Turboguy

My suggestion would be for them to be very specific about thier travel plans when they have their interview. We brought my MIL over for a visit last spring. The lady they interviewed before my MIL was asked why she wanted to go to America. Her answer was that her daughter was married to an American and was expecting a baby in a month and she wanted to visit her daughter and help out with the baby. The next question was how long to you plan to stay. The lady said, oh I am not sure, maybe two months, maybe 3 months, I haven't decided. The next thing the C/O said was application denied. My MIL went next. Was asked why she wanted to go then how long she planed to stay. My MIL said she wanted to stay 30 days and planned to go to America on the 3rd of April and come back on the 3rd of May. The next thing the C/O said was "Do you want a one year visa or a two year visa" My MIL has family, propery and a job but I do think the quite specific answer to his question was the key to her approval.

I know one that is outstanding and inexpensive. I would totally recommend Anasataia Ash. I have done 2 K-1's. She did the second. It was half the price, much more professional, and she had it to me in an amazingly quick time. She is active in another forum I go to and everyone who has used her services raves about her.

I don't recall exactly what she charged me but it was in the $ 25.00 range. She has a website. www.regaltranslations.com If you use her you will never regret it.

Why no Aeroflot? They operate US built aircraft (B767s) to the US. I would consider that "safe." (I'm a pilot).

I have flown Aeroflot to Russia several times. I would gladly pay a few hundred extra to fly almost anyone else but not so much for safety, however:

Yes, they fly US aircraft on their international routes. Inside of Russia about 95% of their fleet is Tupelovs. Russia has one of the highest ratios of crashes in the world. The interesting part of that is that almost all of the crashes involve the 5% of their fleet made by Boeing. The reasons for that I hear sited most often is that thier mechanics are not as well trained on Boeings. If someone is concerned about safety that might be a consideration.

My wife is planning her first trip back to Russia when her school lets out in May. Hopefully I can get a decent rate on Delta. If she has to fly Aeroflot I really am not planning to lay awake nights worring about the flight and I am sure she will make it fine.

Did anyone ever use AFA?

Actually I met my first fiancee through AFA but not at one of their socials. I did make three trips that were European Connections socials and very similar to the ones AFA holds. EC has stopped doing socials but AFA still does them but not as many or with as many men as before.

I would recommend anyone to avoid the AFA type social. The biggest problem is the men are a little new to the scene and nieve. They invite women in off the street and the prodaters and scammers did not take too long to figure out they are going to a room full of suckers that don't know much and it is easy to give them a little encouragement and get them to open up thier wallets. I am still friends with some of the guys from my EC tours. All came back thinking they had found thier woman and none worked out. One of my friends still does that route. He did about 5 of the EC socials and has now done at least a half dozen of the AFA socials and is still looking.

That friend is a bit nieve to be kind. He is a really nice guy. One of the things I remember him telling me was that the girl he really liked was Katya who he met on an early trip. He says Katya would like to marry him but does not want to leave Russia and her family. He added they may never end up together but they will always stay friends. Then he added to that. At least I hope we will stay friends if I ever quit sending her money.

I don't think too many hear are in the searching stage but there is one tour type of thing that is pretty good. I think the advantage to a tour is if someone has never traveled going with a group makes it easier and it can be a lot of fun going with a group of guys. If anyone wants to go the tour route Jack Bragg's www.FirstDream.com is a good one that can have results. He operates very differently then the big agencies.

There are a lot of rip off agencies out there and I would agree with the thought to avoid any where you pay per letter and go for ones you buy addresses.

I met my wife on elenasmodels.com so I have faith that there are real women out there. But there are a lot of scammers also. I'd recommend he get her phone number and contact her using Skype (www.skype.com). In my experience it was a much better and cheaper connection than normal telephone, calling card, etc. I'd start with that...talk to her on the phone. At least then he can be sure she is at least a real female. Then, I'd book a trip to meet in person...that's the only way he can really be sure. Good luck!

I also met my wife on Elenas and yes there are some scammers but most of the women are real and since you get the contact info and write directly there is no "per letter fee" which is where most of the scam agencies make thier money.

I think making a trip to meet this girl would be very risky. I doubt she knows he is alive.

Jim's list is ok but he does have his biases. Donate a little money to his site and you get a much better review. All in all it is ok though and much better than nothing.

Hot Russian Brides is basically a scam site and the odds are 100 to 1 the girl he is writing doesn't even know he exists. Sites like that and Army of Brides, Global Ladies, E-700, AFA sometimes and Anastasia pay secretaries a to write men Lots of guys have even gone so far as making a trip to meet a lady that doesn't exist.

Have his stay with sites like Elena's models, Merry dating, freepersonals.ru, bride.ru, Cindy agency and he will save a lot of money and be corresponding with real women. Tell him not to waste another penny on HRB.

I am not far enough into this to offer any really good advice or show any great examples. We just celebrated the one year annaversary of my wife's arrival a few weeks ago. I do think Slim had some good advice in not encouraging them to get Russian TV and or in being real involved in the Russian community. The less they hold on to their Russian the quicker they will become an American. The more they are around the Russian language the less they are around English.

I am lucky in that my wife is very motivated and very focused. I offered to get Russian TV when she arrived. She wanted nothing to do with it. I suggested a trip to visit her family and she did not want to set back her progress in English by being away from it for a month. As it is, next summer she will go back for a visit.

Getting their degrees evaluated is not hard. There is one place in Florida that I have heard a number of people recommend. I don't recall the name or info but I could find it if it helps anyone. My wife chose to not use her 4 year degree in psychology here and is starting over studying accounting and in her first semester has the highest scores in her classes by a wide margin. She enjoys school. I wish I had been as focused in studying when I was in school. She wants to end up being a forensic accountant. It is something she would enjoy, has a great aptitude for and has excellent pay. My recommendation which she chose to ignore was to transfer her education and go right for a masters degree but she feels a psychology degree has little benfit in accounting and she needs the basics to build on. I can't totally disagree with her logic.

Congratulations. I think we all spend months worrying endlessly about something that can sometimes go smoothly and it is always such a relief to know that it is behind us. Best of luck.

It sometimes amazes me that we have the long drawn out primary system and we pick the people who run for office and still seem to pick cantidates that send us to the polls voting for the least of two evils. With the vast number of people in this country why can't we get some good cantidates?

I like Palin. To me she is the only good cantidate I have seen running for top office since Reagan. I don't agree with everything she supports, but I do think she has the good of the country at heart. More experience would be good but I personally think I would prefer someone who has good ideas and less experience to someone with bad ideas and a lot of experience.

We also hear that men look for a wife overseas because they want a wife with traditional values. Oddly enough my first wife, American of course, had traditional values. She stayed at home raising our two kids and never worked until after we divorced. My new wife is pretty much a feminist. At 29 she has no interest at all in having kids. She does the house stuff but more because it needs to be done and is the most focused person I have ever met on getting a good education and having a successful career. That sorta goes against some of the things we hear.

My 18 years of marriage to a women with traditional values was totally miserable right from day one. My wife and I are a few days short of a year since her arrival and I probably enjoy being with her as much or more than anyone I have ever met and I can't say even one day of that time has been bad. I don't think values have much to do with happiness. I do think two peoples values need to be the same. At 24 when I married my first wife I would not have wanted to marry someone who did not want kids. Personally I think the thing that can help an international marrige succeed is that RW seem to value a good marriage more than American women. I think they often work to make thier husband happy and AW tend to take their men for granted.

I was single for a long time. Being somewhat older than some of you I have done a lot of dating with AW and probably more searching among the slightly older crowd than some. Do RW go downhill faster than AW? First off, I think AW are more apt to put on a lot of weight. RW do more walking and eat more veggies. I think some elements of life in Russia can age people a little faster. I have seen attractive older women in both countries. There are probably more older women in America who would be very attractive if they lost 75 pounds and more women in Russia who look better as an overall package the way they are.

It seems to me I hear a lot of AW say they are looking for someone to grow old with and AM would prefer thier wife to never get old but to stay young and beautiful forever. Both men and women seem to like a younger partner when they do get older. When I used to search though the American singles sites it was rare to see a beautiful older women looking for someone her own age or older. Most wanted a boy toy.

Congratulations and also to BluesFairy as well. Our interview was a lot tougher but never a grilling. Ours lasted an hour and a half at least. The first question she asked threw me for a loop. She asked me who X X was and it turned out to be my wives first fiancee and first K-1 trip. Had she asked by first name only it might have been better but we never talked about his last name. She just kept asking questions and we kept answering them correctly. When we left the office was full of people. Probably the ones she should have been interviewing if she had not gotten so stuck on us. Anyway, that is behind and I am sure you are both happy to have that step behind you.

Very risky to do the medical a day prior to interview. They might find some reason for additional tests, as it happened in my case, and that would extend the waiting time. However, you can still go to your scheduled interview and they may approve your visa pending your medical results. Try to work with that silly Dr. Luchaninova but schedule another medical at IOM, just in case.

It should not be that dangerous Blues. Worst case scenario if there is a snag on the medical is that you would get a 221-G for the medical and once they received it they would issue the visa. If there should be a delay in getting the medical go to the interview without it. Rescheduling would take a long long time and entail another trip to Moscow. The 221-G could be satisified in a day or two whenever you got the medical report. It is unusual to have a snag with the medical anyway. Yes it can happen but would be a minor problem.

With a republic for over 221 years, Blacks are still being oppressed, so the republic is not the answer either. With our immigration laws, the Irish, Italians, and the Chinese for years were able to enter this country, especially the Chinese until 1946 when 105 Chinese were finally permitted to immigrate into this per year. That was certainly generous. Our current president certainly does not like the Blacks, that biased southern hick, as governor, had a rather long list of Blacks on death roll and look at New Orleans, had hired guns called civilian security guards shoot them on the spot. Nancy is certainly his gal, won't even permit congress investigations of these allegations on the floor, this is vast misuse of power that I object to when you have essentially just two people controlling millions. So much for the republic.

A cousin of my daughter-in-law was in college taking advantage of joining the National Guard, was pulled out, sent to Texas for seven weeks to MP school, given a gun and sent to Iraq, this same thing happened to two friends of my daughter recently out of high school. So we have three tiny little girls that can't even open a jar of pickles defending us. How low can our government stoop? Our own president and the one before him are both draft dodgers, but can certainly send our boys and girls into battle, that is really getting low.

There are some interesting points raised here. Hopefully your daughter in laws cousin will make it back from Iraq from Iraq ok. It is always a worry. My son has been there twice and it does make for some sleepless nights. Should young ladies be out there killing the enemy? The feminists fight for the right to be equal.

I agree blacks are opressed yet. Being older than many of you when I grew up blacks were a lot more oppressed than now. I still remember vacationing with my family in Virginia and being a bit shocked when we stopped somewhere and they had bathrooms for whites and bathrooms for blacks. Sammy Davis Jr had to enter the casinos by the back door and was not allowed out with the customers. All of the riding in the back of the bus things and school things were standard. It has changed a lot. Perhaps not as fast as it needs to and there is a long way to go, but it will get there someday.

As far as the things you say I am not informed enough to know if you are right or wrong. Were the numbers of blacks on death row in Texas because the then Governor hated blacks or because more blacks did things that got them to death row? Was it really that the juries or police hated blacks? I have a feeling that in most cases there were blacks on the juries and it only takes one to hang a jury but I don't know that for a fact. Perhaps the juries just really did look at the evidence and do thier best to convict someone they thought was a criminal and guilty? Personally I don't have enough facts but I don't think the Governor has that much to do with who ends up on death row.

It seems to me that to want blacks to be treated equally is a good thing so should not you want young women to be treated equally as well? I will add on disclaimer here. I am saying that but don't really like to see women in combat. That just goes to my old fashioned values and not believing men and women should be equal in all ways. It sort of comes from growing up in a time when men provided for and protected women coupled with a knowledge that the world is changing.

There is an awful lot of good about this country but a lot of bad as well. I don't seem to have any dealings with the government that runs smooth and is handled by people who seem capable of doing their job. I would hate to have my life in their hands. Along the war injuries one relative who was a vet used the VA hospital for his medical care because it was free, by the time they were done with him they had him so messed up he ended up blowing his brains out. Sad.

There is a DHL office in the building just to the right of the Embassy so going in the morning for the physical then going to the DHL office for the mailer and back to the clinic for the results would be easy enough to do.

For me it's voting (and i'm so pissed off I won't be able to vote in November and making sure I won't be subjected to some crazy policy that would get me removed from the US of A. I've been living here for 10 years and love it, I feel i'm part of this country and I want to contribute more than just paying taxes, I don't want some jerk to decide that i'm not worth it or that i'm not up to his or her standards.

Mattr.

Sorry you are going to have to miss this election. I am sure a lot of people think the right to vote is important. It is a shame that so many who can vote don't. I think people often feel there are so many who vote that thier vote won't matter and I think history has shown that sometimes a few votes do make a difference.

Thanks Mattr, Richie and to all those who have participated so far. I hope more can take the time. You are a great group of people and my wife apprecites the help very much.

Three years from the date on her 10 year greencard.

My name in Iren and I am Turboguy’s wife.

First of all I want thank everyone who participated in my survey. Thank you!

I very much appreciate every suggestion expressed here concerning my survey. I modified question #10 to include voting for all levels of government. I would like to add the option "I do not know" to question # 18 (Do you plan to live the rest of your life in America?) but it turned out to be an impossible thing to do after survey has been published. All the survey’ software allows me to change is the wording of questions.

NickD, I did not include the opportunity for a wife and a husband to live together in my list of motivations since permanent resident is allowed to live in America all his/her life without applying for citizenship. I believe this incentive is an important consideration for obtaining permanent residence but not particularly for obtaining citizenship.

Some have mentioned they apply for USA citizenship to avoid being kicked out of the country in case of any new laws affecting immigrants. Others have mentioned that an important motivation was to never have to deal with the darn USCIS again. Question 17 allows you to specify these reasons and any others. When I summarize the results of this survey the motivations will not be listed as "other" but specified separately.

As a natural born USC that just happened to meet my soulmate from a different country and we both wanted to the spend the rest of our lives together, the country we would live in became of secondary importance. The key factor was us being together. Even building a log cabin someplace, washing our clothes in a creek, and raising chickens, we would be happy living in peace and together.

I agree with everything you said and with this part our feelings were the same. We were trapped in A/R for a very long time and explored places to live if we could not get here into the USA. We looked at living in her country and looked at living in another country that would allow us to be together. At the time we finally came out of A/R we had even picked the spot and decided what business venture we would be engaging in to try to put some food on the table. I am happy that we did not have to go that route but I think for many being with someone we love is more important that where we are with them.

Thanks again for sharing the ideas, comments and suggestions.

Thanks for sharing all that. It was very interesting. I agree a part A and part B would have made it cleaner and easier to use but I don't think the software she was using allowed that.

I believe she plans to do a little tweeking today to the questions but to change too much might throw the statistics off since there have been a number of votes already. I guess what I mean by that is that if there are too many options for later visitors that were not available to the first voters then it may create problems for her in her analysis of it.

I am rapidly understanding that a major reason for many that she did not think of to include is for people to never have to deal with the darn USCIS again and to put all that behind them once and for all. I think if she can add that question to the list it will be a popular choice. I will suggest that to her and hopefully it can be added.

Thanks for the suggestions. They are all very helpful.

A few suggestions:

• Don't make questions mandatory. Or if you do, make "I don't know" or "Other" an option. I couldn't submit my survey results because I don't know the answer to the last question. Many VJ couples have considered living in the non-USC's country for part of their lives together.
• Include "To be free of USCIS" or something like that as a reason as it will be one of the most common reasons for this particular audience.
• Instead of repeating "one of three most important motivations for you to obtain US citizenship?" with every choice, I suggest starting the choices with "Please read all the following 10 questions before answering them. Target three of the most important motivations for you to obtain US citizenship from those listed here." Then you've said it once and made the survey easier to read.

Good luck. It sounds like an interesting project.

Thanks for the suggestions and comments. She is going to try to tweek the survey today to incorporate some of the changes you all have suggested. The software she is using will let her look at the respones and if someone does for example answer yes to all the questions instead of only three as the survey asks she can know that.

She is going to try to incorporate an "uncertain" as an option in the last question.

The early responses so far have been very good. Those who have taken the survey so far have made her a very happy woman. Actually she was virtually jumping up and down with excitement with the good start. I really found the early results of the survey very interesting and some of the priorities people expressed really surprised me. To me it is a very interesting project and we both really apprecaite everyone's help and hope more can take her survey.

I would like to ask for your help by taking a short survey (18 questions) about an immigrants motivations to become a citizen of the USA.

My wife is an immigrant herself and a college student. This survey is a project for her statistics class. Anyone who has applied for citizenship or is planning to apply can participate. It would help me very much if you could take her survey. When it is done I will post the results so you can see how your motivations compare to others. PLEASE HELP.

If your spouse is the immigrant who has or expects to apply for citizenship please ask him or her to fill in the survey or ask about their motivation and do it for them. The more responses I get the more it will help her.

Any suggestion concerning this survey are welcome. Please follow the link below for the survey.

http://www.my3q.com/go.php?url=vwrw/95753

Appleseed sounds pretty cool. If I can make it, I will. I will be making some trips back that way but won't have a lot of advance notice. I will PM you ahead of my trip through Cinci. I would be happy to share a beer or two with you.

Baku was actually a pretty cool city. It fronts on the Caspean Sea and is very rich with oil money. About half the cars were new black mercedes, lexus or whatever and the other half were beat up old junkers. No middle ground. Lots of neat things to see and great restaurants. The company who took me over was one of the largest construction companies and was owned by the minister of trade which would be illegal here. The hotel room they gave me was about 60 feet from one end to the other with a wet bar. I was a little concerned about visiting a muslim country but they were great. I even got to go to a muslim funeral service which was pretty cool. I have never seen anyplace with as much new construction going on. I would bet there were more new buildings going up in the 8 story to 15 story size than in the whole eastern us put together. Hundreds of new buildings like that and miles and miles of new classy looking single family homes in the burbs. There was a lot of Turkish influence in their buildings so that was cool as well. I would recommend Baku to anyone.

There's nothing negative about it, (in fact it's probably pretty nice) it's just that your wife places you in a different situation than most of us face with trying to "Americanize" our wives. The whole "when in Rome" concept seems to be lost on many of them.

I'm not saying I expect anyone's wife to show up here and lose all of her "inner-Russian" I'm just saying it's not unacceptable for her to show up here and get a good job, drive herself around, deal with having to work 5 whole days a week, pay bills, etc.

For some reason, it seems there's a prevailing attitude about showing up here and being "provided for" with no need to actually earn one's own way.

I think with the first part I am working against my better interests. I try to help her "perfect" her English but I really enjoy the Russian accent and our own language and feel like I am shooting myself in the foot trying to help. Things like being someplace and I ask her what she wants to eat and she says "insects" which was her word for shrimp. Now I hear her starting to use the word shrimp, darn. It is funny sometimes. When I watch her try to say "this" instead of "zis" I am always afraid she will swallow her tounge. I think I will be surprised if she ever loses her accent completly like Mrs AK.

"Provided for" seems perfectly fair to me. By the time she gets done with school in 2030 she will have enough eduction to get a job that pays twice what I ever made and by that time I will be far too old to work and my vision will be way too gone to drive and she can spend the rest of the time "providing for me" I can stay home and hook a vacume to my walker and do the chores at home which she will be happy not to do so it will be fair for everyone.

I'll be in Wabash, IN on Oct. 18-19 for the Appleseed event. If you're there, TG, you should come on out to the range.

As for driving across the country and it being boring..... if you drive longways through Iowa, and then Nebraska, you may vow to never drive again!

I will be making a number of trips to Wabash. If one happens to be on those dates I will try to check out the Appleseed event. I never heard of that one. I will also be passing through Cinci a week after that. If I am not running late and if you are around I would be happy to buy you a beer or a cup of coffee.

Kotenochek, most of my travels are on business but I can mix in some pleasure. The good side is I get some trips to some neat places. This year I had two trips to Vegas and two to Orlando, all in the winter. Next year it will be Reno and New Orleans along with some other places like Dallas and Atlanta. Sometimes even overseas. I had free trips to Spain and Azerbaijain for example. The side of that some might not like is I usually have to drive since I am often going for a trade show and have to haul equipment and a trade show display. Fortunately I did not have to drive to Spain or Azerbaijain. I enjoy driving and traveling but I am sure some people would consider that a real bummer. I am off to Boston for a trade show this morning and the next is Louisville in about 5 weeks.

That's horrible. Might as well just fly.

If I had the loot to jet-set around the country, trust me, I'd take that over driving any day.

You do miss a lot of beautiful scenery and interesting side trips flying though. I can recall flying over the area between Denver and Vegas a bunch of times and looking down and thinking it was the ugliest thing I ever saw. Now I have driven that a dozen times and the route there is just stunning. There are some very boring parts of the country but there are some awsome sights. I probably drive more than most of you I have to say I never get tired of it. Yesterday was Wabash IN(yes I beat Mapquest times by 40 min each way). Sunday I drive to Boston. There are not many places in this country (at least as far as the 48 contiguous states) I have not been. A lot of the really cool things I have seen would escape anyone flying.