pre-departure

So August has been a month plagued with the cruel realities of Russian bureaucracy. Yay! They are just doing their best to reintroduce me to Russia.
For those of you not acquainted with Russia and getting visas, it is a multi-step process that requires the acquisition of an invitation, a document from from your host certified by the local authorities. This document is the key to getting your visa because it serves as a promise that whoever is hosting you promises to be responsible for inviting you to Russia. You then send that document off to the embassy either in person or through a third party company with other supporting documents (HIV test, photo with application, as well as any information required that is specific to the visa you are applying for; note that these rules are constantly changing). One of the new complications is a five day rule. Anyone wishing to enter Russia must wait five days from the issue date of the visa before they can enter the country. The embassy does not specify how to count those days, whether it starts the day the visa is issued or the next day, and whether you can enter on the fifth day after the date it is issued. So for me, it is a matter of guessing.

Unfortunately, I assumed (my first and gravest of mistakes: I assumed) I would get my invitation well before the entry date recommended by the Academy where I'll be teaching. That date has come and passed. The irony is that I got it on that date, the 24th of August. Well, I had booked a flight for the 31st from D.C. with the intention of going a few days early to send with my friend, Anna, before we would both fly together on the same flight to Moscow. She had a great price for the flight, so I bought prematurely (second mistake). It is really my fault. I should never have purchased my ticket without my invitation in hand. It took the migration office in Novosibirsk longer than expected to send my invitation back to the university. Oh well. I have sent it off to the embassy in D.C. and am still awaiting the return of my passport with the visa in it. What makes me more nervous, I do not know what the entry date will be printed on the visa. My third major mistake was that I didn't contact the office in Moscow about this problem sooner. They contacted Novosibirsk, and by the next day their office had apparently pressured the migration services to get to processing my invitation.

I hope to be in Novosibirsk by the 7th of September, which would be a week after the Fulbright program wants me to be there.

So lessons learned:
1. Do not assume
2. Do not pay prematurely for something that is expensive to fix.
3. Be pushy, politely, but forcefully (for anyone who knows me, they are probably aware that I do not like to be pushy, but to just let things run their course in due time. This is a no no in Russia. I must be assertive. I must.

Well, the positive note in this nerve-racking mess, a boon to me, is that now I have a little bit more time to pack and box all my stuff up.