I admit it, I’m foolish for trying. I tried to outmaneuver the Russian visa process, and it’s costing me – in time, frustration and lots and lots of money. Mental note: Don’t try to outfox Russian bureaucrats. They’ll leave you weeping and penniless.

The following post is a blow-by-blow account of my quest, as yet unfinished, to acquire a Russian visa. It’s probably confusing, definitely frustrating, and at times amusing. Read at your own risk.

I began, back in mid-February, by trying simply to understand how to get a visa. Straightforward? Ha. Getting a visa to Burma was much, much easier! I checked my Trans-Siberian Handbook, which gave me my first clue that this wouldn’t be easy. To get a Russian tourist visa, you need a mysteriously vague “official” invitation from a Russian tour company. Easy enough if you’re on a package tour. But what about us independents?

To the Internet! It will know! But alas…each helpful website I visited – from the official site of the Russian consulate to random blog postings – contained slightly different information. I did manage to find out that the invitation would be in two parts – an invitation letter and a tourist voucher. I also found out that the process itself would take two steps and involve two costs: First, pay a service for the visa support documents. Second, go to the Russian consulate with these documents and the application and pay for the actual visa itself.

But other info was sketchy. Do you need the original invitation, or will a fax/email do? Which tour company is reliable and honest? Will the Russian consulate in New York grant a visa in my Greek passport (cost: $50), or do I need to get it in my US passport (cost: $131)? Unsurprisingly, a phone call to the consulate bore no fruit: one phone number, (212) 348-0926, gave only pre-recorded, generic information that was also available on the website. Calls to the other, official “visa information” phone number, (212) 348-0629, resulted either in a busy signal or (minutes later) no answer.

[Was the second phone number simply a transposition of the first? Nope – I got the second number by calling the first. It was one of many encounters with dizzying circular logic.]

The guide book doesn’t say so specifically enough, but the bottom line is: Independent travelers have to pay a tour company to provide visa documentation. There is simply no other way. Thus ended a week’s worth of research.

Next order of business: What kind of visa do I need? A tourist visa is only valid for 30 days. Since I want to explore the vastness that is Russia in a leisurely manner, I’d need a business visa, valid for up to three months. But should it be single- or double-entry? After spending another few days with guide books and train schedules, my very rough itinerary told me: single-entry would be fine.

After hearing some reassuring policy on the recorded phone message (“The Russian Consulate General processes all types of visas for…[non-US] citizens, as long as their stay in the US is legitimate.” ), I decided my Greek passport would work. For my support documents I chose Way To Russia, a well-reviewed service. On Feb 25, 2009, I submitted my visa details online, paid the $75 fee, and waited.

Oh – forgot to mention. For some inexplicable reason, the consulate will not process business visas more than 45 days before the visa start date. (Tourist visas, I think, are no problem.) For some reason, Way to Russia also wouldn’t start the document processing until 45 days before entry. I still don’t know why – maybe it has something to do with the Russian Federal Migration Service, to which they have to submit my application. In any event, they didn’t even start processing until March 10, and told me the documents would be ready March 27.

All of a sudden I would be on a tight schedule – visa processing takes six-10 business days, and I hope to leave New York April 13. So I decided to do a test run with my dad’s much simpler visa – staying just 8 days, all in the same hotel, on a US passport. Together my dad and I fill out the two-page application – a hilarious read; download it to see! – which asked crazy details including if he had ever served in the military (yes, the Greek army, back in the early ’50s) and the names, addresses, supervisors and phone numbers of his two previous jobs. No one will actually use any of this info, of course. It’s just payback (called “reciprocal” on the RusCon website) for the equally absurd process anyone has to go through to get a US visa.

Anyway, on March 10 off I went to the Russian consulate. I could tell I was in the right place by the long queue shivering outside the 12-foot high oak door under the Russian flag. Here was a perfect metaphor for the conundrum that is Russia. From the outside, the consulate building is elegant and lovely – a neo-classical gem half a block from Central Park on the tony Upper East Side of Manhattan. Outside in the cold stood about 30 Russian-Americans from New York and New Jersey, dressed cheaply but neatly in tight polyester, colorful faux-fur and tacky patterns. All were there to apply for Russian passports. (I didn’t push anyone for their details on their citizenship status.) The locked door provided crowd control – periodically an official unlocked the door and let a small number of shoving applicants seep through the partial opening.

Under direction of the friendly Russians outside, I started another, non-passport queue. When the official opened the door (to let those inside out – crowd control goes two ways!) and refused entry to the passport seekers, one of the kind women yelled in Russian that I was there for a visa, and that he should let me in. Gruffly he agreed, to the consternation of the other, pushy woman behind me who had elbowed me out of the way when the door opened.

(Sadly, having moved from Eastern Europe more than nine years ago now, I am out of practice in dealing with disinterested bureaucrats and desperate, pushy women with an air of entitlement. But it all came flooding back!)

Continuing the consulate’s metaphor for Russia: Inside, the once-lovely hallway was painted a drab yellow, ill-lit by flickering fluorescents. An out-of-commission metal detector served as the threshold to the passport department. Instead I took the immediate left, through another grand oak door on which a paper sign marked “VISAS” was affixed with yellowing tape.

Given the scene outside, I was surprised to find no line for visa applications. I handed my dad’s documents through an opening in the thick bullet-proof glass, the dude on the other side checked to make sure I had everything I needed, and that was it. “Come back March 24,” he said.

Then I ruined it all by asking about getting a visa on my Greek passport. “Impossible,” he said. “If you have two passports, you must get your visa in your US passport if you are in the US.” I argued, cajoled, pleaded. He just walked away.

$@#&*#.

On the bus ride home, I came to grips with the fact that not only was my $75 fee to Way to Russia lost, but I would also have to pay the higher visa-processing fee for my US passport. So much for doing this on the cheap. When I got home submitted a new visa-documentation request, this time for my US passport. When will it be ready? Friday, April 10 – two business days before I plan to leave New York. So yes – I will have to pay the Russians *extra* for rush processing.

Then yesterday my Greek invitation document came. And I thought, “Why not just go, with money and application, and try to convince them to take it?” I had to go pick up my dad’s passport anyway. Thank goodness I did, because not only did the surly bottle-blonde refuse to process the visa, she told me that I would need the original invitation (ie not a color printout of the emailed PDF) for a business visa. I pointed to the policy posted right next to her window, which stated that only multi-entry visas required originals. She just stared back at me with dead eyes.

So yes – you guessed it – this means another outlay of my scarce cash. It’ll cost another $60 and (more critically, at this point) two business days for Way to Russia to UPS me the original invite. And then I’ll either have to postpone leaving New York for Boston (which will distress my family) or ask a NY friend to pick up my passport and then FedEx it to me in Boston – mo’ money.

To summarize:

Dad’s tourist visa: $131

What I expected to pay for my visa: $125
– $75 for documentation
– $50 for visa processing

What I will actually pay: $360 – $410
– $75 for useless documentation for Greek passport
– $75 for documentation for US passport
– $60 to get originals mailed to me
– $150 or $200 for five- or next-day rush processing

I guess now I need to sell a story about all this that pays at least $410.

As an aside, I do want to mention that through all this, the people at Way to Russia have been very helpful, responsive and sympathetic. I highly recommend them.

However, I must also point out that their business (and that of all other visa-documentation services) is, in theory, illegal. For a fee, they provide a false document – a business invitation from a company I don’t know and have nothing to do with. This cottage industry of providers of false documentation is done openly, with full knowledge of the Russian Migration Service.

So think about it: The rationale for the documentation (and the visa!) is so that the Russians know where you are and whom you’re with. But for a fee, they will accept documentation that they know gives false information, thwarting the whole point. It makes no sense at all.

Which is my mistake in all this. I was trying to understand the process rationally, forgetting all anyone’s interested in is sucking as much cash as possible from tourists.

Cynicism, don’t leave me again!