an adventure into the world of diplomatic intrigue, maybe
Such is what happens when you try to get a visa from the Russian Federation. In fact, I'm about to go back to the office today with my paperwork to try to apply again (but that's putting the happy ending at the beginning of the story, which really ruins the tension).
Background: I'm going to visit my friend Rachel, who's studying in St. Petersburg this term, over thanksgiving weekend. We have made several attempts to hang out in a non-college setting, and they've mostly either not panned out or been disastrous (witness my not visiting Amherst this summer, the crashing at my cousins' house last spring, etc). I had promised to visit her in russia this term, and so there was some definite pressure to break the streak of terrible luck this time and actually go. I was challenging historical precedent, though--from Napoleon to Nazi Germany, European invaders have had trouble making it all the way to Moscow.
We planned for thanksgiving break, and because we both got long weekends (apparently because american study abroad programs would feel bad if you had to go to classes on thanksgiving, even though as a holiday it's wayyyyyyy further off the radar than halloween), we decided to meet up in moscow. Now, i'd heard that american citizens have a tough time getting visas to russia, but it was only wednesday that i found out that everyone has trouble getting visas to russia.
It was wednesday morning that i went to the embassy (the consulate, following some sort of international regulation, is only open from 9am-noon mon/wed/fri). There was already a line spilling onto the sidewalk of people waiting for consular... whatever it is that they do at a consulate. The guy in charge of letting people through the big iron gate out front didn't seem to be particularly friendly, and i stood in line for almost fifteen minutes (watching several people walk up to the gate directly, bypassing all of us) before getting sick of it. I walked up to the gate, and the next time the guy came out, I held my papers (a visa application from the russian embassy in DC's website) and passport and asked him if they were ok. He, surprisingly, was quite friendly--I got the sense he spoke english better than hungarian--and gave me a different form to fill out, and sent me across the street to this sketchy little office which seemed only to exist to make copies of your passport, which are required for a russian visa.
I returned, with barely twenty minutes to spare until noon. The guy let me into the consulate, where there was (guess what!) another line in a bare, ugly looking waiting room. I finally had my turn to walk up to a window, and presented the consular officer with my (new) paperwork. He looked at it, looked at my passport, and stood up. Talking to a woman working at a desk behind him, he rifled through stacks of blank forms, finally returning with the exact same form i had originally filled out, only with a ______ in place of "united states" in the Embassy of the Russian Federation to the United States line. He wouldn't let me submit my old or my new paperwork, so I had to go back to the waiting room part to fill the paper out. When I finished, I had to wait for him again specifically, because he had the photocopy of my passport at his desk. Once he was free, I discovered (to my horror) that the hotel confimation I was planning to have faxed to the consulate could not be faxed, only hand-delivered. The officer seemed apologetic, but said he couldn't accept my application without the hotel voucher, but couldn't accept a hotel voucher by fax without an application. As an alternative, he offered, "The woman standing behind you represents a tourism office. She can help you. I would like to help you, but I can do nothing," and then handed me a business card for this (private) tourism office from a stack on his desk and sent me on my way.
Fortunately, the tourism office had an address a couple short blocks from the embassy, so I figured I'd walk there directly. When I got to the building, it turned out to be large and completely unmarked; the front door was locked and curtained. To get to the tourism office, as I figured out later, you had to enter through a side door, talk to a security guard who spoke only russian and a little hungarian, walk up three flights of stairs, cross through a cafeteria, exiting via a back door, and walk down a hallway lined with unmarked doors--the tourism office was at the end, and contained three desks with computers, a photocopier, and a large wall map of russia. They turned out to be very helpful, and can apply for the visa in my stead, getting it sooner than if I had tried to apply personally, but the whole thing just seems... sketchy.
Speaking of which, I need to get there before they close. Szia!
Background: I'm going to visit my friend Rachel, who's studying in St. Petersburg this term, over thanksgiving weekend. We have made several attempts to hang out in a non-college setting, and they've mostly either not panned out or been disastrous (witness my not visiting Amherst this summer, the crashing at my cousins' house last spring, etc). I had promised to visit her in russia this term, and so there was some definite pressure to break the streak of terrible luck this time and actually go. I was challenging historical precedent, though--from Napoleon to Nazi Germany, European invaders have had trouble making it all the way to Moscow.
We planned for thanksgiving break, and because we both got long weekends (apparently because american study abroad programs would feel bad if you had to go to classes on thanksgiving, even though as a holiday it's wayyyyyyy further off the radar than halloween), we decided to meet up in moscow. Now, i'd heard that american citizens have a tough time getting visas to russia, but it was only wednesday that i found out that everyone has trouble getting visas to russia.
It was wednesday morning that i went to the embassy (the consulate, following some sort of international regulation, is only open from 9am-noon mon/wed/fri). There was already a line spilling onto the sidewalk of people waiting for consular... whatever it is that they do at a consulate. The guy in charge of letting people through the big iron gate out front didn't seem to be particularly friendly, and i stood in line for almost fifteen minutes (watching several people walk up to the gate directly, bypassing all of us) before getting sick of it. I walked up to the gate, and the next time the guy came out, I held my papers (a visa application from the russian embassy in DC's website) and passport and asked him if they were ok. He, surprisingly, was quite friendly--I got the sense he spoke english better than hungarian--and gave me a different form to fill out, and sent me across the street to this sketchy little office which seemed only to exist to make copies of your passport, which are required for a russian visa.
I returned, with barely twenty minutes to spare until noon. The guy let me into the consulate, where there was (guess what!) another line in a bare, ugly looking waiting room. I finally had my turn to walk up to a window, and presented the consular officer with my (new) paperwork. He looked at it, looked at my passport, and stood up. Talking to a woman working at a desk behind him, he rifled through stacks of blank forms, finally returning with the exact same form i had originally filled out, only with a ______ in place of "united states" in the Embassy of the Russian Federation to the United States line. He wouldn't let me submit my old or my new paperwork, so I had to go back to the waiting room part to fill the paper out. When I finished, I had to wait for him again specifically, because he had the photocopy of my passport at his desk. Once he was free, I discovered (to my horror) that the hotel confimation I was planning to have faxed to the consulate could not be faxed, only hand-delivered. The officer seemed apologetic, but said he couldn't accept my application without the hotel voucher, but couldn't accept a hotel voucher by fax without an application. As an alternative, he offered, "The woman standing behind you represents a tourism office. She can help you. I would like to help you, but I can do nothing," and then handed me a business card for this (private) tourism office from a stack on his desk and sent me on my way.
Fortunately, the tourism office had an address a couple short blocks from the embassy, so I figured I'd walk there directly. When I got to the building, it turned out to be large and completely unmarked; the front door was locked and curtained. To get to the tourism office, as I figured out later, you had to enter through a side door, talk to a security guard who spoke only russian and a little hungarian, walk up three flights of stairs, cross through a cafeteria, exiting via a back door, and walk down a hallway lined with unmarked doors--the tourism office was at the end, and contained three desks with computers, a photocopier, and a large wall map of russia. They turned out to be very helpful, and can apply for the visa in my stead, getting it sooner than if I had tried to apply personally, but the whole thing just seems... sketchy.
Speaking of which, I need to get there before they close. Szia!
posted by sam at
12:33 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home