HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT THE LESS DESIRABLE the destination, the more difficult the visa process? This is especially true of the former Soviet Republics — letters of introduction, detailed itineraries, hotel reservations, financial data — the list goes on. And Russia, not surprisingly, may be the worst! But we need visas for our Volga River cruise so we will just have to suck it up.
We spent three hours in Tbilisi filling out on-line applications, including a list of all countries we have visited in the past ten years and the dates we visited. Of the 128 nations I’ve been to, only Slovenia wasn’t in the past decade. Luckily, Connie keeps such records on file. And this was just so we could schedule appointments in Kiev.
The website was explicit — go to this address and not the Russian Consulate. So we did. Not only was the visa office no longer there, it took fifteen minutes to find someone who spoke English and she sent us — wait for it — to the Consulate! Of course we were late for our appointments but Vladimir took pity on us, completing and processing our applications. He warned us not to be late picking them up on Friday; the embassy closes at noon for two weeks.
We still haven’t seen much of Kiev except through the rain-streaked windows of taxis. We didn’t arrive until midnight Saturday due to flight delays so we crashed on Sunday. Russian visas took most of Monday and on Tuesday we voyaged to TUI Travel where Larysa promised to help us get visas for Belarus. Connie is adamant about going to Minsk — cost and toil be damned, making Belarus the last country in Europe for us to visit. The process isn’t as consuming as for Russia but we can’t give them our passports since we will be traveling to and from the Ukraine. We will return on Friday after collecting them from Vladimir and see what she can work out.
It is still July and we have flights and hotels booked through the end of August, plus the cruise, and even have reservations in September for meeting Connie’s brother in Amsterdam. No wonder I am more confused than normal. I’m not sure where I am, or when.
