Moscow Trip Report

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

The initial US translation was done to get the I-129F out the door. The price was not a factor. Time and dollars are often two interrelated variables in a process. I wanted this done quickly and accurately, and that is what I got. My financial threshold of pain is different from yours. When I rebuilt the engine in my 1966 Porsche, I could have had the heads ported, polished and resurfaced, 30 miles from my home for a reasonable price. A guy I know in CA has a track record for excellence with vintage Porsche engine machining, so he got the work. Price was not a factor there either. Price is certainly a consideration, but it is not necessarily the dominant factor in a decision.

The documents translated in Russia, were done about one month before they were required for the interview. Olga was going to be in Moscow anyway, so it made sense to have the documents done there. From the perspective of the "project", the documents were translated ahead of schedule and under budget. (This is often a good thing... )

Wow. Hey when you want to talk color case-hardening restoration on a M1886 Winchester Lightweight , I will be all over it. Doug Turnbull is your man!

Does this mean vintage cars are getting added to the mix of guns and pie. Ummm, OK.

My first car was a 1965 Corvair...unsafe at any speed but only because I was driving!

I have a brother who is a doctor and worked as a mechanic as a young man and during college. He now has a barn and auto shop to die for and restores older cars and builds airplanes for a hobby. He likes Porsches and Mercedes

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

I too, like the idea of supporting VJ members when possible. That said, and before I knew about VJ, Diana was taking her documents to the English school where she was studing in Donetsk (UA) for translation. I don't know what she paid but I believe it was a very reasonable price. (They also provided the certification and stamp.) It was convenient for her drop off and pick up the documents because she was already at the school for her English classses.

Which English school? Alla and Sergey went to the "London School of English" Their instructor was from Arizona. It is two blocks from our flat on Letiya SSR. Pasha also went there but only for 9 months before he arrived.

[Advanced Aardvark 82]

Wow. Hey when you want to talk color case-hardening restoration on a M1886 Winchester Lightweight , I will be all over it. Doug Turnbull is your man!

Does this mean vintage cars are getting added to the mix of guns and pie. Ummm, OK.

My first car was a 1965 Corvair...unsafe at any speed but only because I was driving!

I have a brother who is a doctor and worked as a mechanic as a young man and during college. He now has a barn and auto shop to die for and restores older cars and builds airplanes for a hobby. He likes Porsches and Mercedes

I have done some case hardening of auto parts, but I would not trust myself to tinker with an M1886 Winchester. (See also Murphy's Law...) I used a product called Kasenit to do the case hardening. It worked as advertised.

Ah, I like Corvairs. I have a weakness for vehicles that are aircooled or British. It took me years to understand that the British vehicles were not leaking: They were simply marking their terrotory. I also worked my way through the University doing mechanical work. Now, tinkering with vintage cars is simply fun. I am on the tail end of restoring a 1926 Franklin Model 11A. It has an enormous inline aircooled six cylinder engine that produces a whopping 26 horsepower. The girls should NOT read the following: The difference between men and boys is the price of the toys.

It sounds like your brother has a true "man cave". he he he...

[Neonred 3,551]

Add me to the vintage car lovers list. In fact I have two 64 Corvairs, a Spyder convertible and a monza coupe, and of course the Prowler. Wife does not care much for the Corvairs but she was the one that pushed to buy the Prowler and loves that car. She is just not allowed to drive it!

[baron555 934]

Add me to the vintage car lovers list. In fact I have two 64 Corvairs, a Spyder convertible and a monza coupe, and of course the Prowler. Wife does not care much for the Corvairs but she was the one that pushed to buy the Prowler and loves that car. She is just not allowed to drive it!

My first car was a VW Bug. It was all I could afford after saving my own money after getting a job shagging carts at the A&P two days after my 16th birthday ("If you want your own car you buy it with your own money.", said my parents).

Buddies of mine had Mustangs, Corvairs, a Road Runner, a Challenger, Camaros.

I remember (living in the Chicago south suburbs) having "Tune-up Parties" where we would get together at someone's garage and help tune up each others' cars (I'll bring the strobe gun you bring the tach you bring the beer you bring the 8 track).

[Advanced Aardvark 82]

My first car was a VW Bug. It was all I could afford after saving my own money after getting a job shagging carts at the A&P two days after my 16th birthday ("If you want your own car you buy it with your own money.", said my parents).

Buddies of mine had Mustangs, Corvairs, a Road Runner, a Challenger, Camaros.

I remember (living in the Chicago south suburbs) having "Tune-up Parties" where we would get together at someone's garage and help tune up each others' cars (I'll bring the strobe gun you bring the tach you bring the beer you bring the 8 track).

My first car was a "Frankenstein" '63 Chevy Impala convertible. I bought the body with a blown engine, went to the junk yard with the wrecker from the gas station at which I worked, and literally picked up another chevy small block (283) and a two speed power glide trans. (I really wanted the corvette 327 engine they had, but there was no budget for that little upgrade!) I installed the engine and trans on a Saturday night at the gas station. The interior came out of a 64 Impala SS convertible. After another car wiped out the nose of my car, while I was sitting at a stop sign, I added the nose off another 63 Impala coupe. The junk yard called me when they received a '69 Camaro that rolled over on the highway. I got the Edelbrock 4 barrel aluminum manifold and Quadrajet carb from that car. I did buy a spanking new Mallory dual point distributor and Super Coil for the car. Ah, and the final touch was a new convertible top kit I bought from JC Whitney in Chicago-land. I put over 100,000 miles on that car (the engine had about 85,000 on it when installed), before the car was stolen. I still miss that car - it had my bloody nuckle marks on it from one end to the other.

We had tune up parties too. We also had oil change parties, after we built a waste oil heater from plans in Mother Earth News. That heater worked great! Plans are still available on their web site.

Those were days of self reliance and making do with what was available.

Edited June 15, 2010 by Tim & Olga

[Casper&Diana 0]

Which English school? Alla and Sergey went to the "London School of English" Their instructor was from Arizona. It is two blocks from our flat on Letiya SSR. Pasha also went there but only for 9 months before he arrived.

I don't know, Gary. I've been trying to get info. from Diana on things like that and though we write or talk every day she is so focused on the upcoming interview and packing (24th, I leave Friday for UA) that she hasn't answered my questions!

I'll see if I can find out though.

[Casper&Diana 0]

I have a brother who is a doctor and worked as a mechanic as a young man and during college. He now has a barn and auto shop to die for and restores older cars and builds airplanes for a hobby. He likes Porsches and Mercedes

Uh, what kind of airplanes? I dunno much about guns (I only have a circa 1910 .22 with a hex barrel that I got from Dad who bought used as a kid in Montana, and a BB gun pistol that I use to annoy the deer that eat my flowers and the coyotes that want to eat my cat!) but I can hang with just about any kind of airplane thread.

[slim 1,523]

I have a nasty habit of reading official instructions. On occasion, official instructions provide helpful insight into requirements for a process. Here is a cut and paste from the US Embassy in Moscow web site, pertaining to documents required at the Embassy interview:

"Copies and translations of each document into English are required. Translations must be notarized only when the original is in a language OTHER than Russian. (e.g. a translation from Ukrainian into English must be notarized, translation from Russian into English does not need to be notarized). "

Given a choice between following your "guestimate" of the translation requirements, and the actual translation requirements, I'll go with the official requirements. I suspect that you are baffled due to a lack of familiarity with the current official requirements. This will help to get you up to speed: http://moscow.usembassy.gov/fiancee.html

While I do not hold your youth and inexperience against you, (Gary probably does not either...), it does become a tad tiring when you continue to shoot from the hip, and miss, and miss and miss.

Thanks for providing the link. It did help me get up to speed with current official requirements.

[SMR 368]

I have a nasty habit of reading official instructions. On occasion, official instructions provide helpful insight into requirements for a process. Here is a cut and paste from the US Embassy in Moscow web site, pertaining to documents required at the Embassy interview:

"Copies and translations of each document into English are required. Translations must be notarized only when the original is in a language OTHER than Russian. (e.g. a translation from Ukrainian into English must be notarized, translation from Russian into English does not need to be notarized). "

Given a choice between following your "guestimate" of the translation requirements, and the actual translation requirements, I'll go with the official requirements. I suspect that you are baffled due to a lack of familiarity with the current official requirements. This will help to get you up to speed: http://moscow.usembassy.gov/fiancee.html

While I do not hold your youth and inexperience against you, (Gary probably does not either...), it does become a tad tiring when you continue to shoot from the hip, and miss, and miss and miss.

The USC speaks English and the FSU citizen speaks Russian and they are somehow communicating. I would think that they aught to be able to come up with a translation for a birth certificate or police certificate. It doesn't need to be notarized.

As far as coming in ahead of schedule and under budget, a lot of that depends on what you schedule and budget are and whether or not they were realistic. Peace of mind has a certain intangible value, of course. If you would worry otherwise, I can understand going the official route.

[Advanced Aardvark 82]

The USC speaks English and the FSU citizen speaks Russian and they are somehow communicating. I would think that they aught to be able to come up with a translation for a birth certificate or police certificate. It doesn't need to be notarized.

As far as coming in ahead of schedule and under budget, a lot of that depends on what you schedule and budget are and whether or not they were realistic. Peace of mind has a certain intangible value, of course. If you would worry otherwise, I can understand going the official route.

For a Moscow K1, documents in the Russian language do not need to be notarized, but a certification that the translation was performed by someone who is fluent in English and Russian is required. Even though Olga and I communicate well, I am not fluent in Russian (I speak Russian with a Martian accent), and Olga is not yet fluent in English. This necessitated hiring a certified translator. Much of the recent discussion thread covered what was a good price, factors influencing translation rates, and which resources were available to perform translations. I certainly became aware of translator talents within the VJ community which were previously unknown to me.

The 'official' requirements referenced earlier in the thread were the US Department of State specifications for documents that must be provided at the interview, and which document must be translated. I am sure that I could cobble together translations of basic documents, but it really is not worth attempting to game the system for a net savings of $100 or so.

[bainbridge558 0]

Uh, what kind of airplanes? I dunno much about guns (I only have a circa 1910 .22 with a hex barrel that I got from Dad who bought used as a kid in Montana, and a BB gun pistol that I use to annoy the deer that eat my flowers and the coyotes that want to eat my cat!) but I can hang with just about any kind of airplane thread.

Wondering what kind of airplanes myself !

[Terry&Tigger 4]

Tigger has offered to do this for free Though she will find cases where clients wait until three days before their interview, want her to drop everything else and do their Police Certificate translation which they only got 2 days ago because they didn't plan ahead and then Fedex it to them, from Russia....FOR FREE of course, because you SAID FREE! That means FREE (Tigger needs to learn that about Americans...you say FREE it means FREE...for everything...forever) That means 3 years from now when they need another translation certified for their I-751, they will want you to do it for FREE...quickly....like tomorrow...overnight it to me...for FREE.

Tigger is welcome to doing all of them for free that she wants.

Thank you, Gary, dear, it is really nice to have your blessing. I do appreciate your wild imagination about the 'clients', too.

Where you see 'clients', I see people, and if I said I do translations for K-1 for free while waiting on my approval, that means exactly that. Translations. Did I mention shipping?

K-1. Did I mention AOS?

While waiting on my approval. Did I mention forever?

Never thought you'd care so much as to warn me, but thanks, it is not really necessary, the Americans who ask for translations happen to be much more adequate than you have described.

And no, of course you don't advertise Alla's services here.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Uh, what kind of airplanes? I dunno much about guns (I only have a circa 1910 .22 with a hex barrel that I got from Dad who bought used as a kid in Montana, and a BB gun pistol that I use to annoy the deer that eat my flowers and the coyotes that want to eat my cat!) but I can hang with just about any kind of airplane thread.

He has an older Cessna 172 he rebuilt and a small pusher prop homebuilt. He let Alla fly the Cessna and she claims she married me for the chance to fly an airplane. He has a practice on both Chicago and Dallas and commutes between the two in his Cessna.

When we went up with Alla, she said "I will fly it but I will not land it because when I tried to land in video games, I break everything around" He said "Yes, OK I will land it" (like he was going to let her do that anyway!) She had fun flying it and keeps begging me to take her back there...yeah, if only we get the time

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Thank you, Gary, dear, it is really nice to have your blessing. I do appreciate your wild imagination about the 'clients', too.

Where you see 'clients', I see people, and if I said I do translations for K-1 for free while waiting on my approval, that means exactly that. Translations. Did I mention shipping?

K-1. Did I mention AOS?

While waiting on my approval. Did I mention forever?

Never thought you'd care so much as to warn me, but thanks, it is not really necessary, the Americans who ask for translations happen to be much more adequate than you have described.

And no, of course you don't advertise Alla's services here.

Lighten up Tigger. I never suggested you needed my blessing. (where? when? how?) There is nothing derogatory about the word "clients", that IS what they are if they are paying you for a service. I treat clients better, in general, than I treat "people" in general. They pay me for that.

You don't NEED to mention anything, you said "FREE" people often take that literally to mean everything, forever.

At any rate...good luck. And stop getting so offended so easily, no one said anything offensive to you that I have seen yet, but we get chastised by you and your fiance for simply expressing our opinions or relating our experience.