fluffymark | The oddness of Russians

Shiny new passport (with traditional horrible mugshot) arrived this week! Yay! Since then I've been playing the apply-for-shiny-new-Russian-visa game. I've done it twice before now, so I throught I knew all the quirks, but it just gets odder and odder. And more stressful!!! *pulls hair out* So lets see - *deep breath*

To get to Russia, the first thing you need is an invitation. Which of course, being an invite to Russia, is charged in US dollars. Um, ok... but dollars are so cheap right now. *yay*

The invite request is best done online which is good, as then it should be send back in a matter of seconds. Or so they claim, but after hitting confirm, it then says they only reply in office hours and it'll arrive first thing in the morning (which amazingly, it did - at 6am the invite landed in my inbox when the office opened in Russia). This was annoying as I wanted to print it out last night. *grrrrr*

The invitation assumes you're a normal tourist staying at a hotel, so all tourist invites are issued from hotels. If like me, I'm going to Russia to visit a friend, the system is bent to fit. They've created a totally fake itinerary for me, with all these hotels I'm not staying at and places I'm not visiting - it's a genius work of fiction. This is the way the system works. *bemused*

So I take this fictional itinerary to the Russian consulate to get a visa. They open perfectly sensible hours. Like 9-12am only. Um. The queue is huge. If you're not seen by 12, it's come back tomorrow. So everyone wants to get there first, and if you're not in the queue well before 9am, you're not getting in. Very friendly. *sigh*

Despite it being cold and early in the morning, they make everyone queue outside. The gates let 3 people in at a time, and then only every hour or so. *shivers*

There is a sign inside the consulate reporting "Due to high demand for visas at the moment, we have decided to close on Wednesdays" ??!? How does that work? *boggle*

There are 5 windows inside with separate queues for different things, and nothing to tell you which queue you should be in, and all the staff only want to speak in Russian. Fortunately I already knew how it works (one queue for personal applications, and then another queue for the cashier to pay), but it is still most disconcerting. *confused*

The cashier only accepts cash. We are talking severe financial dark ages here. *sigh*

Althought they decide there and then if you'll get the visa, they sit on it for a week and a half. Just for fun. And I'll then have to go back in person again (at entirely different unfriendly hours) to collect my passport and visa. Which will be more unfriendly queues. *anothersigh*

When I get to Russia, the visa needs to be registered. To prove I'm staying where I claim I am. Which I'm of course, not, because the invitation was a work of fiction. So the registration process will be equally a piece of fabricated nonsense. Which I'll have to pay for. And probably queue in the Moscow snow somewhere. *wails*

See, Russians are insane. Yay for

doseybat is visiting for dinner this evening, and is no exception to the insanity, but maybe she can tell us mere mortals why Russians do things this strange and baffling way.

And I'm visiting Cambridge this weekend! *littlehappydance*