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.