BenNomad

My wife got her card in five weeks after arrival. The border agent said it could take up to six months though. But in fact you don't have to wait for the plastic card in order to travel in and out of the U.S. because the i-551 stamp in the passport is proof of permanent residence and can be used temporarily while you wait for the plastic card.

My wife and I always use aviasales (dot) ru to check for the cheapest flights to/from Russia. You don't need a VPN to use that site. But we usually buy the tickets directly from the airline and then you do need to use a Russian VPN. There are free Russian VPN apps for Android devices (I had a harder time finding a plugin for a PC web browser but I'm sure they exist). The bigger problem is paying for the tickets. We would buy the tickets between Istanbul and the rest of the world with a U.S. bank card, but the Istanbul-Russia tickets have to be purchased with a Russian bank card if you're flying on a Russian airline (maybe it's more accurate to say that U.S. bank cards don't work). The work-around would be buying a ticket with a non-Russian airline that flies to Russia (like Armenia's FlyOne or FlyDubai). We flew out of Russia once via Yerevan and I used my U.S. bank card to buy that ticket, but the connection times and prices may not be the best in many cases.

It does seem like it's getting trickier to get to Poland, even more than before, and also more difficult in general to get a Schengen visa (to any country). Did your friends try entering Poland by car, train or air from the Czech Republic? I totally understand the risk of making all those arrangements, paying for tickets and hotels in advance - only to be denied at the border. It has been discussed over and over what to do in this situation, and I wonder what happened to some of the people who came on here looking for help but never came back to say whether they found a way out or not. I never contacted my Congressional rep for intervention in my wife's case, but sometimes that is the way out, if you have a good rep I guess. It has also been suggested to write a joint letter to the Bureau of Consular Affairs, but in the end there has to be an embassy with the ability to take on cases. There have been isolated cases of embassies taking transfers without requiring residency, but they seem few and far between and not any one in particular stands out as consistently taking transfers - except for Jerusalem, which is not taking new transfers apparently. Jerusalem accepted our transfer on the basis of having a Schengen that we couldn't really use to get to Poland (Greece's explicit conditions). I also explained that our case was simple document-wise (U.S. citizen kids, no previous marriages, no criminal record, etc).

Hi, the email from the Polish Consulate won't do anything for you unfortunately. The State Dept is well aware of the situation, but hasn't provided a solution for IR/CR-1 applicants. If your husband is in Russia, try to get a Schengen visa. Hungary may be one of the better options to try for. Almaty stopped taking transfers a long time ago (except for IR-5). We successfully transferred to Bishkek but I suspect that was because our case was in Jerusalem when the embassy suspended operations there. Jerusalem is processing cases again but I don't know if they are taking transfers. They were the only embassy that was consistently taking transfers prior to the war. If an embassy accepts a transfer it happens quickly, like a few days or less. The IR/CR-1 cases are electronic so there's no physical mailing. If your husband is not in Russia, he'll have to return there to apply for a Schengen visa if he doesn't have residence anywhere else.

My wife had her interview on Friday in Bishkek and was approved. They told her right away the day and time to come pick up the passport, which was a nice surprise and allowed us to buy tickets to the U.S. already, in time for New Years. Yay! Unfortunately, I don't think Bishkek is accepting transfers anymore, at least from what my wife is reading.

Congratulations! 🤩

If you select the reschedule option, does it let you continue to choose a new date? If so, then I would go for it despite their rule. But I wasn't in that situation so I can't confirm that there will be no issues. But what could they possibly do?

If it allows you to schedule a second, later interview date, go for it. Then just let them know you won't be attending the earlier interview. At one point my wife had two interviews dates scheduled in Warsaw (one scheduled by us and the other by the consulate) and I had to contact US travel docs twice to get them sort it out.

It is illogical but that's Warsaw. I also contacted them to cancel our interview date and they just sent me a standard reply about waiting until after the interview date.

Do you know cases where people have been given EU humanitarian visas (Schengen LTV visa?) for the purpose of attending a U.S. immigration interview?

Oh, ok. Thanks. I was looking only at P2P. I thought P2P was the only way to withdraw to a Russian bank account. I sent a small amount of USDC to a new account I opened on ByBIt and it just vanished! It was sent succesfully but it never arrived.

The only exchange operating in Russia that supports USDC for P2P transactions seems to be ByBit. Am I missing something? I registered on HTX (Huobi) - no USDC listed for P2P. Same thing with CommEx. I couldn't find USDC on Garantex either. USDT seems to be widely supported though. Also, the only mutually available network for transferring USDC to ByBit or HTX is Ethereum. Solana network is not available. As far as I could tell, there is no zero-fee transfer option for USDC, but the fee using the Ethereum network at the time I checked was around $5. And that's a flat fee, not a percent of the transfer amount.

If ustraveldocs is showing you Russian addresses for delivery/pickup, you need to contact support and they'll update your country to Poland.

It's not possible. We tried. You have to apply in your home country or where you have permanent residence. Bishkek - they might still be accepting transfers. Response time in our case was about one week (after an initial automatic response) Jerusalem - are they taking new cases? The most logical places to try are where Russian language is spoken. We got declined by Dushanbe (Tajikistan) however. Another one you might try is Ashgabat (Turkmenistan) because probably nobody tries to transfer there. You need a visa to enter Turkmenistan though, even as a Russian citizen. How about Baku? Did you contact them?

I was looking at the same page and I added up all the visa categories including Diversity Visas (DV).

I wrote to BishkekIV@state.gov with the transfer request (stated reason being the Jerusalem situation) and got an automatic reply which sounded like a denial. Then I got another email a week later accepting the transfer. My wife has been following a Telegram chat group for Bishkek, which I think is mostly people who wanted to transfer out of Jerusalem, and recently people are saying that Bishkek is not accepting transfers. I'm sure they got overwhelmed with requests. Looking at embassy stats, they generally issue more visas than Jerusalem.

Maybe Lady Gaga says it best: I've got a hundred million reasons to walk away But baby, I just need one good one to stay

My wife got a transfer to Bishkek and we are waiting to find out the interview date. This is our third transfer already and hopefully the last one (four transfers if you count the automatic transfer from Moscow). I wonder what is the all-time record? 🤔 Glad to hear that Jerusalem is working again. Congrats to those who got their interviews done recently and good luck to everyone headed there or waiting for final approval.

I was able to transfer euros from Chase Bank to a Raiffeisen Russia account. The currency gets converted twice, USD->EUR->RUB so it's not great, but it works.

My wife got denied by Germany. Took the consulate one day to make a decison, and 10 days to deliver the passport back. The reasons were: inusfficient proof of funds and doubts about the applicant leaving the EU. Greece gave us a visa based on the same financials (more than enough $$$ in a US bank) but Germnay didn't. The woman at the German visa center said the hotel reservations should have been fully paid in advance (are they crazy?). Maybe Greece put us on a black list. Who knows?

Have her look at Forum Vinskogo (Винского). There are many "we told you so" comments directed at people who used agencies and later regretted it. If you make your own travel arrangements (airline tickets and hotel bookings) it's going to look a lot more authentic (to the consulate) than if you do it through an agency. The travel planning is the most time-consuming part, but it's not that hard if you have an idea of how to plan a trip for yourself. Besides the bookings, you need to print out proof of your finances, passport copies, marriage license, take photos and buy travel medical insurance. Would she really want to trust all of that to an agency? I did all the paperwork for my wife and she printed everything and went to the appointment. The visa center should also be able to help fill out the visa application itself for a small fee, but it's not hard to do yourself online (to be filled out in English - at least in our case). I'll admit, it was a lot of paperwork, but there's nothing really difficult about it.

For Italy it depends on where the applicant is registered. If you're registered in Moscow, use VMS (italy-vms.ru) and if you're in the St. Petersburg region, use VMS in St. Petersburg. Everyone else has to apply at an Almaviva center. I don't think I can post a link here but on the "italy-vms" site you can find details under the news section.

If you are talking about third-party agencies that assist you in preparing your Schengen application, I would highly recommend staying away from such agencies. From what I've read on Forum Vinskogo, many people have been duped or simply been given wrong information. Apply yourself at the official visa center that you'll find a link to on the country's own consulate website. VSF Global serves as the application center for many Schengen countries, but some countries like Germany, Italy and Greece have their own visa centers (but sometimes located in the same place as VSF Global). As a U.S. citizen, you can be the financial sponsor for your spouse, and that information is entered in the visa application itself. Using U.S. (or any other foreign) bank accounts is good. My wife got a Schengen visa to Greece with me as the sponsor, and she didn't present any financial information about herself. Keep in mind that even the staff at official visa centers will tell you sometimes it's better if you have this or that, when it's actually not necessary. For example, they asked for my U.S. birth certificate (as the sponsor) but said it was "optional" (in other words, completely unnecessary). Not sure if fiancees can be sponsors for a Schengen visa, though I suppose anyone could be a sponsor theoretically. They required our marriage certificate, so I think you have to prove the relationship somehow. Germany requires a 3-month history of bank statements. I would say for a Schengen, to be safe, be able to show a balance of at least $8-10K USD or the equivalent. But that's not to say the decision is completely based on finances, or that a "weak" financial case will automatically be rejected. They also consider the risk of the person staying in the EU, and proof that the intended purpose of travel is legit (good travel plan, bookings, etc). As for what region in Russia you can apply in, check the country's consulate website or contact the official visa center for their rules. Germany has 4 or 5 visa centers in Russia and you can apply at whichever one you want.

After you log in, is there a menu in the upper left corner with a "Continue" button? Press "Continue" and it should take you to the next page for selecting passport delivery options. At least that was my experience with Warsaw.

FYI if the messages you get from Warsaw start with "We understand you want .... blah blah blah" and end with the sentence "We hope you found this information useful" then it's just a pre-formulated reply (and maybe even AI-generated imo). If the reply has typos then you know you're dealing with a thinking human. My wife ended up with two different interview dates scheduled in Warsaw (one that we scheduled ourselves and one that they scheduled automatically) and it took two tries emailing them at ustraveldocs this week to sort it out. So, make sure you're getting a genuine reply from Warsaw. I don't know anything about extending a K-1 but it sounds like it can be extended even after the four months expire. From Travel.state.gov: My Petition Expired – Can It Be Extended? The I-129F petition is valid for four months from the date of approval by USCIS. A consular officer can extend the validity of the petition if it expires before visa processing is completed.