“Qrkiy Mir” (Яркий Мир) is a chain of photo studios in St. Petersburg and I wouldn’t recommend going there alone, If you are not confident in your knowledge of the Russian language.
I went to the Otta clinic, recommended by Friederike to get the AIDS test done. Finding it, wasn’t so easy for I forgot to google its location. Sadly, knowing only the name didn’t help so much. A couple of unsuccessful attempts to locate its position by asking random people on the street, resulted in offending one lady in a respectable age, promoting some excursions. For I couldn’t hear her clearly I asked, her as politely, as I could to repeat the name of the street, where the clinic is located. She than turned around with aversion, explaining that she has already told me. I really couldn’t understand her behavior. Now as I think about it, she may thought I am joking with her, or that I am trying to get her into a “trap” – her the excursion selling agent. I smiled, I don’t know why, I actually found the situation more funny than ridiculous (:
Registering at FINEC is a piece of cake in comparison to the extension of your visa. However, both challenges are intertwined and may also, as well be observed as one – an extremely time consuming process! A great amount of patience and self-control is required. Waiting is the credo!
This article is the first of the two-part series and illustrates the preparation and the registration process, as experienced by myself. The second article presents a registration guide, created on the ground of information, sadly I did not possess, as I had to register.
It feels so refreshing…
new country, new city, new language, new culture, new mentality, new people, new habits, new weather, new daily routine, new problems, new solutions, new visions, new impressions, new dreams…
a new life!
APPLYING FOR THE VISA AT THE RUSSIAN CONSULATE
On the first Wednesday after getting my invitation I went to the embassy with all papers prepared – it was also the first week of June. The whole procedure was supposed to take ca. 4 weeks. I hoped there wouldn’t be so many people applying for a visa at that time of the year and I was lucky – mine was done in one week. Moreover Wednesday is that kind of day, where not so many people find the time for such tasks – the most chose Mondays or Fridays. Therefore again, if it suits you I strongly recommend applying on Wednesday in the first week of June.
THE VISA APPLICATION FORM
After receiving 
the official invitation (e.g. from your university) one has to fill out the visa application form. Therefore I used the guidelines from visum.de and of course the references from the consulate. The first source emphasizes the content and the second the printing of the application form, and correctly gluing the picture. I must honestly confess, both information sources weren’t elaborate enough and I still had many doubts about some particular points.
Therefore, I had 6 different versions of the application form, including one, where only the basic data was filled in. This is something I recommend to everyone: a semi-blank form with a spare photo and glue in the bag, when applying for a visa. The idea of two times going and waiting at the consulate didn’t seem very teasing therefore the preparation time was considerable.
There are fundamentally two things one needs in order to get a Russian visa in Berlin: patience, and a smile (:
The rest is more or less a good preparation of all the necessary papers. For there were many unclear things to me I decided to write this article, for all who may encounter similar problems.
The structure of this Blog is experimental… Since I modified the skeleton I wonder, how to organize the articles to come?
