Inside the consular section of the British embassy in Moscow on May 8, 2007.
Photo: Alexey Kudenko
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The Visa Mill
// A Closer Look at Russian and European Consulates
A new agreement aimed at simplifying visa regimes between Russia and the European Union went into effect on June 1, 2007. Having gone through the mill at various European consulates in the guise of an ordinary Russian traveler and comparing her observations with the impressions of foreigners who have dealt with Russian consulates abroad, Vlast correspondent Agafya Tikhonova discovered a significant typological similarity between the approach from both sides and came to the conclusion that it's not just by chance.
The press service at the French consulate in Moscow told Vlast that around 70% of the visas that the consulate issues are tourist visas, which are not affected by the new procedures. They also do not have an effect on long-term visas, which means that the overall number of Russian travelers affected by the change is less than 10% - not very many at all. According to data from the representative office of the European Commission, in 2005 Russian received around 3 million visas, including multiple-entry visas, and made around 5 million visits to countries in the EU. However, according to a recent statement from Russian Foreign Ministry Consular Department director Vyacheslav Pavlovsky, ordinary tourists will benefit from the new agreement: the EU is planning to raise the cost for a visa to 60 euros across the board, but it will remain at the current level of 35 euros for Russian tourists. In honor of the new agreement, Vlast decided to personally check out the workings of the visa system.
Russia – Germany
By 9 o'clock in the morning, when the consular section opened its doors, four long lines had already formed outside the German consulate: one for picking up documents, one for those going to Germany under the Jewish immigration policy (according to a sign on the wall), a third for those handing in documents for the first time, and a fourth for those who made mistakes the first time around and who have been issued a "repeat" pass to bring whatever documents they were missing. Travel agents wandered up and down the lines, offering to prepare documents and suggesting various travel options to those who were picking up their visas. Several large yellow umbrellas near the entrance to the consulate shaded a scattering of small tables occupied by representatives of large insurance companies, who offered their services to the applicants passing by.
"Do all insurance companies work in the field like this?" I asked.
"Of course," said the agent. "Of course, not every consulate allows us to do this. The Germans used to run us off, but now they put up with it and have allowed the umbrellas to be set up."
"No electronic items can be brought into the consulate," a security guard informed me. "Not even a mobile phone."
"Where do I give it up?"
It turns out that the German consulate, unlike its American counterpart, has nowhere to check forbidden items.
"On the street!" barked the security guard. A Russian policeman standing near the entrance explained that telephones can be kept by one of the travel agents, insurance sellers, or little old ladies who come to stand outside the consulate for exactly that purpose. The service costs 100 rubles.
The interview with the diplomat who accepted my visa application should have taken 15 minutes. In the end, it took two days.
Then there was the procedure for getting my passport back. Early on the designated day, there was no line in front of the consulate, but that didn't help matters much: my passport wasn't there either. The young Russian woman who was handing out documents categorically refused to answer any questions. When some woman got a piece of paper written in German along with her passport and asked what it said, instead of explaining, the consular officer asked her not to hold up the line. A Russian policeman standing near the entrance explained in a whisper that the document means that her visa application was rejected. It turns out that the paper in German is to be submitted along with any complaints about the application being rejected, and there is another document written in German and Russian that gives the reason for the rejection.
I ended up having to come back after lunch, by which point an enormous crowd of people picking up their passports had collected in front of the entrance. A policeman issued directions in a well-rehearsed patter: "First light blue, then pink, then white, green, and orange." Everyone obediently took their positions in a long line.
"What color am I?!" I asked the policeman, utterly confused. The policeman pointed silently to a small piece of paper stapled to the documents that I needed to pick my passport. It was light blue.
Russia – Latvia
What difficulties could there possibly be in getting a visa for such a small country as Latvia, even in the vacation season? The answer turned out to be immediately obvious: the small courtyard next to the consulate was packed with a huge crowd of anxious visa applicants.
The crowd was organized according to the old Soviet method: with the help of lists. And since a notice posted on the wall of the consulate warned that lists were forbidden, people kept them covertly. At one point, a Latvian officer came out of the building. "Who has the list?" he asked loudly.
"Here," replied someone in the crowd, clearly a novice who hadn't received any parting words of wisdom from the person who had handed over the list.
"That's not allowed," said the officer, taking the paper and tearing it into tiny pieces.
There were people in the line who had already been standing there for a week. So the next day, when the officer came out and repeated his question, no one gave him the list.
The courtyard in front of the consulate was still busy at night: the organized line leaves people to keep watch over the list. If no one stays overnight to keep an eye on things, a new list appears by the next morning, and the one from the day before is scrapped. In the mornings, there are occasionally fistfights that involve the police and sometimes even OMON riot police. And all because during the night, despite the constant vigilance of the people guarding the list, new lists have somehow appeared that bear no relation to those from the previous day.
It was only thanks to a miracle that I got into the consulate: the most recent list had disappeared somewhere, and an animated line quickly formed. However, it turned out that a single document was missing from my folder, and then, in order to hand that paper in, I had to throw myself at the mercy of the crowd for several hours. My weeklong trip to Latvia cost me two weeks of standing in line every day.
Russia – France
I got my visa to France through a travel agency. But since my child also needed a visa, I ended up having to go to the consulate for an interview.
The travel agency gave me a pass for the consulate. I was there at the appointed time, but the French guard at the entrance fiddled with my pass for a moment and then declared that I was late. A 20-minute argument got me nowhere. Someone in line suggested that I try another entrance – maybe the guard there would be more humane. And indeed, the next entrance that I tried was manned by a friendly Frenchman. I didn't get to talk to him, however, because the first guard turned up almost immediately, clearly having tracked me on the video surveillance system. He silently took my pass, put some stamp on it, and informed me that I was being denied entry to the consulate on the grounds that it appeared to him that I was intending to sell my child in France.
So I didn't go to France, because the next pass that I could get wasn't until three weeks later – on the date that my return ticket was booked for.
Russia – Great Britain
The room where documents are accepted and returned is on the second floor of the small building that houses the visa section. The first thing that an applicant is supposed to do upon entering the room is take a number from a machine. I got number 622, but when I raised my eyes to the electronic indicator board, I saw that number 630 was already being called to one of the windows. Some old visa section hands who come there often on errands for travel agencies explained the logic of the numbering system to me: number 630 was "for receiving," not "for handing out," which was why it came before 622. Over the next two hours, I watched the board flash a series of numbers, some larger than 622, some smaller. Also in that time, the visa section's working hours drew to a close, although several dozen people were still left in the stuffy room. But the employees of the visa section must be given their due: they continued accepting documents even after the end of the working day.
The visa is fairly expensive – it costs more than 3,000 rubles – but it is valid for six months. However, getting the passport with the visa turned out not to be quite so simple.
Instead of the three days promised by the consulate, my passport took a week to process. On the day I was supposed to pick up the visa, there was an enormous line at the entrance to the building that was made up both of people handing in documents and receiving visas. I quickly figured out that I wouldn't make it through before the end of the work day and that my plane would take off without me, and I approached a Russian guard.
"Let me in, or I'll lose the money that I paid for my ticket!" I said pitifully, with an attempt at a threatening tone.
"And what?" he said.
"And that's it!" I replied.
He relented: "Go on, then."
Within 15 minutes, I had my passport.
From There to Here
In general, getting a visa to European countries on your own is a nerve-wracking experience and a total nightmare. The conclusion suggests itself: they don't like Russians and enjoy giving us a hard time.
It's not exactly like that, however. When we asked several European citizens to tell us what it was like to get a Russian visa, the answers were long and extremely emotional monologues. Understandably, all of them asked us not to reveal their last names – all of them are counting on getting more Russian visas in the future.
"It's practically impossible to get a visa by yourself," said a German man living in Russia. "I've tried to do it a few times in the consulate in Berlin, but I gave up on that."
He said that he, like many other applicants, doesn't begrudge spending a few dozen extra euros on a visa service through a firm that has an office not far from the consulate.
"Clearly, that office does some crazy invitations" – our German friend had an excellent command of colloquial Russian. "For example, on their invitation I was listed as living in an industrial zone in Moscow. But the consulate has obviously worked with that office for a long time and gives their clients all the necessary documents without paying attention to formalities."
He has observed that practically everyone in Germany knows how hard it is to get a Russian visa by yourself, so the majority of people who want to visit Russia go through that same firm.
"Only former Russian citizens who can't afford to spend their extra money on convenience stand in really long lines," he said.
Germans aren't the only ones who try to get out of dealing personally with the visa sections in Russian consulates. For example, a producer from Paris told us that if you wanted a visa two years ago, you had to start lining up outside the Russian consulate in Paris at five o'clock in the morning.
"Many people came with thermoses and waited for hours in the line just to hand in their documents. Now I and everyone I know gets our visas only through an agency. This makes the process 30-40 euros more expensive, which really isn't much at all. And now there isn't the same interest in Russia that there was a few years ago. But I still have no desire to go to the consulate myself.
Elena, a French citizen of Russian origin, shared with us her impressions of the procedure for handing in documents:
"First of all, there are periodically gigantic lines there, and sometimes, when you came at 7 o'clock in the morning, two hours before opening time, and have been standing outside for half a day, you see that there is no way that you'll get inside. The consulate only works until twelve noon. Secondly, in order to get inside, you need to take a ticket with a line number. Russian citizens who also need consular services and come there to deal with their own legal matters don't give a toss about these numbers. As soon as the doors to the consulate open, there's usually an avalanche of Russians shoving themselves inside, throwing elbows at foreigners with numbers and racing for the windows. And there's no one to regulate the flood of the line, like they do everywhere else. No lit-up notice board that displays the line number and the number of whichever window is free. Maybe they've installed one now – I'll be going there soon and I'll take a look."
"And they also want insurance," said Elena, "for the entire period of time that you're going to be in Russia. That confuses Westerners – here everyone is insured from head to toe, we pay in France for mandatory medical insurance, and people still buy extra [insurance] for themselves so that they pay less in medical costs. But without a piece of paper from an insurance company, they won't take your visa application. Incidentally, a list of insurance providers hangs on the wall in the Russian consulate, so we all know where that insurance money is going."
In addition to all of that, the Russian Foreign Ministry demands a medical certificate from Europeans showing that they are HIV-negative and do not have leprosy. A teacher from Scotland shared with us an illuminating story regarding that requirement. In the Russian consulate in Helsinki, where he had gone specifically to get a Russian visa, since visas are cheaper in Finland than in Britain, they refused to accept a medical certificate from the Sklifovsky Medical Institute in Moscow. Instead, they sent him to a medical center next to the consulate, where every test cost 100 euros. (In response to an inquiry from us about the pricing policy at Russian consulates, a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry who requested anonymity said that a few years ago the consulates were given instructions to make money by all possible means. Since then, they have been doing so in any way they can.)
An Englishman from London said that neither before nor since he went to a Russian consulate has he ever had to stand in such long lines.
"It's such a headache that it's better not to go there," he said. "Once I was sent an official invitation from Russia that demanded my attendance in person at a meeting. I had to go to the consulate at seven o'clock in the morning and sit, or rather stand, for three hours. All of us who were standing in line saw how couriers went past us to the open visa section with documents from travel agencies, and they were accepted."
According to him, the workers in the consulate begin taking applications from the people standing in line only after all of the couriers have been dealt with. And that also means that the wait for the visa is longer. Even if an applicant is one of the first dozen called to the window, he or she can receive the passport with the visa only after the applications from the clients of the agencies have been reviewed.
"The time that it takes to get the passport with the visa is completely unpredictable. Sometimes after lunch, sometimes three days later. What it depends on is totally incomprehensible," said the Londoner.
Almost all of these stories share a striking similarity with the impressions of Russian citizens who have visited Western consulates. The only real difference that shatters the symmetry of the bureaucratic procedures seems to be in how Russia deals with Western journalists.
All journalists whose publisher or television channel does not have a bureau in Russia are obliged to get permission to enter the country from the Russian Foreign Ministry. The procedure is as follows: a courier must be sent to the Foreign Ministry with documents and supporting evidence explaining the purpose of the trip. Diplomats in the Foreign Ministry who deal with different European countries look over these documents, and the journalist will receive a visa only if the diplomat decides that his or her trip poses no threat to Russia, i.e., that the journalist is not an enemy or a spy. If a foreign correspondent comes to Russia on a tourist visa, government officials do not have the right to grant interviews. This unwritten law, which all foreign journalists working in Russia know about, has been the norm for the last five years, and no one is planning on changing it. Nevertheless, not a single Western government has introduced any similar rule.
According to diplomats, all other interactions between Russian consulates and foreign citizens operate on the basis of symmetry: if you treat our people badly, we'll do the same to yours. Of course, it's difficult to say who started it and who is just scrupulously copying the habits of the opposing side. But assuming the original can be judged by the copy, the resulting conclusion is unsettling: no fewer than three features of any application for a visa (the lines, the confusion, and the boorish behavior) have a single – Soviet – source.
Who Can Just Pick Up and Go
The agreement between Russia and the EU that simplifies the visa-granting process for Russian and EU citizens was signed at the end of 2005. It outlines simplified procedures and regulations for granting single-entry visas that are valid for up to three months, as well as for multiple-entry visas for certain categories of citizens: members of official delegations, entrepreneurs, international truck drivers, journalists, scientists and cultural figures, students and schoolchildren, participants in exchange programs and international sporting events, and people who are planning to attend the funeral of a relative. All of these regulations apply both to Russian citizens going to the EU and to EU citizens traveling to Russia.
The agreement does not include entries and exits to and from Great Britain and Ireland (which are members of the EU but not countries in the Schengen system) or Denmark (which is currently holding bilateral talks with Russia on the subject). The new member states of the EU, which are expected to join the Schengen system next year, are already setting up their visa procedures in line with the new regulations.
"We cannot release this information"
Vlast correspondent Anastasia Borovaya asked several European consulates to answer some basic questions that visa applicants worry about.
The press service of the German embassy declined to comment in person and requested that the questions be sent by letter. The answer came two weeks later.
We asked how many Russian citizens pass through the visa section every month and how many of them are refused visas. The German consulate answered, "The German consulate in Moscow reviews around 270,000 visa applications per year. Since the beginning of the current year, there has been a significant increase in the number of applications. The number of applications is prone to seasonal fluctuations. We ask you to understand that we cannot release information about the number of rejections."
"Does the visa section have enough employees to process all the visa application documents?"
"We ask you to understand that we cannot release this information."
"Does the German consulate have an agreement concerning the activities of insurance company representatives who offer their services directly in front of the visa section building?"
"The companies that offer their services outside the consular-legal section do so of their own accord. Their activities have no connection to the consulate."
"Why are there no facilities in the visa section for checking mobile phones and similar items, as there are in the American consulate? What does the consulate think about the fact that people working directly in front of the building offer to hold items in exchange for money?"
"Due to safety concerns, it is forbidden to bring certain electronic devices into the consular-legal section building. The consulate takes particular care to point that out, especially on our official website. Due to the large number of [visa] applicants, the consulate cannot offer the option of individual lockers for personal items that cannot be brought into the consular-legal section building."
The British consulate was the only one that readily agreed to allow our correspondent to meet personally with the embassy's chief press officer, Anjoum Noorani.
On average the consulate reviews around 12,000 applications per month, but from April to July the flow increases sharply: over this period, the consulate receives up to 70,000 applications. The documents are not accepted by the embassy, but rather by a visa center with which the British Foreign Office has an agreement.
"We have something to be proud of," said Mr. Noorani. "We have one of the very fastest visa-processing procedures, and this when we receive 1.5 applications every minute."
The decision to contract with an outside company to deal with visa requests was prompted exclusively by a desire to speed up the process: "The employees in the visa center do not have the right to evaluate applicants – only a British consular officer can do that. The task of the employees at the center is to make sure that are the necessary documents are submitted."
As of April 2007, all documents must be in English. Where did that rule come from?"
"That is also to speed up the review process, so that our British managers are able to quickly look over the documents. Translations take time, and that affects the speed with which decisions granting visas can be made."
What is your percentage of rejections?
"No more than three percent."
Will you follow the EU and simplify your visa-granting process?"
"Unlike many other European countries, we give Russians visas for half a year. Moreover, they are cheaper, since we don't charge [extra] consular fees."
Isabelle Tourancheau, the press secretary for the French embassy in Moscow, believes that the consular section operates democratically and should not be a target for complaints.
"Before the agreement, we granted visas to students and scholars via a simplified procedure, so this is not news for us. But it is still too early to talk about any trends and new principles in the work of the consulate, although the agreement really will ease the granting of visas for several categories [of people]. For example, journalists do not need an invitation, just a letter from their publisher and a press pass. In addition, for us it is very important that people who have relatives in Russia can now get a Russian visa for free, as can Russians who have family in France," she said.
Agafya Tikhonova
All the Article in Russian as of June 18, 2007
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