FW: URGENT! Technical problems with paper invitations at the Ministry of Internal Affairs!

[Renee Stillings]

On the subject of there never being a dull moment when it comes to Russian
visas, see the latest (note below), which is a note we received from one of
our tourist/business visa partners. Seems Russia's recent paper-related woes
are not limited to the vodka industry.

On the subject of the 21 months validity of the visa - apparently MGU does
acknowledge this, saying it is OVIR that blocks it, although it has never
come up in our experience and it is difficult for me to imagine in all the
visas we've processed from MGU, everyone had at least 21 months. In Irkutsk,
they say it is irrelevant and OVIR pays no attention. Another one of those
things that is sometimes observed, sometimes not, or so it seems.

Renee


Dear Colleagues,


This morning the Ministry of Internal Affairs has informed us that the
special
watermarked paper that they print the invitations on was not supplied on
time
by Russian Central Bank, the athority responsible for printing this
particular
kind of paper. They expect to get the paper within a week but in a
meantime,
they are unable to ANY accept applications since they can not print them!
They
only took several applications. All we could do was to select and submit
the
most urgent ones.

We realize how absurd the situation and puzzled how it could have happened
even
in a somewhat disorderly Russia  is but unfortunately, we are faced with a
grim
reality for the next few days. We will be checking their paper supply and
trying to sqeeze a few most urgent applications on a daily basis but
unfortunately, we can not guarantee anything until they get that entire
paper
stock from the authorities and once they do, the sheer volume of backed up
requests alone will surely cause some delays in processing.

 We are sorry that you and your clients are caught in this terribly
inconvinient situations. Please examine all the requests that you made
since
yesterday and call or write to us to discuss the alternative. We have three

options:

1. wait until the paper stock is delivered and they can print the
invitations
next week.
2. transfer some applications into telexes and do them paperless through
the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
3. Get tourist visas for those customers whose itenarary and length of stay

permits us.

Please let us know how you would like to proceed. We are standing by the
phones
and emails to discuss each individual applications if you need us.

We appreciate your understanding.

Best regards,
Visa Department.

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