From vladimir@cs.ualberta.ca Tue Jul 2 00:42:24 EDT 1996 Article: 34462 of soc.culture.bulgaria Path: news.cs.columbia.edu!news.columbia.edu!lamont.ldeo.columbia.edu!zombie.ncsc.mil!nntp.coast.net!news-res.gsl.net!news.gsl.net!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!oleane!jussieu.fr!math.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!tribune.usask.ca!rover.ucs.ualberta.ca!alberta!usenet From: Vladimir Alexiev Newsgroups: soc.culture.bulgaria Subject: Re: Foreign Visas & Red Passports Date: 01 Jul 1996 17:50:01 -0600 Organization: University of Alberta, Computing Science Lines: 127 Sender: vladimir@tees.cs.ualberta.ca Message-ID: References: <4qvmu6$6cp@news.bu.edu> <31D8163A.56F@picard.ups-tlse.fr> NNTP-Posting-Host: tees.cs.ualberta.ca In-reply-to: Gavrilov's message of Mon, 01 Jul 1996 18:17:30 +0000 X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.0.15 Status: RO I am posting this because mail to Mr Gavrilov failed Status: 5.1.1 (bad destination mailbox) Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 550 ( ... Addressee unknown) Mr Gavrilov, I wrote this two years ago. THE CANADIAN EMBASSY IN BELGRADE: A STRONGHOLD OF BUREAUCRACY It takes them 6 months to issue a visa I am newly married, yet I feel like a young widower. I got married 7 months ago, and 6 out of these 7 months I have been separated from my wife because it takes the Canadian embassy in Belgrade 6 months to issue a visa. I am from Bulgaria, but there is no Canadian embassy there, so the nearest one is in Belgrade. Let me tell you my story from the very beginning. A year ago I was admitted to the U of A. Then the procedure of obtaining a visa started. And boy, was it a procedure: I was asked to send a copy of the admission letter and _the originals_ of my diplomas to the embassy. Why they needed my diplomas, I cannot tell (I hope they were not questioning the University's decision in the matter of my academic credentials). Then I received an application form to fill out. After I returned the form, they issued some medical forms. I did the medical exams and sent the results back to the embassy. They forwarded them to a medical commission in Vienna which serves all Eastern Europe. It took the commission 2 months to approve the medicals. Then the embassy sent me a letter which was instructing a bank in Sofia (the capital of Bulgaria) to accept my payment for the visa. I payed for it and sent the transaction record to the embassy. Then they asked me to send my passport (all citizens of Bulgaria do have passports) and finally stamped that precious visa. After that they returned my passport and my diplomas using regular mail (I still shiver at the thought that they could have easily got lost). Since mail travels about one week between Sofia and Belgrade, the whole process took some three months and a half. Good thing I was not in a hurry. Then I came to Edmonton. Although my studies were going well, I have to admit that I did not adapt quite well to the new place: I did not make close friends, I was working almost all the time and I was feeling lonely. Then my girlfriend and I decided to get married (we have been together for some 3 years back in Bulgaria). I already knew how long it takes to obtain a visa, so I tried to contact the embassy in advance (last February), although I appreciated they could not do much until they had a proof of our marriage. At least they could have issued the medical forms for my fiancee, but in fact they did _nothing_: they have a procedure and they won't do anything beyond that procedure. Last June, I went back to Bulgaria for a month and a half, we got married, and we had a wonderful time. Right after the wedding, even before our honeymoon, I had the marriage cerificate translated and I sent it to Belgrade. But it did no much good, because the approval of the medicals in Vienna would still take 2 months, so I was informed there was no way for my wife to travel back to Canada with me. I was kind of prepared for this, so I admitted it. But another problem ensued which I had not expected. My visa was about to expire a week before my returning to Canada, so I had to renew it. Since I had my Student Authorisation renewed in Edmonton before my departure (it took 15 minutes to get it renewed for 3 years ahead, in stark contrast with the approach of the embassy in Belgrade) and since I did not have to do medical exams (I had done them the year before), I thought it would be easy to get that visa. I was wrong. A copy of my renewed authorisation was not enough, they said they needed a letter from the University confirming I will be a student in the new academic year (I hope they did not question the competence of the office of Immigration Canada in Edmonton). I sent email to my department asking them to fax such a confirmation to the embassy and went on my honeymoon. When I returned, there was no progress regarding my visa, and I had air tickets for three days later. I called the embassy and they said they had received no fax. I started panicking. I emailed again to my department, asked them whether they had sent a fax and asked them to send it again. They confirmed they had sent it. Now can you tell me how in the world can a fax get lost? Anyway, the embassy finally confirmed they had received a fax. It would have taken two weeks to send my passport to Belgrade and receive the visa back, so I decided to go to Belgrade myself. Contrary to my expectations, there were no machine-gunners along the roads and I had no problems. It only took me 9 hours to get there by train, and 9 hours back, and I had to postpone my flight by a week, but finally I had my precious visa. I returned to Canada and started waiting for my wife. I thought "Two months, big deal. I can live two months without my wife. When I was in the army, there were periods almost that long without seeing her." But time went by, and my wife still had no visa. My problem became known to many people in my department. When somebody asks me "How's it goin'", I answer "She still ain't here." and they understand. I was wondering what was causing this delay and I asked my wife over and over again whether she had sent the application forms, whether she had done the medicals, and so on. It finally turned out that the embassy had introduced a new policy regarding the medicals. After you do them, you submit them to a private clinic in Sofia called VITA. You do not do the actual exams in VITA, you do them in your local clinic, but then you hand the results to VITA. Then they wait until a number of medicals accumulate and send them directly to Vienna with a courier. In my wife's case, this wait took more than two months (this is like in the joke about the dummy who was waiting by the elevator for two more people to show up because of the sign saying "3 persons"). If Belgrade wants them sent directly to Vienna, why do not they just tell you the address in Vienna so that you can send them yourself? A week ago I had good news from my wife: the medicals were finally back >from Vienna. She had called the embassy for the umpteenth time and they had told nothing had been received yet, but after she insisted they should look better in the file they told her "Ah yes, the medicals are here, they were received two weeks ago". Now, calling that embassy is not that simple. The phone line is constantly busy, not to mention that a phone call costs about 3 dollars a minute and it takes them some 15 minutes to fetch your file. Then her father went to Belgrade and finally got the visa. My wife didn't make it neither for her birthday, nor for Christmas, nor for the New Year's Day, but I expect her in mid-January. I appreciate that probably the embassy is having problems because of the war in former Yugoslavia. However, if they are unable to provide anything close to a reasonable service, it would be better if the government just closed that embassy down. And surely the war is not the only problem. _Vancouver Sun_ of 12 August 1993 writes "HIGH FEES, MISSING MONEY INVESTIGATED AT EMBASSY (Canadian Press) "TORONTO - Canada's external affairs department is probing missing government money and allegations that exorbitant fees were charged for visas at its embassy in the war-torn former Yugoslavia. [...] "Brian Casey, a senior Canadian diplomat in charge of the embassy's visa section, was called home for questioning last month, officials said. "The Canadian embassy in Belgrade, which employs about 40 diplomats and local help, has been without an ambassador for several months. "The Toronto Sun quoted sources as saying that three female Yugoslav employees at the embassy are being probed by Canadian officials for allegedly charging excessive fees to Serbs and others for visas to Canada." I also suspect some unclear deals with that private clinic VITA. Certainly VITA gets payed for the "service" it provides, and I wonder who decided that such a service is needed and how exactly VITA was contracted for it.