Vive la Visa Revolution

I’m writing this with our Uzbekistan visas proudly displayed in our passports; so I’m now free to write about the long procedure we had to go through to get it. No possibility of a jinx 😉

Firstly one has to fill in an online form with your details and print off two copies together with two printouts of the photo page in your passport and also provide two passport photos. You then take all of this to the embassy. Easy enough I hear you chorus……

Outside the embassy is a wooden sitting area rather like a nice garden gazebo. To the side of that is a gate that heads down to the embassy and then there’s a door and beside that a small window hatch. Within the gazebo are somewhere between 50 and 150 people waiting. At 3pm the visa section of the embassy opens but it’s pretty unclear where you need to go. Fortunately we had read up before hand that you need to be quite forthright and push your way to the front of the mosh pit (by the gate) loudly declaring yourself a ‘real tourist.’

Once inside the embassy you enter a small room with a door and two window hatches that seem to be permanently shut tight. It was jammed pack and had no obvious system of organisation at all. After half an hour we managed to thrust our forms, photos and passports into the hands of the Consular and resumed the job of idly waiting. For us this took 45 minutes before the Consular returned saying to come back in, I quote, “5 or 6 or maybe 7 days.”

7 days later we returned. Outside was even more hectic then the week before; not helped by the Consular not emerging until 3.40pm – a good 40 minutes late. We had to barge our way through the throng, down the side path and into the back room which, this time, was surprisingly empty…..and resumed waiting. Twenty minutes later he emerged informing us that the visa weren’t ready and to come back in two days time.

So on this, our forth visit, (on our first visit the embassy was closed) we decided that we had had enough of the two hour return journey on foot and metro and decided to drive instead. Being, by now, familiar faces we were in the back room by 3 o’clock sharp. After a 25 minute wait the Consular emerged with the bank details for the transfer. We were off, with a skip and jump, to a nearby bank to transfer the money. Back inside we handed the bank receipt over and 20 minutes later left the premises clutching our passports with the long overdue visas inside them.

Now for ‘the revolution’ part of this tale: Our Tajikistan visa was filled in online, paid online and we received the e-visa by email a few hours later; which even included a smiley face emoji wishing us a happy trip to Tajikistan.

Now that’s how you issue visas. Vive la visa-lution!