registration

[Alina Israeli]

Sounds like a police state (with busy work for employment).


On Jun 16, 2007, at 4:47 AM, Michele A. Berdy wrote:

> My general sense is that it's easier for an American to get a  
> Russian visa than for a Russian to get an American visa, although  
> there are exceptions to that rule. But my cry from the heart has to  
> do with registration, with Russians don't have to do in America,  
> and which has become an enormous headache for foreigners in Russia.
>
> Now you have to register when you arrive, get a card and carry it  
> around. If you leave the city for more than 3 days, four days  
> before your departure you have inform your company, bring back the  
> card and "de-register" and then register wherever you go. If it's a  
> hotel, they'll do it for you -- and they now have to register you  
> and "de-register" you when you leave. (This is a huge amount of  
> work for them; in the past they just put a stamp on your visa, but  
> now they have to do two runs to the Federation Migration Service  
> for every tourist.) But if you are visiting friends at their  
> apartment or dacha, the first day you arrive you have to go to the  
> FMS and register, and the day before you leave you have to return  
> to "de-register." (I can't imagine that it's a 5-minute process  
> either day.) Then when you get back to Moscow, you have to re- 
> register. My employers don't know what I should do if I leave the  
> city for a five-day road trip and don't stay more than a night in  
> any one place. They think I wouldn't "de-register" in Moscow, but  
> then that defeats the whole purpose of this, if the purpose is  
> indeed to know where we all are. In fact, in the past the  
> registration was at my place of residence, and now we are all  
> registered at the office of our company. (That's what the internet  
> visa guys do, too.) So the FMS is getting less information on where  
> we are. According to the records, hundreds if not thousands of  
> people are sleeping on the floor of offices.
>
> You don't get a stamp anymore so you have no way of proving that  
> you have complied with all this. So in my company several people  
> who registered  and de-registered on time have been stopped at  
> passport control because the computer system didn't show it. The  
> same thing happens with tourists. They are fined -- usually $100.  
> According to hotels, the tourists get hysterical and then want to  
> sue them. But everyone was in complete compliance -- the problem is  
> that the FMS doesn't have time to put the information in the  
> computer system so that the border guards get it on time.
>
> Actually, this is all hearsay. I need to get registered under this  
> new system, but my employer tells me that their guy at the FMS  
> refuses to take their paperwork. He told them "I'm sick of you" and  
> "I don't have time to do all this work."  I don't doubt it. It  
> isn't onerous for a company bringing in construction workers or for  
> anyone who arrives and pretty much stays in one place or stays in  
> hotels. But for a newspaper with dozens of correspondents traveling  
> all over the place, or any company with a lot of movement of staff  
> and visitors, this is just nuts. And nuts for the guys at FMS  
> trying to keep up with the paperwork.
>
>

Alina Israeli
LFS, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington DC. 20016
(202) 885-2387 	
fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu




-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------