Im going to Moscow to be with my girlfriend.

welcome to expat-blog flipreg; its always so nice to see those who put everything on the line for a shot at true love, you only live once, and i commend your efforts

you may want to try posting a similar request on the Moscow Forums

All the best to you

PS shes one lucky lady

And Im gonna be a poor ass beggar if I go there without a job. Thanks bro!

Hello flipreg! Welcome to Expat.com.

Your discussion has already been moved to Moscow forum.

All the best,
Harmonie.

Thank you Harmonie! Just hope someone can help me out here soon..

I am an American who has been living in Moscow since 2003, so I am familiar with your situation I think. Just coming here on a tourist visa or home stay will only allow you to stay in Russia for three months.  If you want to stay a year, you have to have an invitation from a business who can hire foreigners that is willing to hire you and then if they like you extend your work visa for another year.  As far as I know that is the only way you can stay for more than three months.

If you like it here, (get married) then you can apply for residence.  You can apply without marriage, but it is much harder to get residence.

I would recommend that you find a job first and get an invitation and work permit good for a year.  Just how much Russian do you know?  Moscow is considered a very expensive city, so unless you plan on living with your girlfriend of working for a private language school that provides residence, you will not have an easy time here finding an affordable place to live.

You have the education and specialized skills that are hard to find in Russia, you can get a wok visa good for 5 years I think.  Anyway, you will need a job first, you just can not pop right over and expect to find work, then stay.  There is talk of the Federal Migration service ending their quotas on work permits and residences, but as of now these quotas are still in place.  Russia wants to increase its commercial output, so these quotas maybe done away with, but at the same time I read on one Russian news site that some in the duma want those getting work permits to know Russian.  That is how it is here as far as visas go, always in an ever changing confusion.  I have an article I wrote on Yahoo Contribute: http://contributor.yahoo.com/user/11609 … ayres.html  called Jobs for Native English Speakers in Russia and I will be writing another one soon on getting residence and registering as a private individual entrepreneur and working for yourself in Moscow.  This is what I do and do pretty well.  I have been here quite awhile and like it here, it is not perfect, Moscow is a big, crowded, dirty city.  Corruption is bad, but I love the people here, Moscow is a fantastic city, but you have to be prepared for living here and how to deal with everything like registering with the police, medical care if needed and what not.  I love it here, otherwise I would have left a long time ago.

I just noticed that you are from the Philippines, are you Filipino?
                                       JD

Technically yes. I'm originally from Hong Kong, but spent my early years in Canada before moving to the Philippines. Man, my gf told me the same thing and I just never believed it was gonna be such a hassle for someone like myself to live in Moscow. Isn't there any media related work available in Moscow, like say a magazine company hiring us English lads to write articles and reviews about Moscow? Better yet, couldn't we start our own business there?

Sure there is, in Moscow today is an English language Russian channel, and there are many Russian English language magazines and newspapers Like Moscow Times that do hire English speaking people from time to time, but before you can get a work visa, you have to be hired first.

Yes, you can start a company here, if you can afford to rent an office and hire Russians.  Or you can do as I did, I have residence here and could register as a private individual entrepreneur.  I have my own teaching, translation and editing business, plus my photography, digital art and travel writing.  However, as it currently stands, you have to have residence first before you can register as a PIE.

I may be wrong, but I think your best option is to find an employer, in my article I mentioned, I have several links with jobs of all kinds, even some media jobs.  Then accept the job, come here for a year and see how it goes.  Since you mentioned media, have you experience and education in this?  If you do, it could possibly mean you have a specialized skill that will get you a work permit good for three or five years.
                               JD

bossman1 is giving very good advice. Just to add to it, I would emphasise that a job (with invitation letter) is essential. I now have my residence permit and could, like bossman1, register as a PiE, but just want to mention that it took two and a half years and a lot of very frustrating paperwork and associated visits to strange offices and clinics all around Moscow for this document to finally come through. And that was as a spouse to a Russian citizen - officially married in 2007. We managed to have a whole baby and get settled in to a working and living routine before the documentation came through.
One step at a time!
Good luck
IW

thanks for boss man

(Moderated)