Hi, I had a really rare day applying for a Russian visa yesterday at the Russian Consulate in London. I'm a U.S. citizen and I've been coming to London to do visa runs because it's generally been one of the most hassle-free places in Europe for a U.S. passport-holder to go through the procedure. Not this time. I showed up early at the Russian Embassy and was the first in the queue. There weren't many visa applicants -- at most 15 behind me by the time the visa section opened. I was applying for an for a three-month double-entry visa with an invitation which I'd gotten though Visa Link (www.visalink.ru) my passport, a visa application printed from a .pdf printed from the website of the Russian Embassy (www.rusemblon.org) and a single color matte photo of my mug, which needed to be glued to bottom of the second page of the application form. When I attempted to submit my application, I was told by the girl in the window that they couldn't issue me a v isa unless I had spent 90 days in the U.K. There was no posting of this rule on their website when I last checked it a few days ago, and they said that this rule had been in force a while and they weren't observing it, but were told to toe the line and strictly enforce it from this week. I had arrived in London on Friday, November 2 and obviously could not fall under their rule. When I mentioned this, she said either produce some proof that I'd been in the U.K. for 90 days (like rental receipts for three months) or go back to the U.S. to get my visa. I didn't really think that there was a way out of this, but I decided to pull a trick I'd tried at the Russian Embassy in Berlin when I was told something about not being able to get a visa because I was not a German resident -- I asked to speak to her supervisor. After some banter (which included appeals to the humanity of the bureaucrat and subtle offers of a bribe) back and forth with this supervisor (named Gennady Ivanovich), they relented and let me scrape by with getting my visa in 10 calendar days (November 16) at the normal going rate of 55 GBP. Except that the visa pick-up time is between 16.00-17.00 and I've got an Aeroflot ticket to fly from London to Moscow at 10.55 on that day. I told them couldn't I just get it done a day earlier, so I wouldn't have to change my ticket? No, they wouldn't budge on that, telling me that they'd already made a concession. I know that this was total bullshit, becuase when I went to pay for the visa at the consulate's cashier window, the cashier looked confused and told me that I should be getting my visa on November 13 at the rate that was listed -- 55 GBP. I had her verify the date with her colleagues and they said the 16th. So that afternoon, I had to go to the Aeroflot office at Piccadilly Circus and buy a whole new ticket to Moscow for 185.30 GBP (more than 380 USD) since the ticket I'd gotten before was their rock-bottom sale price and was n ot eligible for exchange. The friendly British cashier at Aeroflot told me that I was lucky, too, since 185.30 GBP was still the same lowest sale rate and I would've had to pay upwards of 250 GBP normally. So if you're a U.S. citizen going for a visa run in London, watch out, and I hope you have better luck than I did. Kirill. E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Home: +44 208 690 3310 (until 17.11.06) Mobile: +7 906-790-5418 _______________________________________________ Expat mailing list [email protected] http://www.lists.ru/mailman/listinfo/expat http://www.expat.ru/forum/
