Russian Citizenship

[SMR 368]

I posted with some questions about this process a while ago and there really didn't seem to be much communal knowledge on the subject so I figure I'll add to the pool now that we have gone through the process. This is all for the consulate in NYC. It may be the same or different for other consulates.

Step 1 is of course to get the documents together.

--Birth Certificate: You need to get an Apostille and need to translate to Russian. The Apostille is a two part process. At the state capitol they only have signatures on file for the county clerks but they don't usually sign the birth certificates (although they could, in theory). So you have to first go to the county clerk's office and get him or her to verify that the person who signed the birth certificate is authorized to do so, etc. The county clerk signs that and with that document the state sec of state will sign the Apostille.

For the translation, we did it ourselves but it actually ended up being a bit more work than we expected, taking up most of the afternoon. The formatting for every county is different and it takes a bit of doing to replicate.

Application: You need to fill out an application which is available at ruscon.org. Nothing is too tricky, really. Technically this is filled out by the RF citizen parent.

Permission: The USC parent needs to sign a letter of agreement. This document must be notarized by a Russian-speaking notary recognized by the consulate. I am not aware of any of these in the US outside of the RF consulates. This requirement means that both parents will be required to appear in person at the consulate. The NYC consulate now simply requires this. We have some friends who have tried to complete this process at another consulate by mail. That consulate doesn't strictly require both parents to appear and states that the process can be completed by mail. However, they have not yet been able to get the consulate to recognize the father's permission form since the notary they used is not recognized by the consulate.

Pictures: You need Russian size passport photos 3.5x4.5 cm. We couldn't find anyone in the US that would do them for us so we ended up "hand-rolling" our own with a digital camera and photo-shop (although a simpler photo-editing software would have probably worked). There are a bunch of requirements on the consulate's website but they didn't seem to get stuck on the pictures or really pay much attention at all to them. You need pictures of the RF citizen as well as the child.

Passports: For both the RFC and the USC. My wife's external passport was actually expired at the time (we renewed it on the same trip) but they accepted her internal passport.

Payment: Payment is only accepted in money orders which we did at the post office. They wanted $145. There is an itemized list of about 4 things that you pay for. We thus did 4 separate money orders although I am not sure if they would have accepted one big one. $4 wasn't worth the headache.

Marriage certificate: Marina changed her last name and her Russian documents are all in her maiden name. The marriage certificate doesn't specifically state she is changing her name but they accepted it as a name change document anyways. Even if no name change occurred, they may want to see this.

--Photocopies of everything.

--You can either get the kid written into the passport of the RFC or you can get him his own passport. If you are just writing him in, you don't need photos for him. If you are getting him his own passport, you have to fill out an application at passportzu.ru

For more document specifics, go to: Russian consulate.

After this, you need to set up an appointment with the consulate which should be done by email. Our appointment was 4.5 months out, so you can probably do this before you have all the documents together. We didn't and ended up waiting 4 months. If you don't get an appointment, you will end up waiting outside in a cage . A lot of angry reviews of the Russian consulate can be found on the internet but I think those are all from people who didn't have appointments and ended up in the cage.

Our appointment was at 9:30 and we were there about 2 hours early, just to make sure we found parking. At 9:30 on the dot, a man came out and asked who was there with an appointment. Everyone who had an appointment was let into the internal waiting area. We were called up to a window about 10 minutes later. We then waited at the window for another 10-15 minutes while an officer became free. There were 5 windows for citizens and another 3 for visa seekers.

The interview was very straightforward and consisted mainly of the officer asking for all of the required documents. The website recommends bringing all of the documents in electronic format on a thumb drive. They will take your thumb drive and change anything they don't like, print it out for you, and have you sign it. They even made copies of my wife's internal passport since we didn't know they would be needed. All in all, the service was prompt, polite, and efficient. My wife said it was about 100 times better than service at the US consulate in Moscow.

We also renewed my wife's international passport. We filled out the application online before arriving. They made some copies of documents and took another $40 in money orders. We got the stamp that says she also goes by her married name.

Also, they need a pre-paid FEDEX receipt to send you your child's birth certificate and passport. We didn't have one but they said we can simply get one and mail it to them later. I guess we need to pick up the passport in person, which means we'll be back in NYC in another couple months.

There were also some interesting conversations to be overheard in the consulate, including a Russian lady who was there to get a visa for her son. She openly admitted that she disliked her ex husband and had just lived with him for 5 years to get the citizenship.