K1: How long does it take from the filing of the I-129F?

Brighton Beach is all right, though some Russians tend to look down on it as being a sort of low-class place. Many foreign nationals tend to think this way about their countrymen who immigrate, en masse, to the U.S., New York in particular. Some New Yorkers characterize this place as "the greatest city in the world" in part because it's so "multicultural," but then those cultures see it as a dumping ground for their country's hillbillies.

Anyway, I have something of a desire to visit Siberia myself, especially after recently finishing a great book called "The Tiger" by John Vaillant. It was inspired by a short documentary called "Conflict Tiger," which wasn't bad either. They center around several incidents involving Amur (Siberian) tigers and a law enforcement team charged with protecting them and occasionally hunting man-eaters. Thought I would mention it, assuming there are others interested in Russian culture, not just Russian women. Ha.

I had a Bulgarian friend who lived in Brooklyn for 5+ years. She told me that she spoke only Russian, shopped at Russian stores, visited Russian doctors, etc. As if she wasn't in America.

There is another reason. Many Jews from Odessa relocated to Brighton Beach. In order to do this, they made up stories that they had been prosecuted by Russians for being Jews.

Thank you for the invitation, Gyuliya.
If I travel to Olkhon, I won't have time to see an even more wonderful beauty in a skirt.

Yeah, Brighton Beach has the largest Russian-speaking population outside of Moscow, or so I've read. A lot of the Russian Jews came to Inwood, near me.

Surely you're aware that not all of the stories are made up. Pogroms were not uncommon. I have a good friend in Orenburg who was almost named Sara, but her father decided he couldn't have anyone mistake his daughter for a Jew.
http://www.amazon.com/Shush-Growing-Jew ... 134&sr=8-1
I met this fellow. He gave a talk at my workplace. Things are better now, but this didn't go away overnight, and skinheads are still fairly ubiquitous.

I read that the biggest Jewish complaint was about difficulty entering good universities.
Considering that the higher education in the USSR was free and most Jewish graduates quickly immigrated to Israel, the Soviet government saved some money.

Anyway, many of them returned from the USA to Odessa and became successful businessmen.
What about the name Sima? That's the name of the Russian President's aunt, who lives in Florida.

Sima is uncommon to begin with, and is the diminutive of the Russian name Serafima.

To say that not being allowed to enroll in universities (and work in certain professions or participate in government) is the "main" complaint is a bit of an oversimplification, and to imply that it is not persecution is rather perplexing. (These things do not exist in a vacuum and are indicative of entrenched attitudes which would have affected everyday life.) I suppose blacks weren't being persecuted when George Wallace personally blocked the entrance to the University of Alabama? (Though, I'll grant you, Jews typically weren't "prosecuted.")

Remember what you said about people thinking you're a Muslim? Imagine spending your whole life in a place where you're treated like this, with your social and professional life limited at every step. Tell me you wouldn't feel yourself persecuted. Or do you think persecution doesn't exist until there are concentration camps?

At that time, the Socialist government planned how many educated people it needed. It had no need in a nuclear scientist who could steal all secrets and immigrate.
Now Russia is a capitalist country. If you want to study, you pay money and you're accepted. It doesn't matter if you're white or black, a Jew or a Muslim.

Agreed, things are much better now, just like race relations are somewhat better in the American South, and no one hates Japanese like many of the WWII generation.

Getting back to the original topic, it seems the Vermont Service Center is falling behind and now takes about six months. I read that it's because they got a lot of the cases after the Haitian earthquake.

Quick tip: the forms that your fiancée fills out, like the biographic information and the letter of intent, need original signatures. Try to get them when you're there with her.

Invite her to a vacation in France or Italy or Greece, etc.
Then you won't have to wait for so long.

I'd love to, but I'm afraid I've used up my vacation for a spell. I'll have about two weeks when I go to meet her in October or November. Her family is throwing a party for us. I thought of stopping in Europe on the way back.

hey, how has your process times been?
when I applied, I filled out everything by simply flowing the instructions, when she went to the interview she had a pile of paprework and pictures of us together from my visits. the interview went smothly and they asked to look at very little (I think they just want you to have it with just in case there is an odd answer to one of the questions) tell her to take anything and everything she can to the interview, seperate the pictures by vist (thats what we did) start to finish everthing worked out in just under 7 months (this was in 2009)

let us know how yours works.