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| Skopje, Macedonia |  Review on March 18, 2014: |
Mary&Zlatko
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
Skopje Consulate Review
Zlatko was originally scheduled to have his interview on Feb 27, but he was able to reschedule the interview for March 6, because it fit into our schedule better. I was nervous about him losing his interview spot, but when he called them, he was able to have the interview rescheduled. He called a week before his interview to confirm the change, and there was some confusion at that point, but they figured it out without too much difficulty. In general, Zlatko found the consulate quite helpful and accessible by telephone, so we encourage you to call them if you have any questions or issues, but make sure to ask to be redirected to the consulate department.
I arrived in Macedonia the night before the interview, which was nice because I was able to bring our documents by hand rather than mailing them. Unfortunately, I missed my plane (another story!) and arrived MUCH later than planned, so we didn’t have time to put our documents together as nicely as we’d hoped, but we had everything we needed, and that was the important bit.
In the morning, Zlatko’s cousin gave us a ride to the consulate. We arrived around 7.40 for the 8 am appointment. There is a bus station style waiting area outside the embassy where people were already gathering. Around 8 am the guard started calling people by name to go in. Zlatko was one of the first people called, but he ended up being one of the last to be interviewed. I was able to wait in the coffee shop across the street—I think a lot of their customers are waiting for people inside the consulate! There’s not much else nearby, so bring something to keep you busy while you wait.
Once inside, Zlatko went through a metal detector. After that, he was told to go the next building where his interview took place. When he got in, he was told by the security to wait in line for document sort out. The documents he needed were put in the passport, and those that he didn’t need (like the second page of the visa appointment confirmation) were left out of the passport and all the documents were given back to him. Zlatko was seated in a waiting area near a bank of windows. He was first called to Window 4, and after a short introduction, he was sent to the window 1 to make the payment of $240. After the payment had been made, he got a receipt and went back to window 4 where he had a brief conversation with the officer in Macedonian and was asked if he speaks English well.
We had been very careful to have ALL the documents requested in the letter Zlatko got. This is apparently a common problem in Macedonia, because the consulate people Zlatko talked to mentioned that quite often people don’t have all the documents they need. NOTE WELL! You need a Police Certificate AND a Court Certificate. They’re NOT the same thing. We also had, as I mentioned, a lot of supporting documents, including roughly 30 pages of chats and Skype records, my boarding passes from my arrival in Macedonia the day before, my family Christmas letter with info about our engagement, and lots of photos from my visit in November. We also included additional copies of all the chats and photos we’d included in our original I-129 F application. This probably isn’t necessary, but since not much time has passed since our original application, we didn’t HAVE much new evidence! I also wrote a "letter of ongoing intent" and got a letter from my minister about the wedding arrangements. For the I-134 Form, we had my form AND the form from the co-sponsor (my mom) along with bank letter, employer letter, two pay stubs, 2012 and 2013 tax returns for both of us. Zlatko got NO questions regarding the financial documents, thank goodness!
After having his documents sorted, Zlatko waited a while before being called to window 3 where he got his fingerprints taken and was asked to go back to his seat and wait more.
Finally, Zlatko was summoned to window 7 for his actual interview with the American consulate official. The first thing she did was to ask him to look her in the eye and she demanded very seriously “WHO are you going to marry??!!!” to which Zlatko replied, “Mary!!”. So, he got that one right anyhow! After that (kind of alarming) start, she asked a lot of questions about how we met. At one point she seemed to get confused, but Zlatko took it slowly and explained the whole situation in detail .She also had a lot of questions about my work—I run my own business, so my guess is that they wanted to make sure it was a real operation and not just something we made up! From what he told me, Zlatko got all these questions absolutely right, but since it’s a small business I can’t imagine how they’d check. I guess they’re looking for confidence in answering, and for evidence that he knows what my life is like (asking questions about how many people work for me, what kind of tasks I do at work, etc). Zlatko told her that I was sitting across the street and they could call me if they had any questions for me, but they didn’t do that. She also asked him questions about our wedding plans—and Zlatko was able to refer them to the letter from our minister regarding marriage arrangements. Finally, the lady said “I’m happy to tell you, we’re granting your visa. Welcome to the US!” At some point Zlatko had to take an oath to marry me. The whole process took a little more than 3 hours (note that there were about 9-10 visa applicants that morning, if there were more applicants, the whole process would probably have been extended). Zlatko did a LOT of waiting between each step of the process, and, like I said, was among the last to be interviewed.
Zlatko was told to return at 4.30 few days later to pick up his visa. This was a similar process involving waiting outside the embassy and being called in one by one, but it only took a few minutes. They also gave him a sealed envelope with his materials in it.
Regarding the overall experience, Zlatko says: "The phone conversations were very good, the people at the embassy were precise in instructing me about what to do, but overall it was a very unpleasant invasion of privacy--they were asking private questions in front of everyone. I'd give them a 3 leaning towards 4."
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #14139