Visa, Visa wherefore art thou

Visa, visa, wherefore art thou:
Our big adventure in finding our Servas host Larissa turned out to be a non adventure in the end. We had the address and Carol translated the letters from the Roman alphabet to the Cyrillic. Using my best cartographer skllls, learned at the knee of my Aunt Gerry who made me sit beside her on long drives and who gave me the map to read because: 1. It shut me up, 2. It kept me from bugging my other cousins, and 3. Where I was close enough for a swat across the head if I forgot numbers 1 and 2. We cousins always rode in Aunt Gerry’s car because that was the only way to insure that we’d arrive safely. Riding in my Mother’s car would have resulted in mass burial because she’d have killed us all what with the bickering , noise, and pestering that always went with a trip involving more than two of the six cousins,. But that’s another story.
Anyway, I found the street on the city map and noticed that it was also referred to as M11. While driving across the Russian countryside, I noticed that we were on a road labeled M11, and my brain started clicking. Thank you, Aunt Gerry. Sure enough, as we started entering St. Pete we were on Prospect Stachek, and as the numbers decreased, I showed the alternate driver, who was riding shotgun, the address and when we got to the right spot, he had the driver pull over, unloaded the bags from underneath the bus and we walked across the street: As simple as that.
Getting across the border from Estonia proved a little more difficult than in the Baltics only because there was a border guard who had nothing to do and decided to make herself official when she pulled us aside. We, the only non-Russian/non-Baltic persons on the bus so it seemed a little suspicious that we were randomly selected for more passport control. After checking the passports, she asked us for our insurance papers. Carol had her blue cross card and that was fine for her, but what about me. I had nothing. I’m a hanger on in the Insurance game. I just ride Carol’s coattails. So the handed us a paper which said that non insurance was cause to be denied entrance into Russia. We finally convinced her that it was a family coverage, or probably more truthful, she got tired of trying to extort money from us and when she really couldn’t communicate that fact. , It just wasn’t getting her anywhere. So we got back on the bus where everybody was waiting patiently. They’ve probably seen this act before, and one thing they did learn in the Soviet system was to be patient- except in lines, that is.
The family we stayed with in St. Pete was a great fit for us. Larissa is 50ish, her mother , the Babushka, is 85, and Macha is a 16 year old ball of fire who is so destined for success in life that she gives us a lot of optimism about the things to come in Russia. Larissa gave us her “Bedroom” for our stay and she slept on some contraption in the living room where the babushka and Macha also slept. Our bedroom was actually a fold-out couch, which served as the bed. This is how it was in all our Servas stays. An extra bedrooms and western style beds are luxuries that are not a reality for most Russians. The people have little to share, but like struggling people around the world, they are more willing to share what they do have.
St. Petersburg turned out to be a wonderful time, a wasted time, a huge disappointment, and a beautiful experience all rolled into one. What city of contrasts.
The wasted time came about as a result of our visa problems. When Aeroflot, the Russian airlines, changed our flight schedule, we had one night in Moscow before flying to Riga. That created all kinds of bureaucratic hassles for us. We arrived in Moscow on Saturday night and one of the first things a traveler has to do upon arrival in Russia is to have their visa “Registered.” There are official places where this is to be done, but because they were closed on Saturday night, and of course were closed on Sunday, we were told to register them when we arrived in St. Petersburg. That’s where the adventure part began. Larissa took us to the OVIR office to register the visas, but it was closed until Friday, too late to register the visas within the required 48 hours. The books said that we could have them registered at a special office or that we could pay the equivalent of a night’s room in a hotel and register them at the hotel.
We first went to a hotel mentioned in our Lonely Planet book. They were very nice about it, but told us that they didn’t have any rooms available, and therefore couldn’t register the visas. But if we went to the Moscow Hotel, they could do it for us because they are a large establishment and always have rooms. So, on to the Moscow Hotel where we met what Russians told us was their “I don’t give a shit,” attitude of officials, bureaucrats, and individuals who have some measure of control over other’s lives. We were told that they wouldn’t register the visas for us because we weren’t staying there. “Well, can’t we pay for a room for one night and get the visas registered that way?” “No!” “Why?” “Because you’re not staying here.” “Well, if we pay for a room for the night, doesn’t that mean we’d be staying here?” “No, you’re not staying here, you must go somewhere else.” “Where should we go?” “I don’t know.”
Never mind the hotel lost a room for the night and $100 in income with no effort. It wasn’t the woman’s intention to register the visas and there was nothing to do about it. I asked to see the manager and was told by two other people that working my way up the chain of command was pointless. The woman said no and that was the end of it.
So back to the book where it gave us the address of another place to get it done. After a lot of help from people on the street and others inside buildings, we finally arrived at a huge, macy-sized complex where the outside of the building is numbered, but the individual offices are not labeled or numbered. We thought we had gotten to the right place, but it turned out not to me. Looking very confused, flummoxed, and annoyed, an English speaking student offered help and we gladly accepted. Carol and I followed the spike-heeled woman on a 10 minute jaunt across St. Petersburg to our correct destination. We entered the office where we came face to face with real Russian bureaucracy. There were a couple of dozen people waiting for some official to do something and everybody was sullen to the nth degree. They all had a dazed, defeated look about them. A look that told us it would be a while to get this done here. We watched as an obviously ex-Soviet official dismissed visa requests, document signings, and other paper work with the same concise, blunt, condescending, “Nyet!”The official, a woman, would scowl and spew some harsh words. Yeah, I know all Russian sounds harsh to me, but this stuff was really harsh. The person being denied would hang their head, their shoulders would drop, and they had a resigned look on their faces that told us this was nothing new to them. They lived with it every day of their lives. Their spirits seemed to depart for places unknown as they picked up their pieces of paper and sadly headed for the door. After an hour or so when it was our turn we were, surprise met with courtesy and a smile, but were informed that she couldn’t do it. She suggested, in Russian, that we fax Moscow, (someone told us what she said.) but that seemed rife with problems and horrible results, so we decided to head back to the one place where they spoke English and were pleasant – the original hotel we had attempted to get the visas registered. We told Kate, the girl at the desk now, our run-around problems, and she called the Neva Hotel, and they said they would do it for us for $20. We were jubilant and headed for the hotel. Upon our arrival, things seemed to be going smoothly when we heard this almost inaudible “Oh-oh” from her. Because we hadn’t registered the visa on our original day in Moscow, she couldn't do it. “Yes, but it was Sunday and so it was impossible.” We responded. “Yes, I understand that, but you didn’t do it.” Came the answer. “Yes, but we couldn’t. We can’t be punished for something that was impossible to do, can we?” That was met with a shrug of the shoulders and no other response. It’s like punishing us for the fact that we didn’t visit the MIR space station or something that was impossible to accomplish. In the end we were told to pay $100 for failure to follow the rules, and if we didn’t like it we could go to the central office and complain.
We were already eight hours into this whole process and had walked and talked ourselves silly, retraced our steps several times and were back where we had started without resolution. The next morning we started off on day two of the visa runaround. We went to the central office and since it opened at 10 a.m. we got there at 9:30. There was a group of people waiting in one area, but we were told to go to another office and wait by another door until it opened. ‘Great. We’re the only ones in line, we’ll be first. If it sounds too simple, you’re way ahead of us. When the office opened, here came the large group of people we’d already seen, and now they already had numbers for the queue. Therefore, when we signed in, we were number 12, not a happy thought.
The office closed at noon, and the line was moving none too quickly. We began to get seriously concerned that this wasn’t going to work any better than previous efforts, but a nice woman told us, in English, what number they were working on, and when we finally got into the office, we found a single woman sitting alone in the office without any paper work, books, manuals, or anything else. She just sat there behind a desk dispensing “Justice” at the whim of her individual fancy.
We told the official our situation, but of course, she didn’t speak English, so I went outside and asked the English speaking woman to come in and translate for me. She told the official of our plight and the official nodded. The official left the office and returned with a pen, a piece of paper, and god bless, that wonderful indispensible item of Russian bureaucracy, a stamp. She wrote out a scribbled note and stamped it. She told us to return, oh-oh, to the original hotel and we’d be taken care of. The English speaking woman who helped us was #16, but since she was already in the office, she got to jump the queue and she was thrilled.
To end this sorry tale, we took the stamped paper back to the hotel, the clerk who had said she could do nothing, looked at the stamped piece of paper, promptly threw it in the trash can and registered the visa into the hotel register without charge. She now had the official okay so everything was good. The whole process too two minutes in the hotel, but couldn’t be done without the official stamp allowing her to do so. The essential bureaucratic idiocy of the whole process is that it doesn’t get entered into any kind of a data base. The woman who stamped the piece of paper, did nothing else except stamp a piece of paper. The hotel doesn’t send the information anywhere or enter it into their books. The officials have no idea where it was registered or whether it was done officially or not. So after 14 hours of official hassle, we now had a stamp in our passports which would allow us to leave the country. The refusal to leave is a really scary thought. I’m sure we could have hastened the problem if we’d greased a palm or two, but that in itself is a scary thought. We didn’t wasn’t to get accused of doing anything illegal, so we got to see some areas of Moscow on a much closer basis than we would have otherwise.
We left with our passports having the magic stamp, and a brand new realization of what the average Russian must deal with. I honestly can’t imagine what this nightmare must be like day after day after day. They are a resilient people. We talked to people about the process and they just gave that look of: “and your point is?” It’s just the way things are done. Nobody knew why, but rules are rules, so it has to be done that way. I wish you could have seen Carol’s face when the girl threw the paper into the trash. After all we’d been through, it was an absolutely fitting end to the ludicrous nature of the whole episode. The process became a very useful tool un understanding Russia today.
Finally, we could explore St. Petersburg.
Larissa and Macha were wonderful hosts and took much time to ensure that our time was well spent, at least what was left of it. I'm sure the city can be very beautiful. I've seen stunning photos of it when it's wearing its best clothes, but that was not the case on our visit. It was late winter. The snow had melted but had left behind a dinginess that comes when all the dirt and grime which accumulates over the winter has not yet been cleaned up. It's like a car which has traveled through snowy conditions and has had the puddles splash up on the sides of the car. So too were the buildings, streets, and sidewalks. It was like walking through an inch of dust everywhere. This is not to criticize but to explain. Naturally, the winters are very harsh, and it takes time to get things back in order. But Larissa also told us that the post-Soviet experience was not a pleasant one. They had their financial crisis in 1998 and things were not yet stabilized. She, along with possibly millions of Russians, lost everything she had saved and had to start all over again.
The trolley tracks were in desperate need of repair. We weren't sure if this was caused by the harsh winters where the frozen ground heaves and twists any and everything attached to it, or just the lack of civic order. But the trolleys travel very slowly, barely faster than walking speed in order to stay on the tracks.
Our two Servas hosts, Larissa and Bella in Moscow were dynamic women who put their energies and education to use and have made successes of their lives and their families. Interestingly, neither had men in their lives. Both husbands floundered with the fall of the Soviet system. We passed parks on our city tour and Larissa just scoffed at the lassitude of the men in Russia today. Under the Soviet system, she told us: "They didn't have to show up to work ready to work, they never got fired for lack of productivity,and no matter what they did, they always had a job." Now, however, all those things do matter, and they are lost, and hence, you can see them in the parks, drunk on vodka at any time of the day or night. They are totally lost. After generations of not having to take responsibility for their actions, the rules have changed, and they are not happy campers.
Larissa's mother, the babushka as they called her, was a very interesting character. She was born before the 1917 revolution and lived to see it fall. She was a teacher and still believed in the system as one that improved people's lives. She was sad to see the changes that befell her country. Carol was particularly impressed by what she saw as a woman of dignity and class. Carol had given her a necklace she had brought from home and the babushka wore day and night. She was so pleased that someone had given her something she really liked. Macha, the daughter, is a fireball teenager, and Larissa told us that the hope of the country is in these kids at her school who are totally motivated and committed to making their lives better.
The Hermitage, one of the oldest and most respected museums in the world with almost three million items on display was, indeed, everything it was cracked up to be. It comprises, several museums, amongst them the Winter Palace of the Czars. We didn't have nearly enough time there, but what we did see showed us that they did not exaggerate in their descriptions.
Our time in St. Pete ended, we took the overnight train to Moscow. We shared a four berth cabin with a married Chinese couple who were medical students in Moscow. Upo our arrival in Moscow, we grabbed a cab for a wild ride to Bella's apartment and began our second stay in Moscow.