Visa Arrived!

I love express letters. :]

This express letter delivered my passport back with the brand new Russian student visa!

"Indeed, without a picture" says the text above my thumb :D

My coordinator EP from Moscow told me that the school will take care of extending my via for the full period of staying, so I do not need to worry about my visa anymore, as long as I remember to deliver my passport and a new picture to them. I feel so relieved now.

Random Fact: Money Value in Russia

50 sounds like a big number... Depending on which unit you are talking about.

On today's exchange rates, 50 rubles is 1.17 euros. (Apologies of the inaccuracy of the comparison picture: Finland does not have one- or two-cent coins at all.)

The money is cheap. Unfortunately, price level is not. In fact, Moscow is among the most expensive cities in the world. What a wise destination choice for a poor student!

The Wonderland of Bureaucracy: Round Win!

Parliament House in Helsinki.

Today was the day when I took my pile of papers and went to Helsinki to apply for my student visa. "Finland to Russia Visa Application Service Centre" run by VFS Global (as the official name goes) was not that far away from Helsinki Central railway station but I still got lost at first.

... Honestly.
(Credits to Google  for the screenshot!)

There are rumours about Russian officers who are... Not quite nice. My first impression is against this statement, because the officers in the Centre were really kind. I was only stressing about my insurance certificate whether the young customer servant accepts it, because it is just a template from my school where I had written my name by hand (as I was told to do at my school). Well, she did not, but she said that I could call and ask for a new certificate. The officer in my school's insurance company wrote my name on computer to the certificate, signed the paper and sent it by e-mail to the officer in the Visa Application Centre. Yes, that was not complicated at all! I feel so blessed that I did not do this trip for nothing. :) I paid 60 euros for the application itself, plus additional 10 euros for receiving the visa by post. The visa handling takes about a week, so by the end of this month I will have my 3-month student visa~! ^_^

I have not travelled too much by train, but I love it! Trains are smooth and fast, and my mind actually rests in trains. On my way back to Lahti, I started to think of my 12-hour-train trip to Moscow that would take place in less than two months. I will find out later what it would feel like.

Helsinki Central railway station.

Some notes-to-self inspired by my trip roday

1) Never run in your new shoes when you really need to walk. x_x

2) Buy proper walking shoes before leaving Finland.

3) I can buy rest of missing pieces of my luggage in Moscow. I have one weekend time for shopping before my school starts anyway.

Visa Application and Missing Pieces

There is a significant difference between the official post and delivery companies. Previously I have told how my student exchange application papers travelled one month from Finland to Russia. My invitation letter was posted by RANEPA by DHL letter and arrived in two days. The fun had its price: I read from the dispatch note that the letter cost 3,000 something (probably rubles, it did not show the currency). On current exchange rates, it woul mean 71.14 euros. Ouch.

Oops, I already tore the packet before taking the picture!

Another happy news today: my new HIV/AIDS certificate is available - even though I was supposed to get it one and a half weeks later! I picked up the certificate from my health-care centre, called to my school's insurance company that their paper is actually valid for visa application and then started to fill in the form on the Internet. Looks like I am finally getting all my missing pieces into one pile. :)

Filling in a visa application is exciting. I checked five times that I had filled in everything right. I almost wrote my passport number wrong, which made me even more nervous with right spellings. I had filled the application for a while, when I managed to shut down my browser. Of course I did not save my application to the database while proceeding!

When I applied for a student visa, I needed to specify which kind of a student visa I apply for. Options included i.e. "courses", "post-graduate" (why is there no "undergraduate" option at all?) and "probation period". In my invitation letter, no other specification than "study" was provided, so I chose "study". It should not go too wrong then.

Which name to put as an inviting organization? The English or Russian name ofthe school? The English name was too long for the gap. Then I put the exact name written in the invitation letter, though transliterated, because I was filling in the form in Latin letters. Now it looks better.

The applicant needs to mark to the form where to leave the application. The office for VFS Global is situated in Urho Kekkosen katu in Helsinki, and on the website there is a time reservation system available. After booking a time I notice that I had reserved a time from Russian Consulate to Vuorimiehenkatu. No, this was not supposed to happen. After a quick call I learn that I do not need to reserve a time for VFS Global at all. Sounds good that I could cancel my time to the Consulate.

I closed the browser accidentally (again). This time I had conscientiously saved the form, so there was no problem in reopening it. I wondered for a while how I printed the form last time, until I realized that I needed to take one more step to check my information and print out the paper. Of course.

Now I should have all I need for the Russian student visa, as the picture below shows.

From left to right: HIV/AIDS certificate, insurance certificate, visa application with passport picture, invitation by Russian Invitation Agency and passport.

The Wonderland of Bureaucracy: Student Visa

An adorable doll in a shop in St. Petersburg on 22 May 2012.

No can do. The day changed before this post. But let's get to business.

Being the EU citizen has its benefits. It is easy to go from an Europan country to another. Only passport is needed on holiday trips, and student visas are fairly easy to get. If I wanted to go for exchange only because of going for exchange... I would have never, ever, chosen Russia. Now I tell you why.

I miss the time when I went to St. Petersburg for a study trip. I just filled in the visa application, glued my passport picture to the form, gave that paper and my passport to my teacher and waited that the travelling agency would provide us tourists visas. Getting a student visa to Russia is a different thing. And this time I am totally alone.

On 2 June 2013, following documents are needed for the student visa to Russia from citizens of Finland:
○ Passport, valid at least 18 months after leaving Russia and with at least two empty pages.

○ Fresh passport picture, max. six months old. (Mine are precisely valid. Phew!)

○ Original invitation letter from Russian Immigration Agency.

○ The introduction letter by the host school. (I do not actually need it. Probably my host university provided it to the Immigration Centre already.)

○ Insurance, valid for the whole trip, signed by the issuer.
○ HIV/AIDS certificate in Russian, max. three months old, proving that the blood test result is negative. Must have a stamp and be valid 15-30 days after applying for the visa.
More detailed information is available on VFS Global website (opens in Finnish, can be changed to English).

At first I had to renew my passport. Just because it would have expired four months too early.

Secondly, as I have told earlier, I had problems with my invitation letter. Though today I got the good news from Moscow that my host university has finally received it. It took "only" six weeks. Now I hope that DHL is a little bit faster in delivering than Russian Post Office...

Thirdly, my HIV/AIDS certificate expired while waiting for the invitation letter. It took me a month to get it via student health care... Now I need to contact my own health-care centre. How do I even know which of these many centres in my home town is my "own"? It was easy in the countryside when there is only one health-care centre and everyone goes there. Fortunately I was told which one I should call to, after a couple of other calls...

In addition, I need to go to apply for the visa personally to the visa application centre. Sending papers is not enough, and I even need to reserve a time there. Receiving the visa from the centre is not required, if 10 euros is paid for the delivery. Well, that is cheaper than taking the train to Helsinki and back...

And that was not all! The student visa is a single-entry type, issued for three months. I will be there for four months. Thus I need to expand my visa after I get to Moscow. I am not too sure how to do it, but I guess my host university will help with that.

I have lost my nerves a couple of times during my attempts to collect all the required papers. This is really tiring. But I believe that this is an experience that makes me grow up. I truly want to go to Moscow and study there. Would these efforts be worthwhile if I did not believe that Russia is a country worth seeing? I do not think so either.

The Official Opening Post

St. Petersburg on 26 May 2012. 

So I decided to open a blog.

I have been thinking of opening a blog for a good while, but I have been missing a solid theme. It would feel futile to babble this and that without concentrating on a certain theme... i.a., because I don't believe that it would be interesting at all.

Finally I got a theme that is both interesting and current to me: Russia. I will leave for student exchange to Moscow, Russia in 2013, and I want to share my experiences with others. The blog may end up being a six-month project, but I might continue posting about Russia-related things after my exchange as well. Time will tell.

Oh me oh my

I am a 21-year-old BBA student from Finland whose major is International Business. I started in Lahti University of Applied Sciences in September 2011, and currently I am only 9 ECTS away from graduation. My interest in Russia has been in small scales before my UAS studies. I would have wanted to start language studies in high school, but I did not have time for that due to overlaps with my other courses. At that moment, studying Russian did not feel that important, so I was not particularly upset for that. I started to search for information about Russia on my 3rd year in high school. I have had moderately good chances to specialize in Russia through language studies and some special courses offered, plus I have read some literature and followed news related to Russia. My work as a customer servant in a department store has supported my courage to speak Russian, even though my vocabulary is not that extensive.

Language: why in English?

I feel the most comfortable to write this blog in English, because

1) I have (and will have) English-speaking friends;

2) I study in English;

3) by using English, I can reach more people than with Finnish (my native language); and

4) for me it is actually easier to write in English than in Finnish!

I considered to write the posts both in English and in Finnish. This blog would not work as bi-lingual though, because I write long posts and it would take me a lot of time to prepare the actual post first and then translating it. English is thus the most convenient choice in this case.

Before the blog

A lot of things happened already before opening this blog. (I should have started earlier, but I just did not bother. Sorry.) Here is a summary about how we reached this moment.

Autumn 2011 ♣ Immediately in the beginning of my UAS studies, I march to the International Office and made it sure that I want to go to Russia for my obligatory exchange. My plans are rejected, since our only exchange school in Russia (St. Petersburg State University) teaches Bachelor courses only in Russian. My Russian language skills are on level zero. Language studies begin immediately. 

Spring 2012 ♣ I try a couple of times more to ask whether there is any chance to go to Russia for exchange. The coordinator LK hints about the school in Moscow where studies in English would be possible. She adds though, that the preparation of the partnership agreements would take two or three years. I would graduate before this would happen! I examine other exchange destinations, but they do not feel like interesting enough. Since I need to stay abroad (either study or internship) for a semester anyway , I decide to seek for an internship place abroad.

May 2012 ♣ My first visit in Russia occurs, when I have a class trip to St. Petersburg. I get a good impression of the city and wish to come back some day. 

Autumn 2012 ♣ I hear that the negotiations with the school in Moscow have proceeded. In the meanwhile, I search for the internship place. As a long-time worker for S-Group, I get a chance for the internship in Tallinn, Estonia. At this point, everything is agreed, and only the contract needs to be signed. Not quite what I wished for, but silently I accept this destination. Contacting is a problem right in the beginning: I would not get any answers again from the company in question. (I am not blaming Estonians in this case at all. My contacts in Tallinn were Finnish.)

November 2012 ♣ The third time comes when I receive the e-mail about exchange application times. My situation with Tallinn is frustrating. I decide to apply for exchange only if this school in Moscow is on the list of partner universities. Try to guess what happened next.

December 2012 ♣ I book a time from LK and examine the courses offered. The agreement with the school  was finished quickly, because our school would receive two exchange students from Moscow alreaduy in next semester (Spring 2013). My numerous e-mails to Tallinn have been sent to no avail.

January 2013 ♣ At first I was a little afraid of telling about my plans to my parents, because I had changed my mind concerning the semester abroad so many times. My fear was needless: my family knows my interest towards Russia very well, and they also understand my communication problems with Tallinn. I thank for the office in Tallinn for offering me the chance for internship and tell that my plans have changed.

February 2013 ♣ Three other students have been interested in the school in Moscow. There are two places left. I ask about these three others. LK cannot tell anything because of professial confidentiality (of course I knew that) and adds playfully that otherwise I would choke the other applicants. (No, not really? :D) I use a pink marker to accentuate all Russia-related courses from my transcript of records.

March 2013 ♣ I am the happiest girl in the world. "Congratulations! You have been internally selected for a student exchange at Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration - RU RANEPA." All this time I was able to trust that LK would remember my motives for studying in Russia. I start thinking of my course choices.


April 2013 ♣ The exhcange application leaves to RANEPA by post. The visa invitation letter would be expected in next month, once the application papers reach Moscow.

May 2013 ♣ The Russian Post loses my papers. Fortunately, our wise international coordinator had the scanned versions of the papers, which she sent by e-mail to the coordinator in Moscow. The Russian coordinator, EP, decided to wait for the original papers after all. Papers are finally delivered successfully to Moscow. The estimated time of the visa invitation letter is two weeks.

June 2013 ♣ The invitation is not here yet. After a couple of e-mails EP tells that the Russian Ministry of International Affairs is busy. Two weeks is added to the waiting time. The invitation should go to the school before coming here to Finland.

I would love to write more, but I think that it is good to stop here. I will try to update this blog always when something happens. I might even start writing about the Wonderland of Bureaucracy today ;)