You Do the Math

For some reason I had this crazy notion that I should fly through Moscow for vacation so that on the way back I can spend time with Anton and his family. My layover, which requires a transit visa, is from the evening of the 28th until the morning of the 31st. A few weeks ago, I went to the Russian embassy in Almaty to get the transit visa, only to find out that I need to acquire it here in London. They assured me that the transit visa requirements is anything under 72 hours.

Yesterday I went to the Russian Embassy only to discover that the line was a mile long (slight exaggeration) so decided to go early today instead. I was up and out the door by 7:45 and to the Embassy by 8:20. Not bad considering that one of the tube lines I needed wasn't working so I had to reroute the trip a bit. The line, even that early in the morning was already about 50 people deep. Sigh...I should have bought coffee for the wait. By 10:00 I had decided that maybe it would be better to send it by post and made some phone calls to see how best to do that. In the course of obtaining an address, etc. I ended up talking to the guy in back of me who encouraged me to wait it out since I had come this far. My main concern was having to wait in the same line next week to pick up the visa/passport. Fortunately pickup is in the afternoon.

By 10:30 I was finally inside and this time the queue (British English for 'line') was a little shorter. Finally got up to the window and asked the gentleman behind the glassed counter to borrow his glue stick since my pictures where on the two previous applications I had filled out in Almaty. He commented that everyone expects them to have glue but since I asked so nicely, he would let me use it. At which point I politely replied that since they insisted that ONLY their form could be used from their website, I needed to remove my picture from the previous applications and attach it to their form. He smiled affirming that yes, he would only take their application (which by the way has exactly the same information and layout as the previous one I completed, minus the little symbol in the corner denoting their embassy).

He examined my paperwork, looked at my documents and then informed me that he could not give me a transit visa. What!?! He said, according to the dates, you will be there longer than 3 days and the rule is no more than 72 hours. Now keep in mind, most people will tell you that my math skills are zero without a calculator and even then I sometimes have problems. However, I KNEW that I didn't exceed the limit. Fortunately I was pretty good at story problems growing up so I drew it on a piece of paper and started counting for him. I was glad that he really did want it to work out for me but just couldn't see how it could. I got to the last day at which point he said, 'oh, I see' and quietly went back to work processing my request. So, after 3 hours and $90 (only cash accepted) later I should be able to pick up my permission slip next week between 4 and 5 o'clock and hopefully without a line.