BenNomad

As far as I know, you'll have to get the Covid vaccine in the U.S. if you don't get it at the medical exam in Moscow. You can travel to the U.S. but I don't think you will get your green card until you complete the Covid vaccine. Who knows, maybe in a half-year from now, they will remove Covid from the required vaccine list? One could hope! There's not much to read yet in the other thread I started. It's actually much easier to find info about applying for Schengen visas in Russian. Форум Винского is a huge forum and there's a lot of up-to-date info, many users. It isn't difficult to get visa appointments for every country. For Greece, for example, you can book an appointment the same week or even the next day (probably depends on which city you're applying in). Personally, I wish we had started the process to get a residence permit somewhere earlier. If we had residence in a third country, we could transfer the case there or at least apply for the Schengen visa from there instead of having to go back to Russia to apply.

It IS a very frustrating, complicated and changing situation. The other threads aren't necessarily outdated though. There's an active thread for those who are trying to transfer their interview from Warsaw somewhere else, and there's a thread for those who've decided to stick with Warsaw (or had no choice). There aren't a lot of active posters at the moment who are still waiting for interviews, so it may seem like threads are not being updated, but people are probably just waiting for some news about their cases. You have time to look into getting a residency somewhere if that's a possibility for you (of course the applicant is the one who needs the residency). It won't look suspicious to the US State Department. If you have the legal right to live in a country, you can transfer your case there. But continually renewing a tourist visa (like doing the visa-run thing) or having a long-term tourist stay (like in Georgia or Egypt) is NOT considered a residency. My wife's I-130 took 11 months for approval. Then things starting moving faster. What's your estimated wait time at USCIS?

Picking up an older thread here, because the question of the police certificate validity is a timely one for me at the moment, since my wife just went in to apply for a new one (in Russia) but perhaps she doesn't need to wait in Russia another month just for a new certificate. Our current one is a year old. I checked the Warsaw Embassy website on IV interviews today, and found the following: The first page was updated January 20, 2023. Seems like they got their requirements in line with NVC. My trust level is not very high considering what others have gone through in Warsaw, but the above does seem like ample evidence that certificates are good for two years now. Also, is it true that an apostille is NOT required for the police certificate?

There is also a thread started by @MosCali who was DQ'd June 12. Waiting to hear if they got the interview letter yet. Others who were DQ'd during the past winter/spring got their interview letters around the 21-24th of the month. I was DQ'd July 6 and I'm estimating (hoping) that my letter will come at the end of August, for an interview sometime early October. BTW, it's helpful to the community if everyone creates their timeline and keeps it current. That makes it easy to find this info in one place rather than scattered in various threads. However, I don't see in the timeline any place to mark "received interview letter", which would be a helpful data point.

@MosCali Are you still waiting for the interview letter?

I've been informed that another option for sending money to Russia is to open a bank account in Kazakhstan. I'm told it can be done without visiting Kazakstan, costs 25,000 RUB and includes delivery of the bank card to an address in Russia. Regarding scheduling travel dates for the Schengen visa, I know this has been discussed thoroughly elsewhere, but it sounds like two weeks is the absolute minumum if you're going to do the medical exam in Warsaw. That's based on doing the medical one week before the interview, 3-5+ days for passport return after the interview (embassy information), plus travel days. Of course, that doesn't take into consideration unexpected delays like administrative review. I'd feel safer if my wife had a one-month Schengen, but I'm not sure she's going to get a visa approved for that length since it will be her first Schengen. What happens if your Schengen visa expires and you're still waiting for Warsaw to give the passport back? I wonder if the US embassy takes the applicant's visa validity into consideration?

For those who have no transfer options and need to get to Warsaw, I started another thread:

Starting a new thread for those who have been assigned to Warsaw and haven't been able to transfer their cases elsewhere. *** If your case is IR-5, you can transfer to Almaty (if it hasn't been transferred there automatically) *** I'm sure most people are very familiar with the current situation, but here's a quick summary: - Poland does not issues visas to Russians, and Russians cannot enter Poland directly through an external border. In other words, you can get to Poland only by entering another Schengen country first, and then travelling to Poland from there. - Generally speaking, Schengen visas are being issued for the exact dates of your intended travel (how strict this is varies by Schengen country and the applicants visa history) - You can apply for a Schengen visa only in your home country or a country where you have residence (your residence in that country should be valid for at least three months after your planned return from the Schengen zone). Keep in mind that if you have residence in a country where there's a working US Embassy, you should be able to transfer your case there. - The stated purpose for your travel is most likely going to be Tourism, and therefore it is NOT recommended to mention in your Schengen application that you are planning to go to Warsaw for a visa interview. An excellent source of info about getting a Schengen visa is "Forum Vinskogo" (in Russian language). The country most often recommended to try for is France, because apparently France is less strict than other Schengen countries. However, it's very hard to get an appointment to apply for a French visa. In fact, some Russians are running a business booking appointments automatically using a bot. Seems like the price is around $70-80 to use a bot. Because of those bots I wasn't even able to create an account on the French visa center website. Another one to try for is Italy, with a lot of success stories of people going there. My wife and I have decided to try for Greece. From what I've read, Greece makes their visa decisions relatively quickly (around 2-3 weeks I think). It's also closer geographically to us. We don't know yet when our Warsaw interview date is, and we don't want to guess at travel dates, so we decided it's best to wait for the interview letter before applying for the visa. That means she's in Russia with our kids (and without me) until we get the interview letter. I don't like that our family has had to separate just for the sake of getting a visa to travel to the Warsaw interview, but I'm not going to preach to the choir here Another reason why we decided on Greece is the possiblity for me to get a residence permit through the Digital Nomad program. If I can get a residence quickly, then my wife could apply for a long-term national visa through "Family Reunification" (ie, not a Schengen visa). And that would allow us to travel freely in the Schengen zone. I don't know how long it takes, but I'm flying to Greece next week to start the process. I figure it's better to be working on an alternate plan as long as we're just waiting. A related question here is how to send money to Russia to support a family member. My wife was able to withdraw $2000 from an airport bank machine on her way back to Russia, but that's not much money to live on if we still have a month or so to wait for the interview letter. We left very little money in her Rusisan account when we flew out last year, not thinking that we'd be back any time soon. I heard that UniCredit bank is the last remaining bank that can take transfers in USD or Euros (without enormous fees). Has anyone made USD transfers to Russia recently?

I considered it, but they're going to ask for proof of your residence there. Another thing to consider is how much of a backlog do they have in those countries. I tried to find data about current wait times at various US embassies but I didn't find any official source for that, just statistics on how many visas they issued by month.

@MosCali Judging by experiences posted by other members, I'm thinking you should be getting your interview letter right around now. I couldn't find any members besides you with DQ dates in early June, and it would help knowing if the timeframes are staying about the same. I'm a month behind you in line.

Congratulations to you and your family! Thank you so much for those great tips!! I was planning to give my wife a copy of my tax transcript to take to the interview (I downloaded it from the IRS after getting DQ) but sounds like I could go ahead and upload it to the CEAC site now, even though no one at this point has asked for it. Is there any reason not to upload it now, months before the interview?

Thanks for the support! I'm confident we will get to Warsaw. At least now we can focus 100% on getting a Schengen visa (current plan is to get a visa to Greece). This is what had given me doubts about the transfer to Almaty (for our IR-1 case): Evidently they made the decision at high level and are sticking to it no matter what.

REJECTED. Sigh... no transfer to Almaty for us. Confirmed my suspicions that they are not accepting transfers other than IR-5 cases. At least they responded definitively and didn't leave me waiting for days or weeks with no reply. Our plan now is to apply for a Schengen visa since my wife happens to be in Russia at the moment and there don't seem to be any other good options left open. I don't want to get into the nitty-gritty of getting a Schengen visa here since that is not the thread topic, but I'd be happy to share what I know by private messages, or in another thread if it's being discussed.

While it's true that Russians cannot get Schengen visas to Poland and several other EU countries, they are getting them to other, still open EU countries and travelling from there to Poland. It's a logistical headache, but not impossible to pull off. The State Dept knows that, because Russian applicants are, after all, showing up in Warsaw to attend interviews. I do appreciate your encourangement, though. It really helps!! Since it doesn't cost a thing to resend the transfer request, I emailed Almaty again according to the format they require, and wrote the following as the reason for the request: "Because Poland no longer issues visas to citizens of the Russian Federation and has banned them from entering the country, obtaining a visa to enter the Schengen zone requires applicants from Russia to apply for the visa to a Schengen country other than Poland and to misrepresent the purpose of their intended travel to the EU. The applicant, _____________, does not hold and has never been issued a Schengen visa. " BTW, I still don't understand why the Almaty Visa Navigator says to send justification via usatraveldocs. I registered on usatraveldocs, but I don't see any way of contacting a consulate through the site. For supporting documents, I sent an article from schengenvisainfo.com like you suggested. Of course it is just nonsense to have to do that, since they are fully aware of the situation, but what else is there to do? I'll write an update when I get a response.

We got DQ'd on Thursday and I emailed Almaty today with a transfer request. Got an automatic reply: Here's what the Visa Navigator showed me: I'm a little confused now. Do I need to write them through usatraveldocs, or send another email to usakz@state.gov with the appropriate formatting, or both? And what would the supporting documents be? A rejected Schengen application? Meanwhile, I have been looking into the possibilty of getting a Schengen visa for my wife just in case our transfer is not accepted. There is a very helpful and active forum in Russian that has been mentioned in other threads here on VisaJourney. It's called Форум винского (Forum Vinskogo) and there's a lot of discussion about the best country to apply for, etc. I saw quite a few inquiries from people trying to get to the US Embassy in Warsaw.

The service is ordered online and they email a PDF of the translated document that includes a copy of the original and the "certification" page. I uploaded those PDFs to the NVC just as I received them and they were accepted. I think for the State Department people it probably means a lot that the translations are "pleasing to the eye." I paid $20 for most of the documents like birth certificate and marriage liecense. For a one-day rush job it's $5 more. It can get expensive if the document isn't one of the standard ones from Russia/Belarus/USSR.

I sent all my Russian-language documents to a translation service in the U.S. and they do a very professional job, and very quickly if you pay a little extra. I'm attaching the certification page that they sent with one of the translations. I think that's what the Embassy is looking for. You can see their contact on the image I'm uploading. They specialize in Russian, Belorussian, Ukranian, etc.

@StevenInAtlanta I've just spent the past hour or two reading about this whole depressingly miserable experience. Really hope it works out to a happy end. I just happened by chance today to see the advice about the tax transcript. I submitted my complete 2022 e-filed tax return to the NVC last month, and so did the joint sponsor. Both returns have been ✅accepted by the NVC but I would have NEVER given a thought to obtaining the transcript too. I will certainly try to get them when or if they become available. The joint sponsor filed taxes only last month. I and many others are indebted to the experiences shared here. My family isn't at the end of the road yet, but we'd probably be stuck somewhere near start if it weren't for this forum.

I'm not DQ yet, but hopefully will be soon. Perhaps it's wise to wait, like you did, until being DQ before writing to Almaty or Tashkent. Thank you for copying the email you sent. That is helpful. And commendable that you, having already completed the process, are still active in this forum and helping others out! 👏 You managed to get transferred to Almaty before it was designated for IR-5 applicants, but I'm still going to give it a try. Thanks! Hopefully it will work out for us, too. I see that you are IR-5 though, and whether Almaty will still accept IR-1 cases remains to be seen. It really baffles me why the State Dept made the decision to designate Almaty and Tashkent only for IR-5 (transferring from Warsaw) cases. And is there a reason why there is no mention of Tashkent in all the discussions of Warsaw case transfers? I'm going to request a transfer to Tashkent, too, maybe write to them first, and then to Almaty if Tashkent doesn't take the case.

This thread seems to be losing interest but for whoever is reading, my request to the NVC for a transfer to Almaty or Tashkent was declined. I sent the request via the NVC Inquiry form. I explained the situation clearly, in detail, and asked them to escalate the request to an appropriate level of decision making so that an exception could be made in our case (we are IR-1 but Almaty and Tashkent are designated only for IR-5 unfortunately). Got the same pre-composed reply from LDRM (the contractor hired to answer inquiries) that I got previously when I requested a transfer to Cairo. They want proof of residence in the country where we want the interview to take place. Otherwise, the case will remain assigned to Warsaw. Total bull. As if we have residency in Poland.... So, at this point it looks like a Schengen visa is the only viable option, and to apply for one my wife will have to travel back to Russia.

My case was created at the NVC May 19, and they sent notice on May 23 that it was transferred to Warsaw.

Not sure about IR-5s, but my IR-1 got assigned "MOS" (Moscow) at first like it does for all Russian applicants. The NVC sent notice four days later that it was changed to Warsaw. I don't know if they are still assigning IR-5s to Warsaw, or if they automatically go to Almaty or Tashkent.

@Jaysonit I hope the Egyptian embassy has been able to help you get the police certificate. To anyone else who may be interested, I was able to get the certificate at a regular police station in Egypt (in Hurghada) and it was ready the next day. It cost 80 EGP. They took my wife's fingerprints and took a photo. They needed a photocopy of her passport and they wanted to know our local address but thankfully didn't require any proof of where we are living. The two things they were most interested in were how to spell my wife's name in Arabic (I used an online translator for this) and also what the certificate is needed for (who requested it). I put all of that into a letter that I translated into Arabic and took with me to the police station. The officer spoke a little English and we basically had no problem getting it done. I then paid for a professional translation of the certificate into English and the NVC has accepted the document already.

Crossing Jerusalem off the list 😒 Thanks for the info! We probably could get in Israel since we're a family of five (and four of us have US passports), but... we certainly don't need any added stress and worry!

@blakezero @Karjala Sorry to hear of your difficult situations in Jerusalem. Karjala, can the Mexican Embassy provide you with a letter stating that your husband is not eligible to apply for the police certificate? For Russians and Belorussians trying to figure out what to do with the Warsaw interview situation, this is what I've gathered reading all the info posted here and in other threads: 1. Almaty has been a good option for some, but it's officially designated only for IR-5 (parents). Same with Tashkent (but I haven't heard of anyone going there). It seems that some ppl have had their transfer request to Almaty denied. If you're a US citizen traveling with your family member to KZ, you can enter visa-free and stay up to 30 days. 2. Jerusalem - several ppl have succesfully transfered their cases here without having residence in Israel. But reports from the members above dealing with unexpected issues in Jerusalem are making me wonder whether a transfer there is a good idea. 3. Schengen visa - As far as I can see, this is still a theoretical possibilty if the applicant is in Russia (or Belarus) but the timing of the visit is very difficult. If it's a first-time application, some ppl are saying that you can only get 30 days at most. Can anyone confirm that? Haven't read comments from anyone getting the Schengen visa this year. And the question is which country to try and apply for. Spain, Italy and Finland gave out the most visas in 2022 but the situaton changes. I heard recently that the Netherlands has a high rate of approval. But if the applicant is outside Russia (like in my case) you can't apply for the Schengen visa unless you have residence in the country where you are applying. 4. Residence in another country - if you have permament residence in another country, then obviously this is where you'll do the interview (and probably your case never went to Warsaw in the first place). If the residence isn't permanent, but still long term (like the one-year stay in Georgia, or in Egypt where you can extend your tourist visa up to a year) it's not clear what will happen. My family and I have been in Egypt already five months but the NVC did not grant our transfer request unless we could provide evidence of our residence. I sent the request even before uploading all our documents, but I explained the difficulty in getting to Warsaw. They suggested contacting the Embassy in Cairo for a transfer if we can't provide the evidence (Cairo had already recommended us to contact to NVC for a transfer) but Embassy Cairo has stopped responding to our emails. 5. Any other ideas? One option I am considering now (besides transfering to Jerusalem) is applying for a residence in Egypt so that we can apply for a Schengen visa (we could also transfer to Cairo in that case but I'm hearing of long wait times). The easiest way to get residence would be to enroll our kids in a local school, which would give my wife grounds for getting a temporary residence up to a year. I don't plan to send the kids to school, in fact I hope to be heading to the USA in the fall if possible!