changes in visa process

[Josh Wilson]

It is, simply put, a disaster right now. 

The server the site is hosted on is slow and crashes. The site itself is
ugly and clumsy and apparently doesn't even have all the fields that are
needed at last check. 

The site is being used on the directive of the Russian Ministry of the
Interior, but against the will of the consulates that are actually
encouraging people to go to the media and complain so that maybe Medvedev
will hear something about it and get it taken care of. 

The site has bee in use in London for about a year now - apparently visa
processing companies there have adapted to it by slogging through each
online application (which apparently takes an hour now instead of a few
minutes for the old paper kind) and charging clients a new "online
application fee" of $35-50. You can go through a number of visa processing
agencies in the US that can help you - not sure if they have increased their
fees yet to reflect this - but one we've used often in the past is
http://www.traveldocs.com/ . 

There are some very hopeful visa reforms on the horizon: 3 year
tourist/business visas with the US that will not require invitations; five
year professional visas with the EU... but as with all things, this is one
step forward and at least a stumble back. 

Not sure if this particularly helps you - but hopefully it at least explains
the situation a bit more. 


Josh Wilson
Assistant Director
The School of Russian and Asian Studies
Editor in Chief
Vestnik, The Journal of Russian and Asian Studies
SRAS.org 
jwilson at sras.org 


-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Jane Costlow
Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2011 7:49 PM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: [SEELANGS] changes in visa process

  Dear colleagues,

     I'm in the process of attempting to get a visa for travel to Russia 
later this month.  I had submitted everything and then got it returned 
because beginning July 1 all applications must be done on line.  
Currently the Embassy form is unavailable - the website is down - and 
the visa service they refer you to is not answering their phone.  Any 
suggestions?  Is anyone else in the middle of this?


Jane Costlow

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