Visa, Part I

Russia has laws that could make any lawyer’s head spin. Especially when it comes to foreigners. And every day, it seems, new laws are created. They are specially designed, perfectly suited for making our lives absolutely nuts.

I’m not a hundred percent sure that I have this right, so bear with me as I go step by step.
We need visas to come to Russia. Since we are here for an extended period of time, we get 12 month visas. Now, that used to mean that after 12 months, we were required to leave the country, obtain a new visa, and then return. But they passed a new law: we now must leave the country every 3 months. For 3 months. Since - and I’m a bit confused about this part - our visas were issued before this law, or maybe it is because we have a religious visa, we need only to leave for a minimal amount of time, and can then immediately return.

We obtained a visa for Baila in New York. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to get an invitation and get a long term visa for her, so we just got a tourist visa – which expires after one month. So, it is expiring. More precisely, it is expiring 3 days before Pesach. Since she, being all of 2 months old, is such a threat to the security of the country, she must leave Russia, get a new visa, and only then can she come back.

Here comes the complicated part. The easiest thing would be to go to China, and take care of matters there, as the Chinese and Russian borders meet a mere 4 hour drive away. But, Russia just issued a new law. A foreigner may not make a visa for China while in Russia. So that option is out.

We can go to Tokyo, and get a new visa at the consulate there. But there are no flights from Vladivostok to Tokya. So we can take a boat to some city in Japan whose name escapes me now, and then a train to Tokyo. The boat ride is, our secretary explained to me today, only 36 hours each way. And it costs $1000.

So we can fly to Riga, where many American go to renew visas. The flight to Moscow is 9 hours, then another 3 or 4 to Riga. But there are no flights available from Moscow to Riga until the week before Pesach. And if there were, tickets would cost us $1400. So we can take a train from Moscow to Riga. It is only a 12 hour ride.

We can fly to Seoul, where the consulate can issue an expedited visa for us. But the flights do not go every day. And although Seoul is a 2 hour flight from Vladivostok, tickets cost about $800. And the visa itself will cost $600-$800.

My head is getting dizzy with all the options. There are loads more. After all, we have a whole globe open before us. We can fly to any city in Japan, maybe to Mongolia, or to Kazakhstan. The whole world is ours to explore, only each option is more complicated, longer, and more expensive than the rest.

And Pesach is coming ever closer. And the baby is 2 months old.

But it will work out. Somehow.