Saturday, October 3, 2009

Hello, Mantis. Goodbye, America.

I had an interview at the US consulate in Moscow to renew my H1B visa this week. The fact that I was notified about the interview on Wednesday evening and the interview was scheduled the next day (and I was in Novosibirsk!) was just a little inconvenience in comparison to what happened next.
Lucky me:
"Sorry, your company works in semiconductor field, which means there are sensitive materials, so I have to send your documents for a MANTIS check. Sorry, there's nothing I can do about it, this is the law. The waiting period after we get all the required documents is 16 business days."

Soo... Juliana will fly back as planned - the next week. I hope to get back to California in about 3-4 weeks. That is if I'm lucky. :) At least I can work at the local office in Novosibirsk these weeks.

So far almost everything, which could possibly go wrong on this trip, has gone wrong.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Alexey, will you come to Moscow or what? :) I still hope to see you.

Alex said...

Unfortunately, not this week. Hope to be in Moscow for at least day at the end of October.

trickster said...

OMFG. You might need the plan "B". My mantis took 118 days, but it was 1 year ago.

Alex said...

I can't think of any plan "B" in my situation. And honestly - I don't really care. I did everything I could, and now just need to wait.

You can be happy or unhappy pretty much anywhere in the world. A family is more important than a place where you live.