Russian Visa Saga

And now, I should tell yet another Russian visa story…  I won’t repeat what I’ve already posted about getting my first visa, and will focus here on my attempt to get a transit visa in order to fly to Moscow, spend 24 hours there, and then fly out of a different airport and back to Moldova.

This daunting task had been weighing heavily on me since I left Moldova.  I had read on several internet sites that I shouldn’t even bother trying to get a visa from the Russian Embassy in UB.  This sense of dread was only exacerbated when I met a State Dept. officer at a café before heading to the Russian Embassy.  She told me there were only two Russian Embassies in the world that didn’t give visas directly to Americans, only working through tour companies – and Mongolia had one of them.

Now I arrived in UB on a Monday and was flying out early Sunday morning.  I was planning to take a 10-hour bus ride out to the countryside on Tuesday.  If I was going to need my visa for my departing flight, that would mean I could spend one day (Wed) in the countryside at Lizzie’s ger, then blow all of Thursday on another 10-hour bus ride back to UB in order to pick up my passport and visa on Friday.  Then I’d have to sit around in the capital all day Saturday and leave Sunday.  In short, timing the pick-up of my visa could ruin my vacation.  I had hoped I might just pay through the nose to get my visa processed in one day.

In case that wouldn’t be possible, I asked the owner of the hostel where I was staying if she could pick up my visa for me and I’d get it from her on Saturday evening.  She replied that unlike the Chinese Embassy where she would do this all the time for her guests, the Russian Embassy did not allow it.  Typical.

So I go to the Embassy.  It only processes visas from 2-3pm each day, so I’m there by around 1:50, armed with passport photos, an already filled-in visa application downloaded from the internet, copies of my plane tickets, and US dollars, Russian rubles, and Mongolian tugrik.  There are others waiting outside the locked gates and I begin chatting with them.  One young Russian woman, Anna, happens to work for a tour company and is there to drop off visa applications for some of her clients.  I explained my situation to her and she said she picks up her clients’ passports and visas all the time and she offers to do the same for me with no charge!

Once inside, I’m really trying to charm the pants off the Russian embassy officer, making jokes in Russian in an effort to win her willingness to (a) give me a visa and (b) let Anna pick it up for me.  In the end, she agrees, saying that Anna’s name needs to be on the receipt and she must bring some ID when she picks it up.  Hooray!

There is, of course, the slight uneasiness I feel at a person I’ve only known for 10 minutes getting my passport on a Wednesday, holding on to it until Saturday, and then meeting somewhere in UB to give it back to me.  But I really didn’t have any other options (unless I wanted to spend only one day outside a bus and capital city).  Long story short, everything worked out and my vacation was saved.

As soon as I find out which tour company Anna works for, I’ll post it here.