From Russia with Love - The Last Gasp

Dos Vidanya! 

It was our last day in Russia & everything was going smoothly. Our son who works in Moscow accompanied us to the Moscow airport, helping us with our two large suitcases on the metro and then the airport shuttle at the train station. With time to spare we went to the Air France check-in counter where we validated our tickets and checked our two bags. We said our goodbyes after two action-packed weeks and headed to the Russian Passport Control. After such an easy send off we could never have imagined what we were in for.

Behind the glass booth our controller was a heavyset young woman with a wide, dour face & sad, heavily made-up blue eyes. I thought of Miss Piggy with short brown curly hair. Her fingers flipped through our passports expertly, first one, then the other, as she checked that we were the same faces as the ones on the passports. This much satisfied her, but suddenly her eyes narrowed, as they caught something amiss. She grinned to herself, but returned to being serious as she beckoned her superior. 

A very young man wearing no uniform blazer, only a long-sleeved sky blue dress shirt, plain dark tie, and olive-drab trousers joined her inside the booth. His ID badge & lordly attitude were on full display. His bright blue button eyes darted from us, to the passports, & the controller. When he saw what she had caught, he grinned knowingly. Between them passed several quiet verbal exchanges, which vacillated between commiserating grins to furrowed brows. We were suddenly on our guard, but because of their obvious ambivalence, we couldn’t know the gravity of our situation. We were told to wait in a big empty space with no chairs for about half an hour.

When he returned again he explained in broken English that we had violated the terms of our visa, which was one day over the limit stated in our passports. To wit, the visa stated that we should have left Russia by May 22nd, & here we were on May 23rd still in Russia without a visa. It was all our fault that we had not noticed this discrepancy before we retrieved the passports. Even though the visas should have taken into account our plane ticket dates and hotel accommodations which we were required to furnish with our application, it was our fault for not having checked the accuracy of the dates. Since it was all our fault, we would have to stay however long it would take to “get a new visa” from the Russian “consul,” his term, and pay a fine. At that point, to our loud protests that we needed to catch our plane to Paris, he assured us that we could not board our plane, and that  surely we would not be leaving “today.” 

Our conversation with this young official was rather long and difficult.   As he spoke in halting English (& we helped him along), he explained that we had incurred a fine of 2000 rubles each for violating the terms of the visa, i.e. 4000 rubles for both. He said that to help us out he would personally ask a young man at Air France to assist us in obtaining a new visa from the Russian consul which was, in fact, located right inside the airport. Otherwise, if the man at Air France declined to help us we were on our own. The French connection made us suspicious. Why or how would an employee of Air France help us to get a Russian visa? We could only let our imaginations run wild. At best we imagined getting stuck in an expensive hotel at the airport for days on end. At worst, like the Tom Hanks movie when, as a citizen of an unnamed slavic country which no longer exists, he gets stuck in airport limbo. Imagine that: A couple of senior citizens wandering in the no-mans-land of the Moscow airport without bags. Tom Hanks at least had his bags.

After waiting for another half an hour in the room with no chairs, he returned to tell us we could go back to the other side, a similar voluminus, long, waiting area where there were chairs against the wall, next to the passport offices. He explained once more, & we understood everything better the second time, that he had contacted the man at Air France on our behalf & that after a wait, which he didn’t specify how long, this person would go to the consul and plead our case. At which time, we would perhaps obtain a new visa (for today!) and we could be on our way. He also told us that we were in luck because our flight had been delayed until 10:00 p.m. and that we probably had plenty of time to work out our visa problem and board our plane. 

All the while that we were in conversation with this young man we had the impression that we were dealing with a Russian version of Harlequin. He wasn’t exactly handsome, but he was cute with sleek, short, dark brown hair. His playful countenance was small featured, with a button nose & a healthy, pink complexion. Of medium height he moved his well-proportioned, slim body in gingerly manner.  A smile and a frown played around his smallish mouth. Like Harlequin he would swing between cockiness and sympathy. Sometimes he showed helplessness at his inability to express himself in English, or to remedy our desperate situation. We judged him as entirely disingenuous, but as having certain power over our immediate fates. True to archetype, “Harlequin” pounced on his chance to do mischief.

We waited patiently in our chairs and read our books. About 30 minutes later, he appeared again with another young officer who carried a clip board with several papers. “Harlequin” asked  us redundant questions, such as, where were you born (only me, not JJ*) & our stateside address. Then they left and returned in another half hour, saying to enter their offices where we would sign papers for the “receipt” which was really an invoice for the double fine, with instructions on how to pay them….all in cyrillic Russian. For all we knew we could have been signing our lives away into some gulag in Siberia. It looked to be a very complicated & officious. As “Harlequin” explained, we could pay the fine from anywhere, from any bank to the address on a strip of paper (in Cyrillic!) within 30 days & the Russian Federation would absolve us from violating our visa. But, remember this isn’t all. We still had to get the 1-day visa. 

The irony is that if we didn’t get the 1-day visa, if we had to stay into the next day, our situation would only exacerbate. Everything would be to do over. With this “receipt” dated for May 23 only, we were encouraged to hurry as fast as we could to a mysterious telephone which was a direct line to the “consul.” But first! We must go to the Air France check-in counter to get this Man-Who-Knew-About-Our-Case to help us. We were off & running with JJ’s brief case, my heavy, overstuffed sling purse, and the “Giraffe,” a piece of carry-on luggage identifiable because of said pattern, which is packed for  emergency layovers. 

At he Air France check-in counter, all employees were female and they all were Russian native speakers. Their French & English were iffy. Mostly, they could only manage to speak of things that related to passengers boarding planes, and not passengers with visa problems. There was no “Man-Who-Knew-About-Our-Case” there to help us, only a sullen female employee who resentfully instructed us as to where to find the mysterious telephone. Something about right next to the glass doors of the VIP Services down Terminal F Concourse. On the way we just kept repeating, “VIP?,” and people kept pointing the way accompanied by Russian instructions. 

We entered the grandiose VIP glass doors, and told a nice English-speaking lady that we were looking for a consul telephone. She redirected us just outside to the mysterious telephone which was attached at eye-level on a foot-wide strip of wall next to a kiosk, just next to the VIP doors. Actually it was an old style black telephone which cradled the double-eared listening & speaking attachment. But this was just for show.  She instructed us to punch “the black button (because there was also a blue one) which would light up its red rim. Then we were to speak into some speaker holes on the box itself. We should wait for someone to answer through the same speaker holes. She cautioned that we might have to wait for 10 minutes, so not to give up and leave. And yes, the person would speak English. Evidently this woman gave these instructions frequently.  We had some luck as a male voice answered in about 2 minutes. I explained our predicament and the man seemed to understand perfectly. In excellent English he said:  “Just wait exactly where you are and I will come to you.” This was all becoming something out of “The Twilight Zone.”

In the meantime two jolly, talkative Italians walked up needing to find the mysterious phone because they also had visa problems. Their male traveling companion was stuck in “Arrival” because his visa said that he was a “female.” His friends were acting on his behalf. They punched the black button which activated the red light, but no one answered, so they waited with us only guessing what would happen next. As it turned out, the male voice belonged to a pleasant, but mildly exasperated young man who appeared from nowhere, dressed in a rumpled casual short sleeved shirt and khaki slacks, not a uniform. He was obviously nonplussed at having to deal with our problems, but it was his job, so he had to do it. He told the Italians that their visa would be changed free of charge because it was the fault of the Russian embassy. He told us that we had to withdraw 1500 rubles for each visa, or 3000 for both.  Then we would pay the Russian bank with an invoice that he would prepare. We could draw the rubles from any credit card at the ATM next to the Russian bank (Sverb Bank), which we did. He then gave both parties instructions to wait for him at the ATM. Then he disappeared. He returned about 20 minutes later with our invoice. We were instructed to pay 3000 rubles in cash to the designated cashier for such transactions. The Italians got their new visa, said “Ciao,” and were on their way. No luck was with us now, as the line was long, and the “consul” waited for his receipt from the teller that his invoice was paid. He handed over our passports with our “new” 1-Day visas. Halleluyah!

Well, not quite. Contrary to what “Harlequin” had said, our flight had taken off at 5:16 p.m. and we had missed it. Our tickets not being refundable, we had to buy new one-way tickets back to Paris. At a cost of 503 Euros or $700 a piece we felt like a couple of plucked chickens. We had no choice, & certainly no time, to argue with the Air France sales agent, who said she couldn’t help it. We knew by now that the next plane was taking off at 7:45 p.m., the last one for the day, & that it was already 7:15. It took the time it took to buy the tickets and recheck in. Miraculously, our 2 pieces of baggage were still in the hold, only waiting to be retagged. As we hastened toward the now dreadful Passport Control,  I spied “Harlequin,” & glowered at him fearlessly. He merely smiled and responded, “From Russia with love!”  

Epilogue

I have tried to relate these events as we experienced them without so much tedium and detail. It became more & more obvious as we went through the whole rigamarole that our ordeal is a regular occurrence. Obtaining a Russian visa is nothing more than an expensive racket ($360 plus 2 trips to Houston from Dallas because our passports could not be mailed to us!), combine that with ill-will & political retaliation played out against the ordinary US citizen. We know that when the controllers saw the discrepancy of one day on our passport visas, they could have very well have allowed us to pass through. As JJ later pointed out, the visa stated 15 days, which was not reflected in the dates, & which he didn’t think at the time to point out to the controllers. Would it have made any difference? Or, might it not have made things worse? These two controllers were delighted with a chance to extort some money and give a couple of old Americans some grief. Most of the recommendations on how to go about the visa extention were bogus. In the end we jumped through the hoops by ourselves, and luckily did not have to stay an extra day.  JJ believes that this sort of thing is set up from beginning from the Houston visa office to the end with being highjacked for expensive air fares. For unless Air France refunds the costs of our original tickets, we are going to assume that they, too, are involved. The last Air France employee with whom we dealt, who was the nicest and most understanding, was obviously scandalized when she saw that we had to purchase full-price one-way tickets. We won’t let it go, & we’ll let you know how things turn out.

So, to summarize...we had to pay 3000 rubles ($100) up front to the “consul” for a one-day visa. We still are supposed to pay 4000 rubles ($130) in the next 30 days to the Passport Control, or we’ll be blacklisted for future visas. We had to pay $1400 for 1-Way flights back to Paris.

*JJ was born in Dalat, Viet Nam. Just what would the passport people have done with that information?

Couldn't resist showing you the real Harlequin.