It took me a year to get a K1 visa with many problems along the way.
I had 2 senators and a congressman working on the deal.
They did finally approve it but it took right at a year...
Sad thing was, after she got the visa, she would not come!
So much for 4 years of my life and a few thousand $$
Forget a visitor's visa, I was in Moscow and went by the American Embassy only to see about 100 Russian's trying to get visitors visa's and being turned away....The American employee's in the Embassy in Moscow are A-holes! They look for reasons not to allow Russians to come here.....really pissed me off!
One of the things the Embassy employee did not like, we only had a 4 year relation, I only flew back and forth 10 times to see her and the Embassy did not think that was enough or the fact that I had phone bills showing phone calls to her in Russia 5 times a week for 4 years, or the hundreds of emails we sent each other back and forth....
If she is not especially young, has many assets in her home country, has a good job that she intends to return to, has children or other relatives in her FSU country - then a tourist visa maybe possible.
And of course it depens on WHICH FSU country she is from. Moldova and Ukraine may be two of the harder countries to get a visa like a Tourist Visa. Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia - being NATO and European Union maybe easier.