MOSCOW — Russians wanting a glimpse of the American dream now have to wait. Or not go at all.

Escalating tensions between Moscow and Washington are putting a damper on Russians’ vacation plans, catching ordinary people in diplomatic crosswires that have a distinct Cold War flavor.

A year ago, obtaining a U.S. tourist visa could take under a week. Now, it comes with an eight-month delay.

“I am waiting for a miracle to happen. Maybe tomorrow Russia and the United States will decide they are friends, all staff will come back to the embassy, and I’ll get my visa,” said Mohamed Torky, who is the executive chef of a Holiday Inn in northern Moscow.

Torky had planned a July vacation to the United States, to see the fabled Las Vegas and eat steaks in Texas. He even thought of fulfilling his childhood dream of driving a Ford Mustang through America’s highways.

But instead, he’ll be vacationing in nearby Georgia, or Egypt. The 32-year-old is furious.

“Putin doesn’t suffer, Trump doesn’t suffer, but people like me suffer,” he said, referring to the Russian and American presidents.

Since last month’s expulsion of 60 U.S. diplomats, and the closure of the U.S. consulate in St. Petersburg, part of the latest tit-for-tat in the standoff between Moscow and the West, the next available visa appointment at the U.S. embassy in Moscow is in 250 days’ time. The diplomats were kicked out after Britain and its allies expelled over 150 Russians from embassies for the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal, which Moscow denies. Last week, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, described relations with the West as worse than during the Cold War.

The visa debacle has spilled into the public, leading Moscow and Washington to trade fresh barbs last week.

The Kremlin accused the United States of denying visa appointments for crew members of Aeroflot, Russia’s flagship carrier and the only airline with direct flights to the United States. A State Department official dismissed the claims as “unhelpful and simply false.”

Two dancers from Moscow’s famed Bolshoi Theater, including a prima ballerina, had their visas rejected at the last minute, before a scheduled performance in New York. The Russian foreign ministry pointed the blame squarely at the United States on Saturday, for “trying to put up a visa wall,” making “our citizens’ visits to the U.S. virtually impossible … Such things did not happen even during the Cold War.”

The U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services, which oversees performer visas, said it does not comment on specific cases, citing privacy concerns.

Avoiding the daunting 250-day wait, hundreds of Russians have been flooding neighboring, former Soviet countries such as Latvia in recent weeks, hoping to take advantage of U.S. embassies whose host country is not sparring with Washington.

A cottage industry of “wine and visa” tours has even sprung up in the Caucasus, where visa-seekers can wait out the processing time by sipping their way through Georgian vineyards.

But not all Russians have the time, or can afford, an additional vacation in a nearby country in their quest to get an American visa, and the actual numbers of Russians visiting the United States has plummeted.