Fun with visas

One of the more entertaining things to do planning for a trip is dealing with foreign consulates. Each country I planned to visit (Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and China) has their own special visa issues, including fixed dates of entry/exit and, depending on the visa, a required 'Letter of Invitation' or LOI. Most folks (being more organized than your author) likely would have started the procedure more than three months ahead of time. I decided - roughly four months before my departure - to put my passport through the washing machine. I wouldn't recommend trying this out even once. (Sadly, I didn't follow this advice myself, as this was my second time laundering my passport ... sigh.) Fortunately Passport Canada has sped up the passport procedure and I possessed a new one in less than a month.

Now only two months before departure (and needing my passport both on a border crossing and at an Aussie government chest X-ray examination), I knew that obtaining the visas would take a little bit of finessing on my part (where by finessing read spending extra money).

Ukraine

Thanks to the glorious Orange Revolution, and the newish President Yushenko, most Westerners no longer need a tourist visa to enter the Ukraine! (Last time I went into the Ukraine on a bicycle the border guards laughed at me while waving me through ...)

Kyrgyzstan

Obtaining the Kyrgyz visa was straightforward, and didn't need a LOI for less than 30 days. I Fedexed my passport off to the Kyrgyz embassy in Washington and paid $US 80 for an expedited 30-day, single-entry visa with 3-business-day processing. No real problems with that form - just whether I was currently employed and wouldn't be a burden on their health care system (let's hope not!). Fortunately, my passport arrived at Amie Lucier's place (thanks Amie!) in Houston a few days before I arrived for a visit.

Kazakhstan

A 30-day Kazakh visa was also easy to obtain without a LOI. I Fedexed my passport - along with $US 40 for a 30-day, single-entry tourist in 5 business days. No real issues on the visa application, just a few questions about my current employment (haha!), health insurance, and intended route. After about seven days, my passport arrived at Brandon Winfrey's Maryland pad (thanks Brandon!). The embassy was kind enough to throw in a 'Kazakhstan Tourism' brochure written in what I can only describe as Kazakhglish. Amazingly, there was a page on in-country cycle-tourism! However, I can't really picture throngs of elderly German tourist pedaling across the Kara-Kum desert...

Russia

This one was much harder to get, and I managed to secure it only 48 hours prior to my departure. The Russian visa options for cyclists are not as clear cut, because the OVIR (the Russian Office on Visa and Registration) requires that anyone on a tourist visa have a fixed schedule, including payments to the prebooked hotels. Not being able to predict my route, I had to look a little big farther afield.

With good fortune, I found two other cycling blogs whose authors relayed that the Russian Cycle Touring Club (RCTC) could provide the LOI "business visa support" for a 3-month, single-entry visa - for the mere cost of 135 euros. (As with most things in Russia, it is unclear how much of the fee went to the Ministry, and how much went to the RCTC!) However, seeing few other options, I paid up and began the waiting game. About five weeks later, the LOI arrived at my parents' house in Kingston, ON (thanks Parents!), and I began a frantic assembly of all the required documents - including the $CDN135 money order (the cheaper 10-day processing would have arrived after I was to depart). My passport came back on Monday, two days before my flight, with a shiny new commerce business Russian visa. (Apparently, I a business guest of the Moscow-based Jurservice agency ... hmm...)

Total Costs

The bottom line is that visas are damn expensive! If you are thinking about doing something similar, my advice is to leave yourself more days in advance to secure them, and don't prewash your documents.

Kyrgyz visa - $US 80
Kazakh Visa - $US 40
Russian LOI - 135 Euros
Russian visa- $CDN 135
Courier fees- $US 60 and $CDN 36