About the author: Darya Melnik
My path
I have spent twelve years helping families relocate, and I have been at BRIDGES since 2018. I was born in Minsk into a family of doctors and studied at the faculty of international relations there from 2007 to 2012, specialising in migration law. An internship at a consulate showed me how easily people get lost in simple steps.
From 2012 to 2018 I worked at a relocation agency in Vilnius: residence permits in Lithuania and Poland, schools, doctors, rentals and bank accounts. I led families from the first call to their children's first school day. I joined BRIDGES as a senior consultant in 2018, and my first cases there were the Greece Golden Visa and Cyprus permanent residence. In 2022 I moved to the head office in Budapest. When the rules for Russian and Belarusian passport holders changed, I looked for the legal routes that stayed open.
I speak Russian, English, Polish and Lithuanian. I live in Budapest with my husband and two daughters, and I have moved countries with children twice myself.
What I work on
- Residence in Europe for families with Russian or Belarusian passports
- The Greece Golden Visa and urgent routes
- A second passport as a route to EU residence
- Documents for children and parents
- The move itself (school, doctor, bank, rental), support after the status is granted and renewals
How I work
One person stays in touch with the family from start to finish. In the first week you get a plan with dates. I answer the same day, even when there is no news yet. I am honest about timelines: if there is no fast route, I say so straight away. The passport a family holds decides the route, and spouses, children and parents go into one plan from the start.
My full profile is on the BRIDGES website: Darya Melnik, BRIDGES expert.
Connection with BRIDGES
I work at BRIDGES, a firm that advises families on residence and citizenship, including the Hungarian guest investor residence permit. I write this guide openly as a BRIDGES consultant. If you ask for help through the consultation page, your request goes to BRIDGES.
How I write
Each article is dated, every rule is checked against the official guest investor pages of the National Directorate-General for Aliens Policing (OIF) or BRIDGES published data, and sources are listed at the end. How this works is described in sources and methodology.