U.S. Bars Russian Woman’s Visit to Ailing Grandmother

Tatiana Snihur wants to travel from Kiev to Torrance to see her grandmother one last time. But the U.S. Embassy won’t let her enter the country.

After her mother died of cancer, Snihur was raised in Kiev by her grandmother, Nadia Petrova, and the two have an unusually strong bond, family members say.

Petrova, 72, is now in a Torrance retirement home, with terminal emphysema. Her dying wish is to see her granddaughter. But Snihur has been denied a visitor’s visa four times, according to family members.

Secretaries in the U.S. Embassy in Kiev reportedly told Snihur, 20, that a grandmother is not a close enough relative to warrant a visitor’s visa. Snihur might receive a visa only to attend her grandmother’s funeral.

However, this is no ordinary grandmother-granddaughter relationship, family members say.

Snihur’s mother, Anna, died of cancer in 1987, possibly due to complications arising from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster. Snihur’s father left the family shortly after the cancer diagnosis.

“I became a parent” to Snihur, said Petrova in Ukrainian, as a daughter translated. “I was raising her. I was nourishing her.”

But embassy officials here say that the bond between family members is not a deciding factor when granting visas. While officials cannot address specific cases, nor confirm the number of times Snihur may have applied for a visa, they say that foreign service officers in U.S. embassies abroad must assure that foreign nationals will return home. “That’s the key,” said spokeswoman Nyda Butic.

And visa applicants such as Snihur may have little incentive to return home, says another consular spokesman. “Very often, when you get a young person, they have no particular career ties, which are the best ties,” said Richard Williams, chief of public affairs in the Bureau of Consular Affairs. “She probably is of an age where her parents no longer provide a strong tie to return, and she has no other family of her own yet.”

Worldwide, U.S. embassies in 1993 turned down nearly one of every four people who asked for a visitor’s visa, Butic said. In Kiev this year, the number of applicants denied was greater than one in three.

Undeterred, Palos Verdes Estates resident Valentina Bier--Petrova’s daughter and Snihur’s aunt--is crusading to get Snihur a visa.

Bier argues that although Snihur is not married, her incentive to return to Kiev includes a two-room condominium she owns and a job as a computer programmer with a company that makes film equipment.

Bier has appealed to California’s senators and to U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Rolling Hills). A representative of Sen. Barbara Boxer sent a Nov. 2 letter to the U.S. Consul in Kiev on behalf of Snihur, but Bier says her niece was denied a visa for the fourth time on Nov. 17.

“We don’t have the power to grant the visa,” said a spokeswoman in Boxer’s office. “But we can highlight the case so it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.”

Bier says her mother came here six years ago to visit but her emphysema flared up and stopped her from returning home.

Petrova, who speaks no English, is connected to an oxygen machine 24 hours a day. Bier says that without U.S. medical care, her mother probably would have died long ago.

But now Petrova would like nothing more than to see her granddaughter. “It’s the one wish I have,” she said.

Items for this column may be sent to People Column, South Bay Edition, Los Angeles Times, 23133 Hawthorne Blvd., Torrance 90505.