8 - Dispatch From the Czars

Peter the First had no Baltic harbor, but he was Czar of all the Russias, and so went out to get one.  Helsinki and Tallinn were nice, but a “Great” czar needs his own turf - and so up popped St. Petersburg. Built to be the capitol of an empire, like Washington DC, in a swamp - with all the government buildings, big-wig’s palaces and gilded churches - all designed to impress - and I am prepared to be, if we get there. 

The USSR may be dead, but from the very application for visas, it was made clear that their Cold War mindset is not.  It asked for all employers, with their names and phone numbers - for the last 10 years; all schools or training, including address and phone number, attended since high school; all countries visited in the last 10 years with dates. The kicker for me ... “Have you ever performed a military service? If yes, indicate the country, branch of service, rank, military occupation and dates of service.” That opened up more pages to include questions on combat and “Do you have any specialized skills, training or experience related to fire-arms and explosives or to nuclear matters, biological or chemical substance? If yes, please specify” Any error could be grounds to deny a visa, and even me getting a day/month/year out of order, cost $25 to “fix.”

Jean pushed her 9 year-old passport thru the hole in the window, a passport full of places and dates for the man to crosscheck - but also too full to provide the 2 clean contiguous pages required for Russia’s stickers and stamps.  So, we had to leave the “interview” to go get her a new passport! 

But after 3 visits to their visa office and many weeks later, we are on a fast Finnish train idling at the Russian border. “NO PHOTOS!” Outside, the hammer and sickle still caps the offices.  Inside, large ladies with big scowls, big badges and bigger stamps, thumb thru our papers - including one form to be filled out twice, EXACTLY the same.  Again we must list our “sponsor” and all residences in Russia, down to address and phone number.  One form got two big stamps and went into the large lady’s large leather bag.  The other was stamped once and put into the passport to be checked upon departure.  There is no way in hell they could ever check to see if all (or any) of this information was correct - but the big scowl prevents any smirks at this petty pomp.

If it were not for Jean signing us up with none other than Rick Steves to steer us thru all this BS, I might have told Czar Putin the First, to shove it.  After all, people have been dieing to get OUT of the country for decades - would it kill me to try to get in?

- Russified Rod