How Long Is Grad Chapter Pledging

Moscow:: On the siding of the Eastern bloc

Moscow (September 2002). Decades, the governments of the free countries of the West had criticized the communist countries that the people could not freely travel from there to other countries. What hypocrisy! Hardly introduced the new democratic Russia the right to travel, the Europeans had nothing else to do, as the entry requirements for Russians to tighten dramatically. All EU candidate countries had to order from Brussels to introduce visa requirements for Russians. Towards the end of the nineties Years, there were hardly any countries in Europe that could have been a German-Russian pair without complicated bureaucratic procedures can visit.


summer sales in the German Consulate

The German visa office in Moscow was in any case as a deterrent foreign missions. And not just because the asbestos in former East German Consulate on Leninsky Prospekt was located.

In summer, the Russians stayed on the street in front of the visa section. Some had traveled thousands of miles to make its application. Some were screaming from the premises because they were by the bank employees because of a lack of paper sent home. For hours the people had to rain or freezing at the gate to endure visa section, in the hope that it might create before the end of the day on the site. Not always succeeded in the first attempt. A kind of Mafia sold some waiting near the entrance.


No space for mobile phone

Just a few years ago, eliminates the biggest mess when you get an appointment in advance to face meeting with the Germans had, mind you on a pay phone number. For 2,50 € per minute. Since then, the queues were shorter, but in return, the increased processing times for visas to several weeks. In the summer, Russians regularly had one and a half months before the travel date to seek their visa. Freedom of movement actually looks different.

The first major hurdle for all applicants was also a house entrance, where identity cards checked and the bags were searched for weapons. Occasionally, the consulate was thinking of new harassment: At some point, it was suddenly forbidden to take mobile phones with in the visa section. At the entrance they could not deliver. "Ask any of the insurance agent on the street" snapped, the bouncers, if anyone dared to ask her if you throw it away because his telephone was now. The sellers of health insurance hung around the front of the consulate, were delighted with the vagaries of visa offices line. They had now a lucrative additional income. exacerbated

long already, before the grant of visas under the so-called "visa scandal" once again, all applicants had to "interview" compete, a survey that had to go through all travelers in person, if not their visa for a lot of money on dubious intermediary firms bought. Which there was at any time after the "visa scandal" only increased the price of something. For those who could not pay several hundred euros, was no getting past the personal interview. Finally, the visa section had all Applicant screened out, which would probably apply for asylum in Germany, steal cars or engage in prostitution wanted. Single women had it from the start already very slim chance of a visa, any more than Caucasians.

Where are you are driving, Anna?

The German Consulate employees and their Russian auxiliaries name basis with the applicant, accosted around you and behaved in every way that you would have as a German for his country should be ashamed. If you would have been for it and would not have given the strict rule that German had not admitted to the visa section. Not even as a husband I could to the so-called interview with my wife.

"They have no deadline," grumbled the bouncer, and drove me back to the road. These bouncers were really a hard job, because their prohibitions were not always implemented: after all, the site could be accessed through other gates. Quickly into another snake found thought the bag inspections any reason why I bent into the consulate had ("Will issue an invitation for my friend."), After checking into the visa section and already was the object lessons begin, as a German authority should not work more comfortable with:

Employees laid behind their glass panes in Interview with applicants interesting peculiarities of the day: "Where are you going, Anna," was still one of the friendly questions, to listen to the (adult) visitors were given. Once a Russian who dared to contradict the official in charge, subject to the usually behind the blinds of the window, stood up and let the applicant sitting helpless on the other side of the glass wall. Hissed like to young women through the glass pane from the grandmother Province: Never before had to fill out the applications made someone so stupid. The pensioners looked then lowered to the ground.

Even after we were married in Moscow, we were the first visa for the summer holidays in Germany initially denied: With the very reasonable grounds that Anna should request a "family reunification" and not a tourist visa. The idea that a family could possibly live in Moscow and possibly not even had the desire in the Golden West überzusiedeln, the consulate staff did not come until the second visit in the head.
Slovak visa section on course for Europe

Over the years, increased my dislike of the German visa center in Moscow indefinitely. However, other consulates outbid each other in increasingly arbitrary demands, conflicting regulations and a possible appearance of haughty for the Russian applicants. As well, I thought that there was Slovakia. Just the right place for a getaway. Although the Slovaks Russian tourists were the only country with a visa. But at least they made it red tape, and above all without a formal invitation from the country. It's all a matter of minutes, I thought.

When I arrived with Anna's Russian passport and a completed application to the Slovak Embassy, the good mood was instantly gone. Here too, a long line of people waiting on the crowded street, which was moving slowly forward. In the barely lit, gloomy visa section itself, the people crowded in front of several switches, where consular staff behind a thick glass window sat and talked only through a microphone with the visitors. Everything, like the Germans. The clerk leafed

bored by our documents. "Where are you?" She asked.

"I do not know. Since liked where we like it, we rent a hotel room. "

This answer her at all. She grimaced, "You must specify the exact address in Slovakia. Otherwise I can not accept the request. "

" But it is nothing in your rules. "

" So what. This is the rule. Book a hotel and you come back. "

"Why do you think here of rules that are nowhere written down officially?"

"arrangement of the ambassador. We do not accept applications if no exact address is known. "

behind the glass seemed a major problem for our planned vacation to appear. My increasingly angry arguments made no impression. "Listen lady, I know what," I finally called the phone system so loud that all could hear in the waiting room. "We're going to Austria, as there is already beautiful mountains as yours. Good-bye. "I turned around and left.

"Hey Wait, you all. "A Russian who was standing at the exit, holding a dozen passports in hand, gave me a hand signal. I stopped.

The man took me aside and briefly introduced himself as a courier for a travel agency that visa procured. "We always do it: For all our customers, we just always assume that they stay in our Hotel Bratislava in Bratislava. Since there are never "problems, he revealed.

I thanked him, wondered whether the consulate would aunt after the dispute ever again speak to me, added, including the visa application and went back to the counter. The waiting, who had followed the heated debate with the clerk left me over immediately to the queue.

"Hello, Miss," I said, grinning. "We have now decided where we want to spend our holidays. Here, you see. Hotel Bratislava in Bratislava »

The woman saw me for a long moment, surprised. "But is it not yet," she then said with narrowed eyes.

"Of course it's not true," I replied as amiable as it could. "They wanted me the name of the hotel. And now here he is written so that everything is done right. "

little bit unsure, she took my documents, muttered something they have never experienced. They could not guarantee whether under these circumstances will be issued a visa, she said. And then - in three days I was to come back to pick up the completed passport.

The European consulates in Moscow were not all places that a normal person would have attended voluntarily. And yet there was at least a visa office has friendly staff and the applications processed quickly and easily. Several times I was on the way out of time and reached the consulate only when it was actually already closed. "Please," I then told the guard, "I've taken an extra half day leave to apply for the visa." The man in uniform said a father, I should go next time please some hurry, let me pass and then proceed to the switch. Heavenly situation, given the otherwise customary practices. The country with the single-friendly visa office in Moscow was called Belarus. Belarus. Europe's last dictatorship.

Gas After Going To The Bathroom

Russian elk farm, the "Prestigious neighborhood"

Moscow (April 2000). Added. Even some Russian friends twisted his mouth into a grin when they heard our new address. "We live now in the third radiator road, house 13" could indicate No, not with such an address here. In the north-west of Moscow, hidden behind the houses of the Leningrad Highway, three radiators with their low-lying roads - that is five-to twelve-story apartment buildings from various post-war decades - and many tall trees lining the roads.


for taste not: Moscow, Rubljowskoje road to Yeltsin's House (c) Rödi

had once directly found on the road the large radiator factory that polluted with their chimneys, the air and with their production waste contaminated soil. The name of our district, recalled the long since rotted industrial culture, the times when the heating plant had not yet been transformed into a chaotic construction market.

That was a blessing. Of the residential blocks of the radiator on the major roads could be Lakes of the adjacent city park view, in late spring on warm nights croak through the open windows to hear the frogs. And despite all the rents were much lower here than just a Metro station further into town in the prestigious district of Sokol. The Moscow were quite sure in which quarter of the Twelve metropolis this was a "prestischny raion," a "prestigious district." Sokol was "prestischny" not our neighborhood was a kilometer north-west roads along with the radiator.


houses from the Stalin era raise the prestige

The more people in the Russian Capital money came, the more of them wanted to live in style. Residential area in the city but there was not not even neighborhoods with single family homes. Accommodation is in Moscow almost exclusively in residential high-rises, mostly unsightly prefabricated buildings. And yet, who lives in Moscow learns immediately that can range from first glance identical, monotonous neighborhoods worlds.

Sometimes there were reasonable grounds for the prestige of a quarter: I liked the houses from the Stalin era, lie at the apartments with high ceilings and bay windows and ornate, which made the streets there something more human. Because there is no front of the window stainless scrap heap and factories were.

was a rule but rather unclear where did the high regard in which some parts of the city was said. Bringing the drab dormitory towns along the main road Rubljowskoje road had earned its status must remain the secret of real estate agents. It is common along the famous route that connects the Kremlin with President estate, could be preferred the rich and famous down the capital city. A look at the signboards of the local boutiques and furniture stores was proof enough.

prestige and greed

That made the repulsive Soviet bloc with its blue and white Tiles on the walls certainly not pretty. From the central line of the huge loss and not to mention the significant fact that this road was completely closed to traffic on a regular basis, so that president Putin lawn with his escort in the Kremlin could, without being disturbed by the subjects. In a way it was with the "prestigious neighborhoods" as the "leading universities" in Russia. Even in those times turned out to be dignified as dummies, as I had now experienced painful.

Even once we had an apartment Rubljowskoje on the road. We also felt a touch of prestige that came from that street. Probably made the "prestige" of the area where the landlord but also very greedy. Our landlord, a dentist, which we had found through acquaintances, as the late nineties was quite usual turned out to be - to say the least - as an impostor. Although she was even officially registered in the apartment, but it was not her but her step-son.

The learned one day from the windy shops his relatives, and finally landed here with police escort from an unpleasant visit. Unfortunately, they chose well remember which day we had arranged with Anna's colleagues, a second wedding reception in the flat and straight On the last gentlemen were waiting when the doorbell rang.

The celebration was overshadowed by the need to put on a police report, a few days later we moved away from and for ever from the world of the rich and successful. Still, I consoled myself that our dentist had taken over their greed and a little before it was now due judicial trouble with the stepson.

view of Yeltsin's apartment

At the "Rublyovka," as the saying goes that route calls, but there was still a very special home. Just before the city limits, maybe two and a half miles from our temporary apartment building, stood in the middle between the repulsive prefabricated housing a beige brick building, six stories high, surrounded by a high fence. Here, on the hills of Krylatskoje, there was the official residence of Moscow's Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and omnipotent - the head of state by no less than Boris Yeltsin. Neighbours reported that Yeltsin's wife Naina in the early nineties even occasionally appeared even in the grocery store nearby.

Politicians elite had over the years, of course zugeschanzt noble self-service villas and country houses provides. Officially, the beige block housed on the homes of some of the most important politicians of the country. Before our wedding we had rented an apartment in a nearby house for the German guests. They do not believe me until today that they looked amidst the concrete jungle of the kitchen window directly on Yeltsin's apartment. The fact that they were staying in a place that is not simply "prestischny," but was "super-prestischny."

had occasionally even I am supposed prestige of some of Moscow's dazzling addresses. Stalin's wedding-cake skyscrapers seemed to me a long time as possibly the best address in the capital. A dwelling had to be a dream high above the city, I thought. Then I learned that a colleague from the Moscow radio even had just such an apartment. Commentator Alexander Scholkwer, zu Zeiten der Sowjetunion langjähriger Korrespondent in Bonn, war nach seiner Rückkehr mit einer Wohnung in einem Seitenflügel des Hotels «Ukraina» belohnt worden, direkt an der Prachtstraße Kutusow-Prospekt.

Mir blieb vor Neid der Mund offen stehen, doch Scholkwer winkte mit einer geringschätzigen Handbewegung ab. «Es ist die Hölle», sagte er und berichtete von dem dröhnenden Verkehr, der sich Tag und Nacht an seiner Wohnung vorbei wälzte und ein normales Leben unmöglich machte. Scholkwers bescheidenes Nachwende-Gehalt reichte noch nicht einmal für den Einbau schallisolierender Plastikfenster.

Soccer Studs In India To Buy

Filling up in Viipuri

Wyborg (Dezember 2001). „Nein, im Hotel Druschba sind keine Zimmer mehr . Free "The hotel front desk makes no hope that perhaps a reservation is canceled," Our tourists are always "Whether White nights in the summer or chilly winter. Reaches every weekend, a caravan of colorful coaches the peaceful Russian provincial town of Vyborg on the Finnish Gulf breathes and lives. Vyborg is next to the Estonian capital of Tallinn, the Centre for Finnish tourists drinking in general.


Vyborg - a city in a deep sleep

Vyborg, in Sweden from the 13th ruler Knutsson Century was founded under the name Viipuri long been a part of Finland to Stalin the small neighboring country in 1939 with its divisions invaded and annexed the eastern part of Karelia. Since the end of the Second World War, the city is finally on the Leningrad region. But on the weekend, the Finns get back the sovereignty over their ancient trading city.

on the market place where locals crystal glasses, fur hats and pirated Hollywood films sold in the Finnish dubbing, Finnish is however long become the lingua franca. Even the beggar pray in the language of rich neighbors for alms. The visitors only 30 kilometers away from the neighboring country are not homesick tourists, like the Germans in East Prussia, once again want to see their old home. They were not really interested for the medieval castle or partly preserved old town.


champagne in one hand, vodka in the other hand

Most Finns flee from the Scandinavian restrictive alcohol legislation and the astronomical prices for hard liquor. Vyborg is a mecca for those who do not like on Saturday night to put up with a sticky-sweet lemonade. "In the summer they sit on the roadside, in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other a bottle of vodka," says Marina, cloakroom attendant in Vyborg local history museum. "The Finns Vyborg love it."

And although the Finns do not Vyborg absolutely loves it thrives on them. In every street of the city cries out for fresh paint and new plaster. Many historic buildings that the civil war between the White and Red Fins and later survived the heavy fighting between the Soviet army, the Finns and their German allies, fifty years after the war, only dilapidated ruins. In the narrow streets, in which the Finnish visitors often get lost with its garish jackets, Vyborg still sleeps his long sleep and waits for an end to the steady decline.



Without the Finnish neighbors see it in the city certainly made even sadder. And therefore depends the shop windows along the Lenin prospectus (probably the only street of this proud name in Russia with cobblestones) everywhere sticker with Finnish flags and the words "tuloa Terve! Hello world! ".

"At the invitation presented by the Finns at the border stands as a cultural exchange trip purpose, often," laughs Arsenjan arsenic, while he chases his car on the empty street Saimaa Canal to the north. "This is really a nice form of cultural exchange that is practiced here."

Arsenjan also earned his living thanks to the guests from the rich neighbor. He is a taxi driver between the worlds. For the equivalent of about 30 dollars, he drives his red Lada practically every day, the route from Vyborg to Finland and zuürck. What is the purpose of the visit he stated that when he asked his Finnish permanent visa, he was not told.

"Many Finns go only up to the first gas station behind the Russian border control, and fully recharge once again contact," says he. Forty minutes would take the trip from Lappeenranta to Vyborg, the first major town on the Finnish side, if it were not for the border. But only stop on the Russian side, each car at four barricades. In summer, it then quickly five or more hours waiting.

But knowing not only the Finns the benefits of a visit to appreciate in the neighboring country. More and more Russians are coming to shop in Finland. High-quality clothing and electronic goods are often much cheaper here than in St. Petersburg or Moscow. Moreover, the Russian tourists shopping at the border can refund the 15 percent VAT.

And because in the meantime, the Lappeenranta Restaurants by four-star hotels as well as basic kebab stalls have naturally on Russian menus, could be the integration of Russia into Europe really a great one day be irreversible.

Originally published in Russia cur- .

Anna Griffin Damask Wedding Invitations

A student named Samantha

Moscow (January 1996). "Oh Karsten, I did a big mistake." Ananda Samantha looked out the window of the dorm room. Besides the snowflakes umwirbelten the skyscraper, was not much to see. Since I made in our small two-man rooms 13th Floor was stripped, Samantha had the room to yourself, but happy he was therefore not the same. He had presented Russia very differently.



In Sri Lanka, where Samantha is a man's name, there were many graduates of Soviet universities. They praised the high level of training and the low cost of living. From the icy winter they had not said anything, or Samantha had not been listening. He had been advertised as a medical student at the University of International Friendship, for in his home country places were hard to come by. A dubious intermediary company, he had paid a lot of money so they forwarded his request to Moscow. He finally got the approval. We met in the hall in a queue in front of the Housing Department and spontaneously decided to take care of us together for a room.

That was a good decision. We could train both our English and boring it was rare when we have told our home countries, which had absolutely nothing in common. On the first day after we moved into our common room, he called me concern to the bathroom: "The tap water is broken," he said. "Why?" I asked, finally scored a steaming stream from the faucet into the sink. "The water is very hot," Samantha said helplessly. In Sri Lanka, apparently did not need a man hot tap water.


Shocked by the Russian conditions

Samantha's family was wealthy for the situation in Sri Lanka. His brother dealt in precious stones and traveled abroad. After all, Samantha was in the summer holidays to fly to his home and had therefore to the many Africans and Asians are a big advantage, because the had some seven years long stay in Russia without even seeing her family again.

felt the conditions in Moscow itself, many students from developing countries as shocking: The dilapidated home for the newcomers with the filthy floor, showers and toilets, where it was held Klobeck only holes in the floor, the humiliating treatment by many university staff, the tough, lukewarm meat in the student cafeteria. Of which the trained in the Soviet Union doctors Samantha had also told her anything. But he also wanted to be a doctor and was willing to hold out for seven years. A termination of the study would have also forgiven the family barely. Before

Medizinstuium began the six-year, he first had for a year a so-called preparatory faculty ("Podfak") to visit, where the students were taught from the world of zero in Russian. The older ones made a game of it to teach the newcomers their own lessons. The teachers must be at the beginning of the day politely ask after her health, she says, leaving the unsuspecting "Podfak" learn-students memorize instead of supposed greetings a few particularly nasty mother curses that they used but generally only once in conversation with their teachers.

The water is very hot

Getting used to the harsh living conditions on campus, was in any case not easy. How difficult it is for a man should be, who was on a tropical island grew up, where bananas and mangoes growing on the roadside, I could hardly imagine. Sri Lanka, the paradise island that was hit by an unspeakable civil war had to be a very different world than anything I had ever seen.

One evening, as it seemed to me that Samantha particularly saddened by his textbooks was sitting, I decided to go to the market and something to cheer him. I purchased from a Central Asian traders oragnefarbenen two kilograms of that fruit, which the Russians "Churma" call, the Wörtbuch translated as "persimmon" in German supermarkets, however, sold as "Sharon". "Here," I said to Samantha and asked him a plate with the sliced fruit on the table. "It may well be that grow in your home avocados and papayas in the garden. But something you do not know. "Samantha looked determined at me in amazement. "Yes, yes, we know that. But the fruits are often stuck in the mouth. Therefore, we feed it only our pigs. "

evening Samantha often told by fakirs and psychics, explained how he was meditating in front of a Buddha image, if he had problems. He taught me lentil stew with red pepper offset to cook and to write my name in Sinhalese characters. Soon he met a cute medical student to know who lived a few miles from his hometown. A meeting of the two would be during the holidays was a breeze but an impossibility. No young man in Sri Lanka would dare to openly enter into a relationship with a woman without asking the blessing of the family, complained Samantha.

awaited the first snow of his life he was still awaited. He fell in late September, now he bought thick winter clothing and a hat with earflaps, as they had almost all foreign students. "Karsten, I think I'm getting crazy here in Russia, "Samantha finally said in early November. "It seems as if the days are getting shorter and the nights longer and longer."

registration certificate torn

At the university, the students from Sri Lanka, one of the largest groups. To outsiders, it was under the impression that stuck together Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims in Moscow and the surrounding circumstances, they welded together. Soon, Samantha also understood that the winter was not the greatest evil in Moscow, but the racism. Dark-skinned students dared in the dark only in groups on the road, they always left behind at one of the older students target and route.

fear they not only had prior bald young Russian Nazis and drunken football fans. More important, they feared the police. Of the youths threatened worst beatings or abuse. The militiamen wanted to see the money, otherwise it could happen that they rent out identity checks on the valid registration cards and the students then dragged for lack of papers on the guard. All students with dark skin could tell such stories. After a half years, my Sinhala friends traveled again for a long weekend to St. Petersburg. They came back excited. But more than the Tsar's palaces, canals and the Hermitage, they were thrilled that during the days not even their passports were checked.

When Samantha was in her second year, he experienced a very unpleasant news for him. Because in Sri Lanka practiced more and more doctors who had their Russian higher education diplomas bought with bribes, the government pulled the emergency brake in Colombo: All graduates of Russian universities had when they return to Sri Lanka once again put all the state exam. The Indians had introduced a similar scheme. Samantha said now passable Russian, had to the foreign food habit started to act a little bit of tea, in order to finance his living. After all, we agreed: who would hold out as a foreign student for seven years in Moscow, the additional tests are expected to actually make no more fear.