Russia: The Russian – Israel Visa Experience!

Tanks blown up still sitting everywhere on the sides of the roads!

Hello,

We are back together again and life is resettling down to the normal pace. I have lots to catch up on and tons of stuff to unpack. But I thought that I would take a moment and post a article today.

I want to thank all who commented to the blog over my absence and to thank my readership. It has grown by a third in the time we were gone. (Maybe I need to leave more often!) 🙂

So: To start the adventure, Svet and I made a Russian visa run to Israel. We called the Embassy and Consulate of Russia in Israel, no less than 30 times to verify everything. We even made an appointment (mandatory) to get the visa. We made sure of everything that was necessary to get a Russian visa for me in Israel! Or so we thought….

We flew into Israel and stepped off the jet into a blast furnace. It was hot compared to Moscow. We had a hotel reserved for a few days in Tel-Aviv. This was for the time that we should have gotten a visa. We spent 4 days not getting a visa: The reason was very simple. They wanted a huge bribe. Not just a bribe, not just a token of appreciation or gift to help life along. They wanted a bribe to be able to buy their Girlfriends new Diamonds! They wanted a bribe to buy all their kids a new car!

There also was not even: a long wait and legal way to get the Russian visa. It was bribe or nothing……

Guess what? We – to their astonishment said: “You get, nothing!”

So we had our vacation anyway in Israel. I knew that I could go to Russian Ukraine Consulate and get my visa and have always in the past gone to Ukraine. Looks like I keep going to Ukraine….

Tomorrow we will post about the Israel vacation and I will say it was a blast. We made new friends who wish us back at anytime. We have never had perfectly strange people treat us like family before. They made a bad visa trip transform into a fantastic travel trip.

I will be talking about them in tomorrows article.

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.