Rysk byråkrati - en rapport från verkligheten

Härliga Johan Nilsson som bor i Moskva sedan ett bra tag var nyligen i kontakt med den 'underbara' ryska byråkratin för att fixa ett flerårigt visum. Läs hela den underhållande berättelsen  - och inte minst hans fantastiska slutsats (något för oss alla att lära av!) nedan......

Victory!! (hopefully...) :)
Today I got papers accepted for receiving a longer VISA in Russia, after a Lot of running to different places the last 2 weeks. I must say that this was probably the best real-life excursion of Russia that I had so far :)

The hardest thing was to get the medical certificate (read: paper with stamps) saying that I do not have aids and do not do drugs (praise God I don't). I thought that "getting the medical certificate would be like 2 steps (1. Going to the hospital and doing some tests 2. Picking up the certificate) so I went to the hospital and here is what followed... I'll do my best to remember and describe all the steps (keep in mind that most steps included waiting in line 30min-2 hours since it is not possible to book appointments):

1. Went to the local hospital to the person responsible for this type of certificate. Got a paper from her that I could use for doing a payment.

2. Went to a cashier on another floor to pay the bill I got

3. Went back to the first room and showed the receipt then I got notes from her about what steps I needed to complete begore I could come back to her and get the certificate.

4. Went to the bottom floor and did a scan/analysis of my lungs. Got a paper to show for receiving the resulta 1-2 days later.

5. Went to another hospital 1 hour away to do a blood test. Came to the house where they did the analysis and they gave me a paper that I could use to go and pay for the analysis.

6. Found the cashier in another house and paid the bill.

7. Went to the first house again and did the analysis (went in front of the line since I could pay for express - woohoo!)

8. Waited 1 hour (express) for the results to be ready and then went to a new place and picked up the answers.

9. After getting the answers tjey told me to go to another house to get a stamp.

10. Visited the local hospital again to receive the results of the lung scan. Was a bit surprised when they just took the small paper I got initially and put a new stamp on it and gave it back.

11. Went to another department of the local hospital in another part of the city and showed the lung scan paper (with a stamp) to a person who then gave me a new paper with other stamps. She was kind enough to let me pay directly there so I did not need to go back to the initial department cashier to make a payment.

12. Came to the another doctor (narcolog?), but the department was closed even if it said on the door that it was supposed to be open. I was a bit confused, but found a small white note stuck in the door. I took it out and it read "coming soon". Waited. Waited. Waited. 20 min after the department was supposed to close a woman came and tried as good as possible to ignore me and run past me without looking. Almost everyone in this process where really friendly and helpful, but this lady was not hiding her dissappointment in seeing me. She remarked to me that the department closed 20 min ago and it didn't help when I tried to explain to her that I had been waiting since a good while before it closed. Though, she softened a bit when tjere was a quiet moment and I honestly commented positively on the nice flowers she had in her room :) she agreed to give me a paper for making a payment so I could do that before coming back the next day.

What number was I on again?

13. Paid in the cashier in the initial department of the local hospital.

14. Went back to my new friend with nice flowers and got a paper with some stamp

15. Took this paper back to the initial department and visited a doctor (psychiatrist if I understood correctly...) who looked at the paper and wrote something and put another stamp.

16. Went to a special cashier on the first floor that put one more stamp to make this paper "official"

17. Went to a dermatolog and showed papers from the blood test. He looked very bored with his work, but showed to be extremely friendly when we started talking :) he gave me another paper.

18. Went to a store to make copies of some of the paper

19. Came back another day (because of opening hours) to the room in step 1 and showed all the collected papers and stamps to get the final certificate from her. Unfortunately we then noticed that there was a mistake in the notarizes translation of my passport which meant that basically all papers had been made with my second name spelled Hernik instead of Henrik. She basically could have told me to do everything all over again... But she agreed that I only had to get the blood test result changed.

20. Went back to the hospital 1 hour away to the place where I got the results. They told me to go where I made the analysis.

21. Went to the place doing the analysis and they told me to go to another place, a special cashier.

22. Found the special cashier where they changed my name in the system.

23. Went to the place where I got the results and got a new paper

24. Went to another house and got a stamp on that paper

25. Drove back to the local hospital and showed the new papers and stamps they gave the certificate!! :)

Victory! :)
Isn't this a lot like life in general? We tend to need to go through many more steps than we think to get where we want, but with faith and persistance we can overcome and move forward... :)

Ps. Write "I did it!" as a comment if you were one of the few who had enough energy to read through this whole post of probably record-setting length :)