Satellite

Need Cheap lodging in St Petersburg?

Train stations are still free.

You want a crappy airline, Transaero requires the credit card holder to be on the plane! Cannot purchase for another unless you are with them! At least if you try to buy off there website.

http://www.transaero.ru/

These rules do not apply if you buy from their offices outside of Russia. At least as of 2007.

It all depends on the type of visa you have. I have been to russia on private (personal) visas twice since last year. To get registered, you have to go to the local OVIR (the place where your hosts applied for the invitation for the private visa). Your hosts will have to go to the OVIR with you, and make sure they have their internal passports.

I guess some things never change, that's the way I traveled in 2003 and 2004.

So, take that to mean whatever you want it to, but if you cut through the #######, and listen to Satellite (which you should always do anyway!) if your appointment time is 8:00, then you should show up at 8:00. That doesn't mean 6:00 in the snow and that doesn't mean 7:30 waiting in line to pee. That means get off the Metro at 7:45 and walk to your 8:00 appointment.

Just want to add that she was out before 11:00am and I am certain she was the last one in.

Biometrics is a separate appointment at your local ASC (application support center) and your wife can go there all by herself.

No real effect for lifting conditions. Bigger effect for citizenship, because he has to mark that he was charged with a crime. Not sure if a DUI is a crime of moral turpitude, it depends on how the immigration folks interpret the local statute he was charged under.

We came 15 minutes late and just walked up to the guard and told him we had an 8:00am appointment and he let my wife cut right in. No waiting in the cold for hours. I am not sure why people even do that after that experience.

I cannot remember where I heard it, but the odds of obtaining a tourist visa if you are a young, single lady with nothing tangible, being left behind in Russia, are around 2%. It is almost a sure denial.

Alot of young single women on a j1 visa is over 90 percent

Thus a J1 is not a B1/B2 nor a K1 for that matter. Point taken!

My point: Different visas, different purposes, different qualifications, and different odds. Why are we comparing apples and oranges?

P.S. oh yeah, i wonder which dating site she found my email????? i am not listed in any dating sites what a moron she is

Who said it was a she. I know a few guys from my wife's hometown who get plenty of suckers to send them money by pretending to be a pretty woman looking for love, just by using a few pictures from a friend or relative.

It is almost tempting. You have a visa valid for 12 months.... hey, why not let her stay for 12 months with me? Whatever you do, do not do it. Do not take the bait LOL.

You are indeed very lucky. I would suggest you review the law and vast options available to you which were not given to others becasue we had our requests for US tourist visas denied.

First of all, no matter how long the visa is valid for, you are only going to get a maximum of 6 months of status on the I-94. And most folks actually get the 6 months once they get passed the POE.

Next, if your "girl friend" and I would call her that if you want to exercise all her options is just coming over for 25 days to see if you two are going to be a compatible couple then you do have the legal option to actually apply for Adjustment of Status here in the US and by pass the entire K waiting period if you realize you are indeed compatible.

Things to remember:

You cannot have immigrant intent when you enter the US on a tourist visa. You can have the intent to visit your significant other to check for compatibility issues. Do not leave your home country by rapping up all loose ends like quiting your job, moving all your belongings, selling your property, and taking all your money.

Make the decision to stay in the US and get married a spur of the moment thing rather than preplanned. If you get my rift, then you need understand how the immigration officer will be adjudicating your adjustment of status application.

If you apply for OAS within 30 days of arrival it is presumed you had intent to immigrate. If you apply more than 60 days after arrival it is presumed you did not. Between 30 and 60 can go either way. You can look it up in their public procedural manual. FAM X.XX something, I'm not going to research it for you.

For those of you that think K1 / K3 is the only valid and most common way of adjusting status or that the method I described above is a likely denial, you are only kidding yourself.

And also I think most of this russian/other foreign women vs american women stuff is BS. Yeah, Russian women are very done up and look good... When they're young. By the time they're older, American women look waaay better. Easier life, more free time, less environmental problems to damage the skin, better healthcare, botox...

Many of the folks here with a significant age difference will be long dead before this happens Or, now that those women are here, they'll do all that stuff in the US!

I have spoke to the people here in San Francisco regarding this issue the solution is as follows:

1. Have your original marriage certificate appostiled at the secretary of state.

2. Translate appostile and marriage certificate into Russian.

3. Pay consulate to have them certify it and put into one document good in Russia.

4. Remove consulate registration.

5. Now go to Russia to the place where they make internal passports.

6. Get registered / propiska in the local Russian area.

7. Change the internal passport name using the Russian consulate approved marriage certificate.

8. With the new Russian internal passport go and make the external passport in new married name.

I think I would hate to go through this process on 125% of the poverty level. It seems like every month there is something else. Airfare one month, wedding costs not much after, then AOS costs, then bringing the MIL, then learning to drive including 5 grand for driving into a porch, then getting her a set of wheels, then college tuition and books. It is worth every penny but I think I have laid out more than 125% of the poverty level just in extra costs.

I think AK would agree with me that it really depends on the type of lady you brought over. By far AK's wife has had the most success in the US based on everyone else's stories.

We certainly survived on less that 125% of the poverty line. We finally broke it last tax year. Granted airfare and AOS costs were significantly cheaper in 2004 than they are now. Wedding license was only $75. A small restaurant dinner afterwards paid for itself with the gifts from family. My wife got her EAD walkin style and was at work the next day with me. MIL paid for her own expenses when she came over. My wife has never gotten into a car accident, and we have made it on one car. But if I had to buy it would be used and most likely salvage title. And because my wife comes from a frugal and small income family, not living the high life was completely acceptable. Because we were below that poverty line, the State of California and the Federal Government has covered all of her education fees and then some. When she begins her Masters next year, it will be the first time we have to pay. Because my wife has been employed every year since she has been in the US, and has contributed some years more than me, it was definitely worth the capital investment before her arrival.

The only thing about a road trip is make sure you tack on about 20 minutes extra to each hour you'll be driving.

The biggest problem I have found with a road trip for newly weds in "our" situation is that only one spouse can help drive the car. We drove to Las Vegas and San Diego from San Francisco in one day on two separate trips and those wore me out pretty good.

Wife is technically allowed to apply for citizenship today (been married exactly 3 years), but we'll drop it in the mail tomorrow just to be on the safe side (:

Before you waste $675 in filing fees, it has to be both 3 years since she had her green card and not just 3 years of marriage. And of course you can apply 90 days before that three year anniversary.

Yes, I know. But her 3 year "resident since" requirement was met in January. Her 3 years "married to me" requirement was not met until today (:

For some reason I thought your were a K1 since you got married in Hawaii. In such a case you would have been married a whole lot longer then you were a resident. Because the green card is issued many months after the marriage. And it's 3 years from the date of issuance on the card.

Wife is technically allowed to apply for citizenship today (been married exactly 3 years), but we'll drop it in the mail tomorrow just to be on the safe side (:

Before you waste $675 in filing fees, it has to be both 3 years since she had her green card and not just 3 years of marriage. And of course you can apply 90 days before that three year anniversary.

Sat - I guess you really have disappeared. How is the law treating you?

I am almost gone. Actually, I am retired from VJ, Naturalization certificate in hand since August 4. Still haven't gotten around to checking in with social security of change of immigration status nor ordering that US passport. Mostly because I have been like you said:

Just working too much, not enough time to waste here.

For those that don't know I have been working for a Consumer Bankruptcy Law firm since March. And especially with the housing crisis in California, it's like being a doctor in the middle of the black plague. 10 to 15 new clients a day!

And to add to it all those silly topic conversions to pie kind of turn me off.

So, what are the old timers (from '04-'05) up to these days?

I actually was registered on here in 2004, but lost access to both the email account and the password. So I had to create a new account in 2005. The old name was:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showuser=898

But you can't view any of my original posts, since they took the old forum down some time ago.

So I think a lot of the old timers could be in the same boat, but do not want to create new accounts.

Sorry for getting back on subject here but try two at the drivers test was a bust. Try thee will be in 10 days. She has spend more time parallel parking in her 7 months with her learners permit than I have in my life and normally does great. However, I think she was nervous. The pylon that simulates a parked car and her fender sorta shook hands and once again the test ended early. I really thought she would breeze through it this time. The saying is that the third time is a charm. Guess I get to drive her to school for the first week at least.

They sure are strict our there in Pennsylvania. I don't recall parking as being part of the test here at my local DMV. More like 5 minutes around the block, one lane change, and a left turn was all that is needed. A few feet of straight reverse and basically normal parking at the end.

Now I want to hear about what pieces of ####### everyone drove as their first car.

1984 LTD Ford Station Wagon. One of those 1980's semi bight yellow color. It moved like a tank though, with steel bumpers. Retired it for $1000 in 2001 under the California gross polluter law, when it failed smog, better yet the year it was randomly selected to have smog checked by a particular dealer.

Think outside the box.

There are many suburbs around Moscow located along the commuter train routes. Prices for apartments in those areas are substantially cheaper there then next to the embassy, yet central Moscow can be reached in less than 1 hour from those destinations. If you can handle sitting on a wooden bench on a Russian train for an hour each way, you'll be fine. Trains run literally from 5am to Midnight almost every 30 minutes.

I will take my fiancée and her son to a public health facility if the vaccination records will be accepted for AOS, work permit, etc.

It's completely up to the civil surgeon here in the US to accept that Russian vaccination records, ours did not. So you just get them done again. What else can you do?

As far as not needing vaccinations for a K1 to enter the US, the staff there is absolutely right about that.

Another reason not to go to IOM (MOM to Russians). They also have a history of harassment. We got quite good (but not perfect) service at AOM.

As for harassment, most recent reports on the clinic have been absent of such reports. My wife can attest to no such treatment in 2004.

She said that she did not have the form DS-3025 because the lady at IOM told her that she could get vaccinations here in the U.S. My fiancée admitted to wanting to keep more of the money that I sent and that is why she didn't get the shots done. Maybe I have misunderstood how this is supposed to happen, but I didn't think she could even get into the U.S. without the proper vaccinations.

You must have gotten the same lady we did nearly 4 years ago. She flat out refused to give my wife the required vaccinations for the $30 they were charging then. That is a good deal compared to what most of us will pay in the US for those same shots. We even had a proper medical passport with us. The good news is that we got those shots done at public health here in the US for $10 each, thus we didn't lose that much money, by my wife had to suffer through most of the same shots she already had. But for most of you, who can't get a fiancée on your health insurance and won't take them to a place like a public health, the cost of vaccinations along with the civil surgeon visit who has to sign off on it, is going to be very price. Doing to a test for the presence of vaccinations is also costly.

I don't know, I have had this commented on in other threads I frequent and the general consensus is that everyone has made friends here and remain to keep in touch with them and find out how they are getting on

I have always tried to be strictly business on here. Joined to find out how to get my fiancée here after her tourist visa was denied. Did that, long before there were many members. Very happy for it. Kept learning and then began preaching advice on how to get it done. Never cared as to anything else and my time on here is coming to an end too. Oath Ceremony scheduled for next Monday. The DS-11 remains the last form to fill out - application for passport Overall I don't see much use for VJ, once the journey is over; in my case it will still be a useful resource for my immigration cases. Why re-invent the wheel?!

I don't know who to pity any more or who to feel sad for; Korat for following Mox onto VJ or Mox for hanging around VJ despite not having a "visajourney" anymore. In grade school, we would call Mox a "wannabee". As for Korat, perhaps simply a "Whoooooo Cares?"

None.

It wasn't an option in this poll.