Can't get a visitor visa

[Guest]

Alright so this is a tech forum and it hardly gets more off topic than this but I've written this in relevant forums and got no help, now I need to vent.

 

I'm Canadian, 29, been playing games my whole life. A few years ago, I met this 25 year old Russian woman on a game, we played a bunch, including most recently Overwatch. We were friends and I was always fascinated by Russia, her culture and all that. Anyway, in March this year we started getting really close because she's pretty great, and in July I actually got my visa to go to Russia, bought some tickets and flew to Moscow, then she paid for my flight tickets from Moscow to Novosibirsk (and back when I ended up leaving). I met her parents, brother, her grandparents, bunch of old ladies that made way too much food. She hosted me for 3 weeks at her apartment and it was the best 3 weeks of my life. As a guy who'd never traveled on my own, let alone to a country like Russia which is not necessarily where newbie travelers tend to go, it was quite an adventure.

 

I got back home in August and we started planning her trip to Canada. She had hosted me and I was glad to have met her family, I really wished that I could do the same in return. It would have been great if she had met my mother, who is super excited to see her. We wanted to have her over in my place from Dec 16 to Jan 11, and then she was going to leave.

 

Little did we know, Canada apparently doesn't seem to let Russian travelers in unless they have good reasons to come, such as family, or if they have a lot of money or something. In trying to come to Canada, Alena had to fill her application, which required biometrics to be taken in Moscow. She had to fly to Moscow and back (4 hours each way) to get her photo taken and fingerprinted. She returned, and booked her flight to Montreal and back (a significant portion of her income) based on the advice that having a return ticket might help. Then, she had to show proof that she had sufficient incentive to return home after her stay in Canada, so after being refused once she added proof of employment, proof that she owns property and other stuff showing that she doesn't intend to stay in Canada illegally - which she wouldn't, she's very close to her family. Obviously we failed to convince the visa officer of that, twice.

 

This has honestly been devastating, for one because she sunk maybe 10% of her yearly income in the process of traveling to Canada, which is not a huge deal because she just got a big raise at work and she's from a well-off family... but also I had plans for stuff to do hear. We're all really disappointed that she can't meet my family.

 

So as a result I'm going back over there in February for another 3-4 weeks. But I'm extremely frustrated with the Canadian government for their policies. I understand that they don't want people to "forcibly immigrate" but she showed extensive evidence of strong family and career ties in Russia, as well as good spending money that she would have happily used locally. So yeah, bad bureaucracy foiled me again.

[Neo-revo]

2 hours ago, Bynming said:

So yeah, bad bureaucracy foiled me again.

Ouch. Happy you found a nice lady. But ouch. And hopefully you can get it worked out so she can come.  I don't have any advice on how to help though. 

[TetraSky]

Wow, that's insane and a lot of work/money just to essentially be a tourist in another country.
 

From what I can find, these rules seems to be new from last summer.
Maybe they think she's just coming here to try and get "hitched" to a Canadian. Might have been better for her case had she not made mention of you at all and just claimed to be a tourist.

[Guest]

42 minutes ago, Neo-revo said:

Ouch. Happy you found a nice lady. But ouch. And hopefully you can get it worked out so she can come.  I don't have any advice on how to help though. 

Thanks, we're still working on trying to find a way. I can afford to go there once or twice a year but it's not cheap. At least it prevents me from buying heaps of stuff on Amazon though.

 

25 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Wow, that's insane and a lot of work/money just to essentially be a tourist in another country.
 

 From what I can find, these rules seems to be new from last summer.
Maybe they think she's just coming here to try and get "hitched" to a Canadian. Might have been better for her case had she not made mention of you at all and just claimed to be a tourist.

Yeah there are a lot of Russian women who try to take advantage or they do the whole "mail order bride" thing to escape Russia and come live in Canada by quickly getting married, so they're preemptive measures. Unfortunate that in this case all they did is they prevented an awesome woman from coming to visit... not to mention the fact that she's an IT project manager who's working on her career in a big company in Novosibirsk. If she were to want to immigrate at some point she might be able to do so through the proper channels.

[MandoPanda]

F

 

 

 

 

 

 

_{paying my respects.}

[Canada EH]

5 hours ago, Bynming said:

Canada apparently doesn't seem to let Russian travelers in unless they have good reasons to come, such as family, or if they have a lot of money or something. In trying to come to Canada, Alena had to fill her application, which required biometrics to be taken in Moscow. She had to fly to Moscow and back (4 hours each way) to get her photo taken and fingerprinted. She returned, and booked her flight to Montreal and back (a significant portion of her income) based on the advice that having a return ticket might help. Then, she had to show proof that she had sufficient incentive to return home after her stay in Canada, so after being refused once she added proof of employment, proof that she owns property and other stuff showing that she doesn't intend to stay in Canada illegally - which she wouldn't, she's very close to her family. Obviously we failed to convince the visa officer of that, twice.

It does seem odd doesnt it, that a relationship is not allowed in but border jumpers are put up in motel rooms and the poor citizens are kicked from the shelters. Government is crazy that way. Perhaps you can find another way to bring her to Canada for a visit, like prove you are in a long term relationship. I have been to Russia many times, and its a wonderful country with wonderful people, I do not see why our government does not allow more Russians into our great country!

 

Just wanted to add that when dealing with the government you have to follow every step, fill out every form properly, so triple check everything, then just throw a cherry on top to sweeten the deal. As I mentioned above, but others have gone to even more extremes as seen on tv.

 

Also if the applicant shows initiative, and presses on that shows well on the applicant. You may have gotten a bad federali worker with a paper cut pushing your papers. As long as you fit the criteria, then how government works is they expect a certain flake out rate. Its like an auto denial. Bad on your part to travel so far on the Russian side, but love is love and love knows no boundries.

 

Maybe what needs to happen is more work on your part, not sure what you did in the original process, but maybe there is more you can do to show our government to allow Russia into our great nation!

 

The worker may just be suspicious.

The worker may be prejudice and racist.

The worker may be following the procedure to the T for acceptance.

 

I'd go back to Russia for a vacation, its wonderful, great culture, great people but I was spoiled when I went because we had it great on the company dime!

 

[Neo-revo]

37 minutes ago, Canada EH said:

It does seem odd doesnt it, that a relationship is not allowed in but border jumpers are put up in motel rooms and the poor citizens are kicked from the shelters. Government is crazy that way

 well if your here already or a quasi-citizen then they have to treat you like us schlebs, but if you came from a shitty place/time/event then we have to roll out the red carpet and treat you to the life style less than 1/2 of us plebs can truly afford.

 

i guess the saying is true the grass is always greener from the other side.  Most people are like Go back, come back legally. But in reality their government wont let them 'defect' and the migrants cant tell them its because the drugs/gangs/violence/corruption.

 

Yes its 'better' here  but we have our own set of problems that exist and are not dealt with.  I just hope they take the survivalist and puttin in the work attitude they used to get here, in play and dont start down the welfare road. 

 

Thankfully most of us dont have to deal with half the shit they do, and the unfortunate few of us in first world country's deserve as much attention as anyone else.