I wonder how it worked out for John (Topic "Moving to Russia" from 2003) with a crazy idea of moving to St-Pete. I'm planning to move there too (I'm Russian) with my husband (who is American) and I found out that even if he has temp. residence he still needs to get a permission to leave the country and come back (it's remindes me my communist childhood :). Does anybody know is it difficult to obtain such permissions (visa, etc.)? How long does it take? And the most important is it still hard to live over there? Are there some Americam community gatherings? I remember 7 years ago everybody was getting together in the American consulate.