Russian Federation-Consulate General

If you missed a russian burocracy that’s the place to go! I came to pick up the paperwork in the morning and been told to come after 12…
If the paperwork is ready why can’t they give it to you right away! It’s nonsense!

Came early for my appointment, was called in right away and since I had everything in order for my daughter and me, both were done in less than 15 minutes. Very friendly people at all windows. The only thing is site said copies of all pages of all passports, they only took pages with pictures and handed rest back to me.

what can I say about this establishment?! their phones lines always busy you can be on hold for two hours or more, theirs website looks like from 1990s (((((… totally no good!!! or if you have any questions you can call them wait 2 hours on hold after the person behind the phone she’s going to tell you please go visit our website and you will find our email and if you need any documents or some help send email to us and somebody will answer to you… it’s taking FOREVER!!! NO GOOD!!!((((. REALLY BAD!!! SHAME on my RUSSIAN embassy in SAN FRANCISCO!!! TOTALY MESS ! Low customer service actually no customer service i’m very disappointed… people staying in-​line forever

Successfully submitted all necessary documents to the Russian Consulate. Made an appointment in advance. Came today with prepared application, money order and new passport photos. Spent about an hour waiting and not more than 10 mins at the window. Everything went fine. I don’t understand complains. If you don’t do your homework, no one at the Consulate should do it for you. Complete your application, check it and re-​check it for errors, get money order for the needed amount ($ 30 for 5 year passport or $ 80 for 10-​year biometric passport), make sure your photos (4 of them) are not done using your Iphone or poor quality photo booth, be nice, and everything will be fine. I don’t understand people complaining. When you go to any Consulate during busy travel time, there is always a waiting time. When you apply for visa to Great Britain, the Embassy workers will not complete application for you. When you go to get a Schengen Visa, they expect you to be ready and comply with their rules and regulations. Try to call to the Consulate of Brazil before complaining, that Russian Consulate doesn’t answer their phones. Being Russian citizen doesn’t mean that the Consulate should do your work. You either do it yourself or pay hundreds of dollars to companies who can do it for you. If you don’t know Russian language or ignorant enough not to be able to complete a basic application, don’t blame the Consulate for your ignorance or lack of skills. If you live outside of San Francisco, plan your travel smart. Combine going to the Consulate with having a good time in this beautiful city. Have a right attitude and you will have a good time. This place is by far better and more accommodating than any DMV office.

To make people wait outside for hours… Great representation of Russian federation.
People drive hundreds of miles and have to wait hours on a sidewalk. Can not give any stars to service, because there is no service. Russian Federation Consulate phone line does not work… How crazy is it? The all system of serving Russian citizens in US is absolutely out of order. To renew paperwork, to get visa, to do anything will take forever. We have to waist so much time and money just to get simple thing done. Very sad.

Absolutely horrible service. They used to have a nice lady in the first shift answering the phone in 2014, plus there was no need to set up appointments for a passport application. Fast forward to 2015, the lady went back to Moscow after 2 years here, the new one seems to have disappeared by March 2015, and the whole line appears to be closed!
The second shift lady on the phone never wants to help up with anything, always blames someone else, always tells you to just write them emails, but they never reply to any of the emails! She also admitted to me that they «don’t call anyone» if any any documents are ready (nu ya voobshe nikomy né zvonu!), and we are just supposed to check their ancient website for status.
Add to that, they now require appointments for passport applications, and the wait time appears to be close to 3 months for the appointment alone! All the while that
has an order that Russian passports must be issued within 3 months by foreign institutions! But together with the citizenship verification, it sounds like the whole process is basically at least a 12 mo ordeal, likely costing more time and money than naturalisation! Now I know where my mistake was!

Forget about calling the phone nos on the website because no one ever answer the phone. Terrible service

Very kind and helpful personnel! Will take their time to answer all your questions. Don’t complain if you forgot your Russian ID and that they don’t accept US issued ones — it’s russian consulate — only Russian IDs from Russian citizens, they are doing their job.
Have your money order in hands — no cash no checks accepted. A laptop with a flash drive will help if you need to correct some of your papers — they will print it out for you with no cost.
Stay positive!

I can’t tell anything about walk in service. I applied through mail for new 3 years multiple entry visa to Russia. I sent my documents on 2÷27÷14 and received passport by UPS with visa on 03÷11÷14. The visa application process is a bit confusing as SF Consulate and Invisa services websites have pieces of old and new information and the application process has changed since 2012. Nevertheless if you organize your documents, give enough time for visa processing and do not make any mistakes in visa application it should all be fine.

Great, fast, convenient service, very polite Russian cute ladies, answer all my questions, set the appointment, show up on time. That’s it less than 10 min. Done. Great job!!!

Why should you drive or fly to this worst organized place in the world? Because living in America you cant use ur usual way of communication and just mail your paper. No, You must go to SFC even if you live in different city. They don’t care about people at all as it was I guess always, even 100 years ago. Why Americans don’t need to go personally to renew passport, why poor Russians always should deal with those stupid rules. Who ‘s going to pay me for day I was out of work because I spent all day and nite driving. Who’s gonna pick my kids up from school? THE WORST PLACE IN THE WORLD. Russia will never be a good country because they don’t love their people.

If you do your homework and have all the required documents filled out properly, it is not too bad — the only hassle is to wait in line. I went to the Consulate with my mom who needed to renew her passport. The gentleman in the window was very friendly and professional, and we were done in about 5 minutes. But as other people said, you have to wait in line outside for about 1.5−2 hours before that. They already started implementing a system with numbers, but it was not working yet (as of October 2013). Having lived in Russia for over 20 years, I was pleasantly surprised by the professionalism of the staff. Perhaps, they have higher standards for those who need to be the face of the country abroad.

Always a line. Terrible space to wait, nothing automated. Try not to come here unless u really want to

You know how everyone complains about the DMV? Well this place is 5X worse.
This place was god awful!!! I had to renew my Russian passport, little did I know what adventure the Russian Consulate had in-​store for me… We got there early, almost as soon as they opened (which was already not early enough). Then as we entered into the large closet known as the consulate, we were greeted by a mob of Russians. Here is when you begin to realize that this place is worse than the DMV. There are two lines one for passport renewal and visa something. Having read the sign I acted in the most appropriate manner I got in line for passport renewal. After waiting in the line for at least a half hour, I went up to the window told the chick working there I needed a new passport, with utter disdain she looked at me and said «you’re in the wrong line» (in russian of course). Thus I went on my way to the right line… But what I don’t understand is why could the lines not be labeled properly? Why couldn’t they implement the DMV’s «take a number» system. This place was a disorganized chaotic mess.
The worst part once I got into the other line, which at first glance appeared to only have about 10 people in line. I later found out it had about 20 people in line, and half of the people were either sitting down or out to lunch and basically they managed to save an invisible place in line… As more Russian kept piling into the consulate, each time they would yell out, «Who’s last in line?». Now imagine asking who’s last in line at the DMV…
After a couple of hours of standing in the right line we finally reached window. I gleefully slid my papers under the glass to the somber looking russian man. He began to scan over all my papers, I had to sign a bunch of places. Then he told me to put the date… well having been born in the US and only being half russian (I speak Russian well, but I miss certain Russian nuances) I put the date as follows DD/​MM/​YY, the guy looked at me in the most irritable manner you need to write the month first then the day then the year. Then i wrote 27÷2÷13, handed back the papers to him. This time he looked infuriated, he said «you HAVE TO WRITE OUT the month». Then he threatened me! He Said, «If i have to white out another mistake I’m going to send you home, and you can come back when you learn how to do this right.» By that time I realized why the consulate workers hide behind a THICK piece of glass…

My wife and I came to the RU Consulate in 2005, and service sucked !!! Rude, long lines, stupid forms. Grrrrrrrr…
We recently (7−24−12) had to drive to SF from Orange County (7 hour drive, each way) to pick up my wife’s renewed Russian passport, they opened for passport service from 2pm-​5pm, line starts to form around 12:30 (we were there first), by 2 pm, there had been about 60 – 70 people !!! (come early, get your paperwork together, don’t make mistakes on documents)… This time service was great, polite… BUT the thing that pissed me off; were the stupid Russian lines… When a new person arrives, they’d ask/​yell; who’s last in line? (kto poslednii v ocheredi ?)… There were 2 lines forming (one to file for passport, and the others were there to pick up the ready passports) or no line just people walking/​talking to each other, so there were no lines at all, so by 2 pm when it was time to go in, people started arguing (almost fighting) who was in line after who !
Those poor American neighbors are probably so tired of seeing pissed off /​fighting Russians Monday thru Friday… People, FORM TWO FUCKING LINES, AND STAY IN LINE GOD DAMN IT !!!
The reason why you’re getting 4 stars:
1) please stop making people drive/​fly to SF from far away to walk in for 1 minute to pick up a passport and drive/​or fly back !!! We live in 2012, there’s a way to mail the passport :)!!!
2) why do you have a phone line/​# ??? If no one can get a hold of a live person ?:)

I remember coming here years ago and being a little
intimidated. Of course that was before ’91 so any
such dealings were tainted with paranoia. Now it
seems like a friendlier, kinder version. I did not
have any business here myself — just accompanying
someone who needed a new passport. It’s funny that
after so many years gone by they still have all this
bureaucratic horseradish — all that changed is the
stationery. Two murder weapons replaced with a mutant
bird with two heads.
It is comfortable at least. Lots of chairs in the
waiting room. Good luck finding parking anywhere
near it though. But that’s coming from someone that
doesn’t actually live in SF so I could be biased.
The most amusing part of this trip to the consulate,
however, was the exit door. There are instructions
on how to exit (see photo).
1. Push The Button
2. Wait for «click»
3. Go!
Of course it’s only in English. Given that there were
mostly Russians there they could have at least provided
a translation as well. So the wait there was spent being
amused at Russian women who would press the button and
then try to open the door immediately — multiple times
until they somehow figured it out or somebody assisted
them. Maybe reviewer Natasha was onto something when she
said «all the love these people have is only for americans,
they treat their own citizens like crap.» This kind of
thing seems meant to amuse passive-​aggressive bureaucrats
who snicker every time someone struggles with the door.

Nice helpful folks work at the reception, but still a lot of things for the consulate to improve. Starting from information on the web site.
The information is poor, sometimes misleading or incorrect. (Why should a one copy all pages of the passport if they need only the first page??? How many paper they wasted since they wrote on the site about ALL pagers???) And so on…
It’s hard to dial to them, nobody answer the phone line.
The space is so small, organization of queue is not strict, always somebody missed a queue, etc. The building itself is huge, they definitely may provide more space to serve better for their citizens and guests.

Phone line is terrible! I was on hold for about an hour and still waiting!
WTF?!

If you come prepared, you will get through the visa process without a hitch. But if you fail cross a «T» or push the buzzer more than once then you will be sent home.
I had everything in order. At least so I thought. My cashiers check (s) was made out for $ 4 more than what it would have been. So I head back to Wells Fargo, have them make new checks and race back Green Street. All this before noon.
This time, no problems and should have my visa ready in a week.
The people here are not nearly as mean as some of the reviews say they are. They just happen to be a but more detailed oriented than most and so long as you follow the rules you should have no problems whatsoever. We are also very lucky to have a consulate here in San Francisco.

Their web site barely consist any information regarding major topics.
On-​street parking around the building. The visitors area is evidently small for the volume of people. Plus, many have to wait more than two hours to be seen by embassy associates.
There are as rude people as you expect them to be according to russian cultural behavior.
However this particular institution perform all duties and is eligible for all needs.
One more advice, if you try to find them online, make sure to look for an official web site. It pops up at the bottom of the first page in Google.