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Posted by: Jim_FL

I've been out of touch for a bit but the following are some misc. ramblings concerning our experience with the Moscow embassy interview and Liliya's arrival in the US of A..........

Section I - Moscow

Just to set the mood, a short recap of my flight over:
My ride to the airport never showed on July 31. Unknown to me at the time he had been picked up under suspicion of DUI. He had not been drinking, but as I waited for him, he was sitting in a police station 30 miles away

. I got a ride from another friend at the last minute and they were holding the plane at the gate as I cleared security..... I connected in Atlanta where the second plane had a faulty valve, which caused us to sit on the tarmac for 3 1/2 hours while they fixed it (so much for my 4 hour layover at JFK being "plenty of time") We arrived in NY 20 minutes before my aeroflot flight was scheduled to depart. I had to sprint to baggage claim, retrieve my bags, and make my way around the outside of the building to get back to the check-in counter. Luckily, my timing was perfect and I was the second last one on the plane. They had overbooked the flight as usual, and I got a business class upgrade (very nice indeed

). Once in Moscow I was the second "non Russian" off the plane and passport control took all of 1 1/2 minutes. There was a guy at customs x-raying the bags, but never asked for the customs form so that was a breeze too.

At this point I had to beat back the taxi mob and find a place in the main concourse to wait............and wait, and wait, and wait. Everyone had told us that the medical exam takes 1 to 2 hours. For Liliya, who was meeting me at the airport after hers, it took over 3 1/2 hours. Her appointment was set for 11:00am, my flight arrived at 1:30pm, she arrived at the airport around 5pm, after dropping the little one back off with her Mom at the flat. We took the bus to the metro, a much longer distance than I had imagined, and since it was now "rush-hour" it took over an hour. It was a bit of a trick to find Rechnoy Vokzal metro station, as you cant see it from where the bus drops you off, it's down the street and around the corner to the right about half a block. Next thing I knew, we were back at the flat and I was getting a very warm welcome from Momma

She had prepared a fantastic dinner while Liliya was retrieving me from the airport, we ate drank and had a great time........until she looked at her watch and realized she was going to be late getting to the train station for her return to N. Novgorod. We all got up, ready, and raced to the metro station. She made the train with no time to spare (actually she had to enter the last car of the train and walk to the front through the inside as it pulled out of the station :lol: ) Finally, we could get some much needed sleep when we returned from the train station.

One piece of advice I'd like to give right up front is that if you plan to accompany her to the United States, DO NOT make it a three week trip, mabye a week - max. This can be a very high stress time, which can lead to problems real and imagined. Halfway through this trip I finally understood I was more "in the way" than helpful. Of course, in true Russian fashion, NOTHING was done to actually prepare for the trip until the visa was "in hand", which left a ton of work to be done in a short time.

As for the visa process, the medical exam wasn't bad I was told - except for all the waiting. For those of you who have upcoming interviews in Moscow, Medinitsa clinic is a block off the main drag (Tverskaya-Yamskaya IIRC) If your fiancee would contiue on that main street toward the center of town, DHL is about 2 blocks further down, on the left. They can get the prepaid ticket when they go to get the medical results, and kill 2 birds with one stone. The day of the interview, be there at 7:45 or so, no earlier. The day we were there, the line didn't get long until about 8:30. If you join her for this part, all you can do is stand out front and look stupid with the other guys waiting...........can't even chat with the guards, they don't speak english LMAO! The closest metro station is the same one you use for the Zoo which is well worth a visit in good weather.

While our week in Moscow was nice (for the most part), we were both eager to get back to her place and happy our time in the big city was over.

Another thing I can't emphasize enough is to SPEND TIME WITH HER CHILD! Spend as much time as you possibly can, and really get to know how mother and child interact. There are some things you can't find out over the phone or by e-mail. This was the cause of some friction in Moscow, while we had many long talks about child-rearing and disipline, what we had talked about was not quite the reality of the situation. Over the phone you may very well think you understand each other completely, but it's not always the case. Liliya's actions never contradicted anything she had told me, but there were situations that arose that did not specificly fall into areas we had discussed. I thought the link was implied, she did not (or vice versa). Bottom line mindset is this:

Quote:

If it is not dangerous,
If it does not hurt him,
And if it is not immoral,
................I will permit it.

The little one was like the velociraptors in 'Jurrasic Park', constantly testing the fences, looking for weak spots

She didn't believe it and probably still doesn't completely, but we've made great progress in the area of showing a united front.

Next - Heading back to her town............

Posted by: Jim_FL

Section II - Balakhna

The overnite train from Kursk Station was a pleasant but uneventful ride with surprizingly clean restrooms We had 3 bunks in a 4 person compartment, I told her to just buy the fourth ticket but apparently $21.00 was too high a price for a little privacy...... We arrived @ 6:00am in Nizhni Novgorod's Gorky-Mosc station to see her parents anxiously awaiting us on the platform. An hour later the whole family gathered around a huge stack of blini and a hot pot of Maxwell house coffee (made from the last of the 3lb. can my parents sent over a while back); I was home, I could feel it :vibes:

Over the course of the next week we spent a LOT of time with family. The few days out at the dacha with her parents and son were absolutely fantastic, from the foods like shashlik & sturgeon soup, to the walks through the forrest looking for mushrooms, and of course vodka daily

(hint: if you're drinking vodka - stick to vodka, if you're drinking piva - stay with that, got WAYY too hammered one evening chasing the first with the second when we ran out of pepsi!) And finally, don't worry about the horror stories in the archives, if you get a chance to hit the banya for a true Russian bath, DO IT it's great

One of the other highlights of the first week was going into the city (N. Novgorod) and picking out the wedding bands with her parents. May seem a bit strange, but it was cool that they got the chance to participate in some small way. All were very happy with the choice of rings although Liliya was a bit concerned about paying the outragous sum of $82 USD for the pair

.

I had decided to stretch the trip out (when I booked it) to include her grandmother's birthday, and this was truly the high point of our time in Balakhna. The WHOLE family gathered together on the last weekend we were there, to celebrate our engagement and Babushka's 75th birthday. What a blowout! Aunts, uncles, cousins, close family friends, guitars, pianos, food, wine, vodka, 3 or 4 different kinds of cake, and ice cream.

On the down side, spending so much time with the family during the first week, coupled with the other things that NEEDED to be done left virtually NO time for us to be "alone". This was something of an aggrivation for me and with the little one showing off his "home court advantage", again became a source of moderate friction between us. This would continue to build through the rest of the trip and culminate in a heated "discussion" 2 days before heading to Moscow. In retrospect, a lot of it had to do with me being a bit more demanding of her time than I wanted to admit then, and her struggling with leaving her motherland and son a little bit more than she wanted to admit.

Posted by: Jim_FL

Section III - coming to America

On the day we left for the airport we had to be on the road by 6am to make the 4pm flight out of SVO 2. We had hired a van and driver, so her parents could come along to see us off. We had decided some time back that the little one was going to "follow to join". At that hour of the morning, mother and son both had too much sleep in their eyes for a long tearful goodbye and I think it was a good thing. About half way to Moscow we pulled into a field, off the main road and had a great little picnic breakfast. The whole time we were driving, Liliya stared out the window, soaking up every last image of Russian countryside she possibly could. When we got to SVO it was a bit like a sit-com, everything seemed to go wrong (with the exception of her paperwork to leave the country) the driver missed the airport entrance, got lost in the parking lot, finally plwed over some cones that sectioned off the taxi sand in the arrivals lot downstairs, got into a huge argument with airport security, etc. Inside things didn't go much better, I drop my card in the ATM and it doesn't recognise it for some reason, 3 more machines with various problems but similar results - no cash to pay the driver and no customer service until 1 hour after our flight is scheduled to leave AAARRRGGGHH!!!! (We will wire her parents the money from NYC and since they got lost on the way home it actually made it there before they did

). Not a dry eye amongst us as we said our Do Svedanias at the customs wall, after much aggrivation we both make through baggage check-in / customs / passport control and on to the gate where they do everything but strip search us before being allowed through US security......

Once on the plane and in the air, she finally relaxed a bit. Other than the sweaty, slobbering, endlessly sweating obese dude sitting next to us, the flight and landing were uneventful. At JFK I went with her to the lanes on the far left, designated for arriving visa holders. The line was suprisingly short considering how far back in the 767 we had sat. We were 3rd up to see the officer, we walked up together, I explained that I was a citizen and she was on a K visa. The officer took my passport first, then her "sealed brown envelope" and passport. Very friendly and polite! He explained that she would have to wait a while for her paperwork to be processed and pointed to the room. He suggested I go get the bags and come back, by then she'd be about done. Well, it took about 40 minutes, but most of that time was waiting for poeple who had arrived before us with problems

. Her "processing" took all of 5 minutes from what we could tell, and she got the work authorization stamp without having to ask. My younger brother and his wife came to greet us and escort us into Manhatten. Liliya was not quite prepared for the "overwhelmingness" of NYC. Our room was on the 26th floor of the Clarion in midtown halfway between the Empire State and Chrysler bldgs. and the view really was spectacular. That first nite, we called home (her parents & mine) and then crashed hard, sleeping from 8:30pm straight through to about 9:30am. We hit the street after coffee and pastry and saw all the midtown landmarks we could squeeze in. We did lunch with my brother and his wife and then he kinda played tour guide for the rest of the afternoon in lower Manhatten. We headed back to the room @ 6pm with intentions to meet back up for dinner at 8 or 8:30..................when we woke at midnite, we gave him a call just to confirm we weren't gonna show

We stayed up and talked for a couple of hours, and while the day had been pleasant, the tension that led to our "discussion" 3 days earlier, was back. She went back to sleep, but I could not. Around 4 am I went out to walk the streets of NYC for what turned out to be 3 hours to sort things out in my head. Upon my return, we ended up having a huge argument which would ultimately be the turning point where I would finally come to know, once and for all, that things were gonna be fine between us. At this point, I would like to sincerely thank Bucky for a shred of advice he passed along some time back: At the point in the argument where she was in the bathroom crying her eyes out, and I was standing by the window contenplating what it would feel like to hit the pavement from this height, I marched into the bathroom grabbed her into my arms and kissed her as passionately as I could. Game, set, match..........argument over. From that exact moment on, things have been fantastic between us again, the air had been cleared and it was finally time to move forward.

NOTE: One thing I substantially underestimated, was the sensory overload going from a town of 75,000 in central Russia to NYC.

Posted by: Jim_FL

Section IV - My Family

After the argument and reconciliation we went down to the street and grabbed some coffee, sat in the park and watched the city spring to life from our seats in the park. The imaginary wall between us was gone and things were feeling much more "normal". What I would come to understand later in the morning is that part of the reason for that wall was the sensory overload I stated earlier, but the other part was the fact that she was petrified my parents would find fault with her, even though they had been e-mailing and speaking on the phone since late last year. Looking back on it later, it made perfect sense but I was not able to see it beforehand. As you might suspect, we met up with my parents around lunch time that day and it took all of 15 seconds for Liliya's fears to be laid to rest. She and my parents got along fabulusly. They drove us to PA where we spent the next 4 days. Now it was Liliyas turn to be the odd object of a small towns' curiosity

On a humorous note, She was VERY concerned that Mom and Dad would leave their gas grill unattended, outside, for 45 minutes while the family ate indoors. She was stunned and amazed to find the grill had not been stolen during dinner

She was also quite relieved to see that NYC is NOT representative of how the entire country lives and found many comforting similarities in the friends of my parents and the community of my parents' town. She was getting more confident and comfortable with her choice to come to America with every passing hour. Her, Mom and my brother's wife (they drove down the following day) have started to forge a good bond and wandered off a number of times on their own for "girl talk" sessions where she was unusually comfortable being apart from me and holding her own in conversations.

The flight back to Florida was smooth and uneventful, until we landed. A friend picked us up at the airport and informed us a crane working on the railroad fell over early in the day and wiped out all electric to my city

so we arrived home to 90deg. w/ 90% humidity at 11:00pm with no lights and no air-conditioning - and we were happy

Posted by: pharmrep2

Jim

Great story, I am glad everything worked out at the end. It was very interesting to read your story about your adventure in Russia. It brings back memories when I was there. Wasn't NN beautiful in the summer time

. Well happy you are back in Florida and keep in touch.

.

Dax

Posted by: rtking

Fantastic Story! I'm glad that everything worked out for you and Lilya! And thanks for sharing the story! The insight into the concerns Lilya had are topics I would have never imagined... but after you had written about them, they seem so obvious! Thanks for the enlightenment!

Hope all is well in Florida and that the power is now back on! Gotta have that air conditioning, don't ya know!

Best Wishes!

Bob K.

Posted by: Jutman

Hi

Good 4 U it ended happily. Strangely and good for me, I don't have your problems.
However I do recognize your story about dacha and banya. But disagree. I think you can live with banya because you are from FL.
Maybe my 'family' in Russia is special, but the amount of vodka is not a big problem and they accept that I drink less and drink vodka with juice.
A 3rd Ir ecognize is her fear of stuff being stolen. When we walked in the city, she could not understand the shops had items at the pavement.

I am in the happy situation where my lady don't have children (i would'nt) have choosen her if she had, but believe we got the same view on parenthood, since we spend a some time with her 8 yo niece.
But good luck with your future life together. I think you will manage, since you seems to have good patience. Something vey important when we deal with cross-cultural relationsship.

Posted by: Castlestormer

I feel honored! I know it took a lot of time and effort to write that brilliant report. And for you to have unselfishly invested so much of it on this board makes me proud to be a member here.

Bolshoi Spasibo!
Steve

PS: I'm a firm believer in the law of "sowing and reaping". May you receive a double portion of peace and happiness because of your willingness to share your life with people you barely know.

Posted by: ConnerVT

Thanks for your insightful story, Jim. I hope the past few weeks have allowed you both to settle in some, and recover from the stresses of moving and travel. I remember how much stress I went through just moving across town. Moving across the planet has its added burdens!

I also found amusing (although extremely insightful) the concern for the BBQ gas grill. During my recent trip to visit my fiancée, she expressed her desire to replace the door of her newly owned apartment. Seems the 1.5� solid wooden door isn�t as secure as the two steel vault doors you need to get through first! How is your lady adjusting from coming from a land of concrete fortresses with steel doors and barred windows, to one with wooden doors and sliding glass patio windows?

If one has a bit of understanding of Russian history, the concern for security isn�t hard to figure out. We have been blessed in this country (USA) with not needing to worry of government sponsored famine and shortages, police that will haul you off never to be seen again, revolutionary revolt, or large scale war fought on native soil. Our consumer society is of the mindset that, if the grill did disappear, we would just use it as justification to buy a bigger, better one! I imagine it is something it takes time to comprehend, if you never have experienced it before.

This is something I am actually looking forward to, getting to see my world through my fiancée�s eyes, and even more so through her young son�s. Please update this thread occasionally, as I�m sure many would like to hear of this experience. I�m sure the stories will be good ones, for she has a good, patient guide.

Posted by: Knight_Kadosh

Great story, and thanks for sharing Jim_FL,

I do wonder how flexible I will need to be to deal with her daughter fairly, since we have never met in person. I am happy to see her expectations for a nice pair of wedding rings was so reasonable.

Best wishes to you and yours and I hope to learn more from you regarding what to expect. This is invaluable to me.

Brian

Posted by: Emetsky

Spasiba for sharing with us your very interesting story Jim. I wish you and yours a happy life together in the USA.

So I guess you bought your airline tickets for the US even before you knew that Lilia's visa was going to be approved.

From what I've heard, once a K1 visa is approved, the recipient has up to 4 months to travel to the US. This gives K1 recipients enough time to get their things in order before departing for the US.

Hmmmm, I wonder if they also give out work permits in LAX when a K1 visa holder arrives.

Dosvidanja!!!

Posted by: Danika

awesome story!

hahaha - I do recognize that fear of how unsecure the entrance doors seem, it's what my first thought was too ... a thin wooden door with a glass window, and one small lock?! How crazy it that, lol! :P

Well, I got used to it fast, and even to the totally crazy fact that we live in a 2 million city and the neighbours are simply leaving their backyard door unlocked so they can get in if they forget the key to the front door =))

I also recognize the fear about how my family-in-law would accept me ... their oldest son marrying a foreigner? crazy crazy ... but they were super cool, just like in your case

All the best of luck to both of you ...