially the same process as the beneficiary, except the son's I-130 can't be filed until the beneficiary receives her LPR status. Is this all correct?

Ok, can you tell me how approximately long it would take for him to receive a greencard?

I plan to marry my Russian citizen fiance' in July of 2023. She has a son who is currently 18 years old. It is my understanding that we can't file a I-130 because my soon to be wife and I weren't married before he turned 18, so he won't be my legal stepson. How can we petition to bring him to the USA? He will be under 21, but over 18. Thanks!

DaveandAnastasia- One other thing you should look at is Aeroflot from IST to Moscow and back. In the travel sites I use, they don't include Aeroflot flights. I've found them to generally be cheaper than Turkish Air, so be sure and check Aeroflot flights too. Definitely not easy or cheap to travel to Russia right now. 😔

SimplyTex, do you think a CDC-approved vaccine is still required for the medical exam? I researched this question after we chatted and it appears it is still a requirement. What do you think?

I did it with 2 checked bags. I needed 3 hours layover, but 4 would provide extra cushion.

We just bought a ticket the other way, Moscow to Dallas and back, for 1/1/23-1/12/23. We spent a little more to buy more convenient flights with shorter layovers, but we could have bought the ticket for $1700-1900, with longer layovers. For Dallas - Moscow trips, it is cheapest through Istanbul, based on our experience. You can normally find a good deal to get to and from Istanbul, but getting from Istanbul to Moscow can cost more than Dallas to Istanbul, depending on the flight chosen. When I traveled to Moscow back in July, I bought Turkish Air flights to IST and back and then Azerbaijan Air through Baku for the IST-Moscow part. Like someone else mentioned, try buying the 2 legs (US-Turkey and Turkey-Russia) separately. If you do that, you'll have to clear customs in Istanbul, but it could save you several hundred dollars. Good luck. There are alternatives out there.

You are a legal permanent resident. Also a legal alien. You are not a citizen.

postcount

Well, we found a place to get vaccinated! ☺️ We were in Mauritius because my girlfriend had an appointment with the Embassy there to get a Tourist visa to the US. We were very happy that she was successful and now has a 3 year multiple entry visa to the US. We then started worrying about the next obstacle, where to get a CDC approved vaccination. I had searched for the past couple of months for a place in Mauritius. Our AirBnB host had friends in that country's Health Ministry and was told by them that the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine was no longer available in Mauritius. My girl was on the Vinsky forum and another Russian posted that he got the J&J vaccine in Mauritius just 3 weeks ago. We went to the clinic that he got his vaccine, but were told that they had stopped providing Covid vaccines just 4 days before. We were very sad and were just about to leave when a nice young man came up to us and said the vaccine was available at a nearby hospital. He saved the day for us. He even called over to the hospital and told them we were coming. We were due to fly out that evening so we were concerned about having enough time because there is a second step to this process, which I'll talk about shortly. We rushed to the hospital and they took us right in and she was vaccinated within a few minutes. They had her wait an additional 15 minutes to make sure there were no immediate adverse effects from the vaccination. Once that time was up, we caught a taxi to Port Louis and started the next step. You see, the vaccine only comes with a local certification. We had to go to the Mauritius "International Vaccination Center" and request a WHO International Certification document. Normally, this is a 2-3 day wait, but we told them we had a flight out in the evening and that we needed it ASAP. A very kind lady accommodated our need and processed our request within 2 hours. Icing on the cake was the total cost for all of this was: $0 We were (and are) elated that we could get both the tourist visa and a WHO certified vaccination in one trip. Getting vaccinated there saved us a lot of money and time. As we all know, a Russian has to travel long distances to get a certified covid vaccination. Hopefully, the US will drop this requirement soon.

Unfortunately, she doesn't have the Shengen visa. She is limited to countries that don't require a Russian citizen to have a visa.

My Moscow-based girlfriend received a tourist visa and wants to visit me in the US. She must travel and get vaccinated first. What would the best place for that? Istanbul? Dubai? Israel? Ideally, we would like to find a place reasonably close to the airport where she can go, get jabbed and fly back to Moscow all in the same day. We are looking only for the Janssen/J&J vaccine since it is single dose. Thank you in advance.

I'm not sure the blanket waiver covers Russia. I asked that question in the IR1/CR1 Tourist Visa forum and the answer was no, Russia isn't included in the blanket waiver. It is thought that this is another way to restrict the number of Russians immigrating to the U.S. I realize that Tourist visas as different than immigrant visas, but the answers to my question address immigrant visas too.

I read in another section that there is a waiver for people living in countries where they don’t have access to WHO approved vaccines. Is that correct? Is a Russian citizen able to travel to the U.S. without a valid vaccination?