It is never exciting to apply for a
visa. Just think about it: you are asking some government
bureaucrat to give you a permission to enter a country that he or
she is suppose to represent. You have to waste your time to prepare
a paperwork, take photos, pay visa fees, wait for weeks and worry
that your travel plans my go down the drain if you're refused your
visa. But did you know that Russians also have to get a visa
process in order to come to the US? Which visa process, Russian or
American, is worse?
Getting a visa to come to the US is even more exciting than to get
a Russian one. First of all, when applying for a travel visa to
America, you have to prove that you are not planning on becoming an
immigrant. You are required to show a documentary proof that you
have a reason to return home. These rules, intended to address the
problem of illegal migration in America, make it difficult for
ordinary people, students, businessmen to travel to the US.
Consider this: my younger brother attends an American university
after he received a volleyball scholarship. His girlfriend who had
not seen him for about half a year planned to visit him for 2 weeks
these past winter holidays. She could not because she was refused a
travel visa on the grounds of "an insufficient connection to home."
Apparently, the Department of State officials did not consider her
university program, her 20hr/week job and a single mother who was
recently injured in a car accident as "sufficient reasons" to
return home and not to become an illegal immigrant in
America.
It is much also easier to get a Russian
visa because you don't need to go to a live interview. US
Department of State maintains four branches in Russia (Moscow, St.
Petersburg, Ekaterinburg and Vladivostok) and every Russian who
wants to visit the US has to go through a live interview in one of
these locations. That does not sound too demanding, but consider
Russia's immense size. I myself used to live in a town called
Blagoveschensk, located 36 hours on a train from a nearest US
consulate. Alternatively, I could fly for 10 hours to visit the US
Embassy in Moscow, but the airfare is not so cheap (close to
$1,000). So, if you think that application for Russian visa is not
fun: filling out some forms and making a photo, going to the post
office - try to put yourself in my shoes.
Countries determine their visa rules vis-à-vis each other by a
principle of reciprocity. There is a vivid and stark incongruence
between how difficult it is to get an American visa and how easy it
is to get a visa to Russia. US
government may argue that they have to deal with illegal
immigration, but so does Russia. Russia is second in the world
after the US in terms of numbers of illegal migrants entering it
each year. I hope that this dissonance in visa rules between two
countries will be rectified not by stiffening of the Russian rules,
but by simplifying the American visa rules for Russians applying
for visas. After all, if people can't travel, they can't understand
each other, they can not trade and they can not live
peacefully.
S. Shirokov
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