I’ve been traveling the world with a Belarusian passport since I was 15. Not an easy feat.
When people ask me what really annoys me in Belarus I don’t talk about politics. I always say without hesitation: «Visas. Borders. The terrible feeling of being trapped. Humiliation of endless lines by the consulates.»
Indeed, for a young Belarusian, it is not freedom of speech that’s stifling — Internet fixes that to a large degree. It is not the money — you can make decent money living in Belarus and live much more comfortably on your earnings than in many countries out West. But what’s really stifling to a young person from Belarus are all the hoops one has to jump through for the sake of travel. The chance to see a friend in Vilnius who is so close if you have a visa yet so far if you don’t. The chance to go couchsurfing in France or check out a music festival in Hungary. All other political issues of this land seem so very abstract yet this one is so very real: you are locked up in your little land and there is so much in the world to see.
Considering that I lived abroad for a number of years and the last time I got a European visa was back in 2006, I can say form my recent experience that the visa situation in this country got much worse in my years of absence.
So a friend of mine invited me for a weekend visit to Riga for 3 days. The visa cost is 60 Euros and even though I thought it utterly unfair to pay that much for mere 3 days of travel, it turned out that the price was the least of my worries. It’s the visa application process that drove me absolutely insane. I felt like an animal, a complete piece of garbage.
It all begins at around 6:30 — 7:00 am when a group of travel-thirsty Belarusians start gathering around the embassy to reserve their spot in the visa interview queue. Lots of people fill up the embassy yard by 7. Somewhere around 100 of them. Grandmas, children, teens — all sorts of people.
Having showed up at 8 am (and I naively thought I was early), I ended up somewhere in the middle of the queue. Mind you that the embassy closes at noon and accepts no applicants later that day. You are welcome to come back the next day at 7 or 6 am to play the waiting game again and try your luck.
People are hanging out at the embassy gates for hours (you aren’t allowed inside), whether it’s +30 in summer and -30 in winter, for a chance to travel to a country which is only a five hours’ drive away. Oh, and there are no bathrooms around either. Feel free to do your business in the yard or ask someone to guard your spot while you go to the neighboring coffee shop to take care of your business and get warmed up.
At around noon, I was finally getting closer to the gates. A friendly lady in front of me forewarned that I probably won’t make it to the interview today and should come back the next day. I told her that if I don’t make it today, I will not miss much by not visiting Latvia. She gushed and said «why, girl, you are so impatient. I have been trying to get into this place for three days straight and no luck. One day is not bad at all.” Now, that’s what I call positive outlook, or lack of self-respect, or rather the infamous Belarusian «tolerance». I was about ready to sob, not because of not going to Latvia but because I’ve been dealing with this visa crap for 11 years and for all I see it is now more expensive and more difficult for Belarusians to travel.
I did manage to sneak inside in the end. Actually, I was the last one to be interviewed that day. Lucky me! So a mere 4 of waiting, and I was walking into the consular section breathing a huge sigh of relief. But I shouldn’t have. The visa circus was not over just yet.
Inside the embassy, the lines have split in three. I felt like we were all from some sort of Gulag camp, huddling close to each other, all of us sharing the same collective misfortune — getting yelled at by the guards, snapped at by the consular clerks, looking nervously at the clock which told us that it’s past noon, which means that the masters of our fate are at liberty to leave for lunch any minute. Most disturbing of all was that it seemed that I was the only one who felt that what we were going through was NOT ok.
I got my fair share of yelling and left the embassy feeling like a bag of dirty trash. So much humiliation for 4 hours, 60 Euros and a meager 3 days of European travel.
I had a fantastic time in Riga. But was the experience worth what I had to go through? I am not so sure.
