Jonathan Matthies

UPS tried their damnedest to prevent the paperwork from reaching Katya. They had 11 business days to deliver it, and they took 9. 2 more days and she's flying to Moscow. But it made it there on time and that's all that matters. Moscow also emailed me and said I can email them the I-134 financial stuff if I wanted to.

Now the real waiting begins!

And I thought it was a forum about camaraderie.

I thought that said Canadian and i was very confused. I read it twice even! I need to stop reading the forums before the coffee kicks in.

That's excellent news indeed!

i guess this will be a dumb question but how dare they not update the darn interview schedule list at the moscow embassy website

Yes I noticed this too. They have not updated it in a very very long time. Hmm, then with the recient rash of "Administrative Reviews and Processings". I am beginning to think that they are short handed or just don't want to work or something.

Very frustrating time right now with the US Embassy in Moscow.

-Jeff

thinking this way makes me very very scared right now

Yeah most (if not all) of us with interview date's coming up are a bit worried about what may be coming. Katya is planning on waiting for her VISA in Moscow, she does not want to fly back to Vlad. But if we get put on a 2 week review, it might be cheaper to fly back. But then we have to change the DHL airbill to point back to Vlad instead of Moscow. I don't know if she needs to buy 2 airbills, one for Moscow, one for Vlad; or if that's too pessimistic.

Question 40 of the DS-156 (not DS-156k - she better fill that out herself since it's in Russian!) is "Application prepared by:" Which is technically me, since I filled out the web page and generated the PDF file for her. I know the consulate website has instructions written in Russian on how to fill out the form; so if worse comes to worse she can just do it all herself.

If I can email the I-134, 156 and/or 230 to the consulate; that would be a big bonus. I don't know what else they would accept via email; but all of our 'evidence of meeting' information is electronic except for the boarding pass and museum ticket stub - and those are lost for now. Emails, skype chat, purchase receipts from Russianservice.com - all stuff I can email to Moscow.

when they ask if it was prepared by someone else, they are referring to professionals, visa services or attroneys. You can fill it out for her. You can put your name on it if you like, you do not have to. makes no difference.

That's good to know. I may have to go with her printing the docs and maybe emailing them to the Embassy. The package was NOT stuck in customs before; because NOW it is stuck in customs. UPS gave the following message:

"THIS SHIPMENT IS WAREHOUSED UNTIL IT IS RELEASED BY CLEARING AGENCY"

So #### UPS. So annoying. I'll use FedEx from now on.

Nice to see some good news sprinkled in with some of the not so good news this week.

Congrats!

Too many administrative reviews for my liking. It sounds like the Consulate has a bug up their rump. I hope all of these requests are settled soon, and with a positive outcome.

I did not send Katya any of our Skype transcripts; but these recent threads made me reconsider. I copied our entire Skype history into Word 2007 and saved it as a PDF; all 686 pages of it. I emailed this file to Katya last night, but I hope she does not have to use it. Maybe she can pick and choose except pages and print them out before hand. But if they give us an admin review, I'll pay her to take it to a Kinkos (if Moscow has one); print out the entire novel and shove it in their review box.

Well UPS sent it through to Russia. It's in a city 500m north of Vladivostok currently; but at least it's in the country. Now to hope I filled out all the forms properly. Though if Moscow allows me to email them electronic files, any mistakes I may have made won't be a problem.

After a 3rd call to UPS today they said that it was 'stuck in customs'; which could just be code for 'go the #### away and stop bothering us'. But it's better than "we dunno where ur package is. duh hur!". I've already emailed the consulate, so we'll just wait and see what happens.

Write an email to the consulate explaining the situation and send ALL documents via email. They will understand and doing so may even help you.

There were documents I sent to the consulate that my fiancee did not have. They actually thanked me!

Why do you have to sign the DS-156? It is her form, not yours. And you can send a signed copy of the I-134 (not always necessary) via email. In fact, the information that supports the I-134 (pay stubs, tax transcripts, etc) is actually more important than the I-134 itself.

Try it! I did not spend a dime on mail.

Question 40 of the DS-156 (not DS-156k - she better fill that out herself since it's in Russian!) is "Application prepared by:" Which is technically me, since I filled out the web page and generated the PDF file for her. I know the consulate website has instructions written in Russian on how to fill out the form; so if worse comes to worse she can just do it all herself.

If I can email the I-134, 156 and/or 230 to the consulate; that would be a big bonus. I don't know what else they would accept via email; but all of our 'evidence of meeting' information is electronic except for the boarding pass and museum ticket stub - and those are lost for now. Emails, skype chat, purchase receipts from Russianservice.com - all stuff I can email to Moscow.

My turn to ###### and complain. Katya leaves for Moscow from Vladivostok on the 30th. I sent a UPS letter envelope containing paperwork for her interview on the 13th. This included my original boarding passes and some dated ticket stubs from a museum in her city. I think those 2 items are the only two "original" peices of evidence that I will loose. The package hit South Korea on Wednesday night and hasn't moved since. UPS will not put a trace on the package until after business today; which may mean I can't call until Monday morning.

I can reprint all of the forms, make additional photocopies of the NOA1/2 and re-print the digital photos; but now time is a factor. I am going to have to find a FedEx International "Overnight" service and pay out the freaking nose to attempt to send these documents to her. Perhaps i can send them to her friend's address in Moscow; but it will still have to be a more expedited service - and I will loose the 2 pieces of 'original evidence' that I had wanted to keep!

Anyone have any advice? With Thanksgiving coming up, I'm quickly running out of valid business days to get the paperwork to her. To save money, I imagine that she can print the DS-230, any email/skype logs, and hopefully find a shop to print out digital photos; but I have to sign and print the DS-156 and my I-134 and still find a way to get that to her before Dec 7.

Hi Bobb.. hope you don't mind if I hijack your thread..

My girl just had her med exam in Moscow yesterday. I am not sure which clinic she went to, but, she is very upset about the experience. She was required to meet with a psychiatrist for 2 HOURS! They repeatedly asked her if she is using and narcotics (she never has) and made her pee in the cup for drug testing. She was at the clinic a total of 9 hours. They did not give her the results and she will have to go back to get them.

We are both concerned about the reason for and what will be reported by the psyche. It doesn't make alot of sense to me, unless they were trying to pull some BS on her. She said she did have to pay something extra.

Sucks!

There is a nice writeup about a recent medical experience on the Nov 13 interview thread.

link please.. I couldn't find it..

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...p;#entry3495585

Katya's best friend from Vladivostok had her interview this week, and had the exact same thing occur to her. They kept her VISA and said 'administrative processing' as well. She was planning on flying back to Vladivostok after her interview anyway; but this put a damper on her return visit. They took her passport as well; so I hope for both your sake and hers, that they grant the VISA and grant both VISAs soon.

However, this news has made both Katya and my mom freak out. They are now worried that this may happen to Katya. I am not worried about it, because we have no control over what games the Moscow Consulate may or my not want to play.

I just tested this with my own hosting instead of using photobutcket, but the concept is the same.

1) click on My Controls and then Edit Signature

2) At the bottom of the editbox, where you currently have the <a href=....> and other similar links; make it look like the image below:

I was able to generate the highlighted line (between the {img} and {/img}) by clicking on the 7th button over on the line that starts with the bold, itallics, underline, etc:

After clicking that image button, a popup box comes up that asks for the URL of the image. I copy/pasted "http://www.notvandnobeermakehomersomethingsomething.com/vj/IMG_0866.JPG" into the box and it generated the highlighted line mentioned above.

You would copy/paste: http://s894.photobucket.com/albums/ac143/c...ta20kazan11.jpg into the box.

Repeat that process of clicking the button for every pic you want in your signature:

http://i894.photobucket.com/albums/ac143/c...ta20kazan11.jpg

http://i894.photobucket.com/albums/ac143/c...773_596_WSN.jpg

etc.

3) Once I clicked "update my signature", my sig now looks like:

Hope that helps. If not, feel free to ignore me. I'm avoid work today because I'm extra tired.

Perhaps I should rephrase my comment...

The Almaty Embassy did not advise a K-1 beneficiary that a DS-156 was required.

Ah, I'm dense. I just mailed off my final K-1 packet to Katya; so my mind is muddled. Sorry.

I had so much paperwork between the DS230, 156, 134, and proof of evidence that the UPS mailer was quite full. So much paperwork! I was going to include a copy of the I1-29F packet, just so she could see; but the packet wouldn't fit.

yay! congrats. now enjoy the wait.

Curiously, the Almaty, Kazakhstan embassy sent DS-156K and DS-230 but no DS-156. I wonder if this was an oversight or a change in policy.

The DS-156 is created from inside a web page, then a PDF is generated. There is no direct PDF to fill out. The web page creates a bar code that contains 2 pages of data within the code. I assume that is why you must use the web page. I guess they scan this barcode and poof - 2 pages of data are automatically filled in.

I love hearing good news like this; especially with Katya flying to Moscow in under 3 weeks. I'm freaking a beaker, but hearing about one smooth interview after another helps calm the nerves... a little.

We are planning on doing the fly to Moscow and pickup the VISAs in Moscow bit. But the unknown time frame for pickup after the interview is the only thing that truly worries me. I'd love to just buy a ticket for the 12th, with the hopes that she can pick up the VISA on the 11th (4 days after the interview).

The other concern I have is it will be the middle of December, hopefully the 12th, when she is ready to fly. If we wait to buy tickets, they could be double what they are now; with it being Christmas time and all. It's such a complete unknown, I hate not being "prepared".

Katya and Denis are staying with some childhood friends in Moscow; and neither of us want her to be stuck there for over a week waiting for the VISAs; all the while being an inconvenience for her friend. It's better than having to buy a hotel room for the duration of the stay though. And if it drags on too long, over a week; perhaps I end up getting her a room for those few 'extra' days.

With all that complaining, the alternative is she flies back to Vladivostok for a few days/weeks; and neither of us want that. So I will just have to learn to love the idea of a 'last minute' plane ticket and look forward to seeing her on the 13th or 14th of December.

Yes, waiting for this last part of the process really does suck. BUT, it is better than the wait for NOA2. That could have been 3 months or 3 years (not really). Knowing NOA2 was impending, but not knowing if it would be October or January (or longer) was dreadful. I was really in a funk. But as more and more fellow VJers started getting their interview date in @3 months instead of the official 5 months that was posted on the USCIS website; my attitude changed. And then I got my NOA2 in a little under 3 months.

Everything I had seen showed that after NOA2, it's basically 3 months guaranteed from NVC->Moscow->Interview date. Which I thought would make things easier. It hasn't. I'm really damn tired of waiting. It's killing me to say "Her interview is in 32 days". I want the waiting to be over, damnit.

They schedule it for you. A couple weeks after NOA2, email the Moscow consulate with the MOS case # in the header. I also provided Katya and I's full name and D.O.B. in the email. 3 days later they emailed me back with the interview date/time.

I didn't bind anything together. I put everything in a 8.5" x 11" mailer and stuffed the mailer into a UPS Letter envelope and sent everything in unattached.

http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/g-325a.pdf

appears to be the new form, it's 1 page (plus 1 instruction page).

As was mentioned earlier, when I filled out mine in May, it was 4 pages that were nearly identical. Plus Adobe would copy the information from the first page into the next 3. So it was simply a case of filling it out once, printing 4 pages, signing 4 pages for each of us . 8 pages total, 4 for me and 4 for her.

I've only been casually reading this thread, but I think some people are misinterpreting sarcasm. Or my sarcasm detector is on the fritz again.

Dec. 7th is a day that will live in infamy.

My brother was born on Dec 7th; I was born on Aug 6th. We fought a lot as kids (who didn't), but I was bigger and had a shorter temper; so he was always on the losing end of our battles.

I had 2 snow days away from work after I heard the good news on the interview date. It was fun. Shoeveling a foot and a half of snow wasn't; but the days off to celebrate the impending interview was worth it.