I Came To A Land Up Yonder!

I started applying for a Russian visa in Moldova, about a month ago. It required that I get an invitation from a Russian travel agency so I found one online willing to sell me one. They faxed me the invitation and I headed down to the embassy with high hopes!

I met with a big, unsmiling Russian man who spoke bits and pieces of English.
"This is not acceptable", he informed me. "We need the original invitation. Not a facsimile."
I explained that I don't have a mailing address and this was all I had access to. "Isn't there anything you can do?" I implied.
"No. This is our law."
Well son of a gun. A Russian telling me bribes are out of the question. Crap.

So I headed on to my next stop - Ukraine. The Russian embassy in Ukraine accepted my faxed copy of an invitation, but would only give me a 14 day visa. This, too, was not acceptable as I had calculated that I'd need the 30 day visa in order to see everything I wanted to see. The travel agency I bought the invitation from told me that the embassy in Finland was fax friendly and issued 30 day visas! Such inconsistency! Go Russia!

I traveled to Helsinki hoping to finish this hassle and a half that it's been trying to get a Russian visa worked out! Very frustrating, having to have to travel so far out of my way... but... Hot damn! Finland is cool! I haven´t breathed air this clean since the Great Portuguese Deluge of 08, when Tim and I witnessed the cleaning of the air by torrential rain falls as we tried to sleep under the clouds! It´s an amazing thing to have clear skies, clean streets, green all around, and air that is truly refreshing! And I´m staying in a capital city! It reminds me of a magical land called America. Or at least my part of America - the good old Pacific Northwest! The bad rap America gets for leading the world in pollution is overshadowing the fact that America is leading most of the world in environmental regulations.

On my way down to the embassy to get my visa for Russia, a bird shit on me. I thought to myself, 'Some cultures believe this to be a sign of good luck!' After four frustrating hours inside the embassy, I reminded myself, 'Some cultures also believe that eating the brains of your dead relatives gives you their wisdom...' I'm gonna make an effort to stick closer to my own culture from now on. And that means bird poop is bad - just like my luck.

I handed over my application documents (plural) and passport to the smiling lady at the Russian embassy.
"Oh," she said upon seeing my nationality. "You will have to wait two weeks to get your visa."
Two weeks!?!?
"Isn't there some kind of express service or something? I mean, there has to be another way! Isn't there anything we can do that's a little faster," I pleaded.
I'm running out of time and I don't have two weeks to wait!
"It's not a question about money," she answered without feeling. "It's the policy for all American citizens."
Nooowww I get it. Thanks Mr. Bush. Your failures continue to make my life abroad an interesting challenge.
Frown.
"Go sit down over there, this is going to take a while," she said. Yeah, two freakin weeks!
I sat and waited for her to process my papers and return with a bill for a visa. Some crazy old coot sat down next to me, as he and I were the only Americans in the joint.
"Yeah, I left the U.S. back in '55 when the politics started getting bad. Lived in Sweden til eight years ago. Been livin' in St. Petersburg ever since. I think Americans are the most brainwashed people I ever met. You ever heard of that aspartame? You know, aspartame? It's got that formaldehyde in it. It's in everything, too! What do you think they put it in food for?" Slight pause - finally. "I'll tell ya." Thanks. "It's for population control. It causes 92 symptoms and one of them is brain tumors!" What an introduction! And it continued! "You know that Jacque Cousteau fella? He said that we ought to be killing 360,000 people a day to keep the earth healthy, or clean, or green, or whatever. I'm not an expert."
"Hi. I'm Andrew." My introduction was quite a bit shorter than his, as I was pretty much speechless.
"Nice ta meet ya." He continued as I tried to figure out if anyone was paying attention around us. "Ya know, this world is run by three different groups of about 12 people and I can name 'em all. One of 'em is in Europe and the other two are in America. They control economies with their wealth!"
"Is that so?" I asked. "Then why is America's economy in the dumps right now?"
"You think they care about you?" he countered. "They don't care about you. These are 200 foot yacht people. Not 100 foot yacht people."
With a smile on my face at this situation, I said, "Well don't you think that if they had the chance, they'd like to be 300 foot yacht people?"
"I see your point," he said quietly. "But it's actually the credit industry that controls the world."

He got cut off by the mean lady who told me I would have to wait two weeks as she called him up to collect his papers. I was next.

She handed everything back to me and said, "You will have to go back to your country of origin to apply for a visa."
What?!?!?! Insane!!! I asked her if there was any reason why.
"Oh, sure. Lots of reasons!" she said with a strange exclamation.
"Well can I know them?" I asked, completely dumbfounded at this situation.
"I'm sorry. I can't discuss it with you."

Hhhhh...... This is all that damned bird's fault.

I priced out a ticket back home and figured it would be cheaper to just head south to Estonia to try for a visa there. 'How Many Russian Embassies Can Andrew Find?' will be the title of my book.

I walked up to the window, now forcing a smile as natural ones have all been spent, and handed the lady my documents that I had downloaded from their website. She threw them away and handed me a couple different ones that weren't available online. I filled them out and returned them. She stamped some things and cut some others and then told me to go stand over there. I said, "OK", which in Russian translates to 'Yes ma'am!'

After only a couple hours, she returned with a bill! Woo hoo! I had to pay some guy some money and they took my passport away! That may sound like a bad combination of events, but to me, it was the pure feeling of relief! No more Russian embassies! So now I wait. 15 days. They'll let me enter Russia on June 25, but I have to leave by July 5. My 30 day Russian trip is now nine. It's a pretty big country to cross in only nine days so I've decided not to sleep while I'm there.

Although I still don't have a visa in hand (or a passport for that matter), I'm still considering myself successful! After only four embassies and five or six weeks of trying! Not bad! And I've been witness to some amazing things along the way - as I've surely written about. Though some things I haven't written about. My time in Finland, for example. In this case, I'm gonna let the pictures do the typing.




Plenty more of these pictures, with a slight description if you click here!

Now then, be happy for me! I'm going to Russia!