Kaliningrad Residents Can Now Receive US Visas 'at Home'

From tomorrow Kaliningrad residents will be able to receive American visas without leaving their home region. This was announced at a press conference today by James Warlick, the US Consul General in Russia, who is on a working visit to Kaliningrad.

Kaliningrad is to become the fifth city, after Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Saratov, and Yekaterinburg to have an office of the Elf-91 courier company. The office will be opened tomorrow by US Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow. The US Embassy has signed a partnership agreement with the Elf-91 company on receiving and processing visa applications, and issuing non-immigration visas to Russian citizens in their place of residence.

'This service simplifies and cheapens the visa application process, as, with rare exceptions, residents will not have to spend time and money traveling to Moscow,' said the consul. 'By extending this service to Russia's most western region we want to underline our interest in expanding personal, business, cultural, tourist, and other contacts between Kaliningrad residents and Americans.'

James Warlick also said that the US 'was delighted that the EU had resolved the Russian enclave's visa problem and had decided to make its own contribution to this because it sees Kaliningrad as a bridge not just between Russian and Europe, but also between Russia and America.'