The Visa Run

As I sat in the passenger seat listening to the loudly played song of "on the road to hell" on the radio I realized that I was not going to hell, I was already there.

Whilst at sea we received the news that our working visas were wrong and that we would all have to leave the country and to apply for the correct visas from home. There are two basic reasons why our current visas might be unsuitable to the work we carry out; The first is that the Russian Rules and Regulations change with unannounced frequency, one day your fine and plodding along happily in your work and the next day you find out that you are an illegal worker whose only option will be to seek political asylum. The other reason could be that we had the wrong visas from day one but couldn't work out the spiders web of bureaucracy that surrounds visa applications and that the officials in Russia have only themselves found out that they gave us the wrong visas in the first place as it took them this long to read the regulations themselves.

Regardless though of the reason for our visas being wrong, the end result of this was that my three co-advisors found themselves on the next plane out (after a week or so as it was too far to swim) as soon as the ship docked in Kholmsk. They will be back after their visas have been worded differently and abused by a million and one stamps but for now I am the token representative onboard, the one left to fly the flag and carry us forward to the light! I found myself back onboard after my company pursued the officials dogging us; after much wangling and standing around in gloomy corridors, they stamped my visa to allow an extension to my stay for three weeks, enough time for the others to get the corrected visas, enough time to let the dust settle!

A Bus in the center of Yuzhno
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2006

On the day that the others left I went with them to Yuzhno to get my Visa sorted out. We had been informed that the driver would pick us up at the ship at 6.30am. By 8 O'clock we decided that he was not coming and so we phoned up our office for explanation. It turned out that Vladimir our prospective driver, had for some unfathomable reason decided that he would not get up so early that morning and so upon being shaken out of bed he arrived at the vessel at the rather later our of 9am! Due to his lateness, the usual two-hour drive to Yuzhno was shortened by at least half an hour. It was an interesting trip, one filled with hairy overtakes that left us climbing verges, ascending pot-holes vertically and close shaves that would have any razor blade blunted. Our incommunicative driver never took his foot off the pedal, we could see Ladas that we had overtaken shivering as they regrouped after the blow by, we saw near-misses at every turn and pot-holes forming behind us as the road took upset at our abuse. But we made it unscathed; despite our drivers scowl when we made him stop for a toilet break, and arrived shaken yet in on piece!

Our first stop on arrival in Yuzhno was for a medical (required for the new visas) and then my esteemed colleagues disappeared merrily to the airport. With a tear in my eye I watched them escape and then I was alone to face the music! It was time for me to toddle off on my visa expedition with the help of our companies newly appointed Operations Officer, Dmitry!

The department of work visas building
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2006

The department of Work Visas is a crummy old building! A definite left-over from the Communist regime where officials scowl and bicker behind graying facades and the peasants line the walls in fear as they await an extension to their work permits - graciously given by those with the authority at their disposal! Outside the front door was a couch, a once bright red, but now seriously faded three-seater that looked so out of place! It was sagging to the point were the centre touched the concrete beneath, nobody sat on it as the rain had made sure that it was waterlogged till next spring and so it just remained unwanted and neglected, a remnant of some commissars superiority perhaps?

Dmitry had booked me a place in the queue at 1030! I am not particularly sure how this operation works, it certainly does not resemble any "take a number and wait" system that one is used to in shops, banks, and dentists from Singapore to the UK and I am doubtful that it actually works in Russia but regardless our place in the queue was reserved. We pulled up outside the repressive building at about 1130am and my agent in the know ran inside the overly-graffiti abused doors to see how my "place" in the queue was progressing! It must have been a busy day, or the visa official was in a bad mood, for he did not re-appear until 1pm when he came running hysterically out of the building to fetch me!

We ran inside together (I thought I better play along) and past the hundreds of dour workers lining the walls, up the once austere but now worn stone stairs, along some dull and paint-peeling winding corridors and into the depths of bureaucracy that awaited us!

It was time for her to have her lunch break! How could we be so stupid as to assume that she would stamp my passport during lunch - and why had we not come along earlier? She did deign to throw my passport onto her laden desk, the one that was illuminated by a swinging ten-watt bulb above and as I watched it collapse onto the dismal surface of the desk, I wandered if I was going to get it back this century! She ushered us out of her office and into the corridor, pulled out a large and heavy key and with a large clonk of the lock signaled to us that we would have to wait!

We had our lunch, not much else to do really and by 2 O'clock we were back on the case. Well, I was standing outside, watching the miserable workers in the snaking queue that came out of the front door, down the front steps and into the muddy pot holes of the poor excuse for a car-park, whilst my trusty "Mr. Fixit" was inside trying to get into the office first to rescue my passport. He appeared an hour later looking rather harried and disturbed, but he did have my passport with him, it did have an extension stamp in it and he had achieved something for his hours of foot ache!

And so back to the ship I went. The drive back was a rerun of the drive out; this time Dmitry took me but the ship had phoned to say they were sailing and so we scrambled. He did ask me to keep my eye out of my window for any police cars but I was too busy holding on for dear life and praying that the lashing rain eased up!

Signs displayed at the entrance to the Harbour
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2006

As I sat in the passenger seat listening to the loudly played song of "on the road to hell" on the radio I realized that I was not going to hell, I was already there.

Ieuan Dolby
Author and Webmaster of SeaDolby.com
Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 20th September 2006