Why do we need to stand in huge lines to get a visa?
Jersy Karas, the Czech Consul in Minsk, says his staff is unable to process more than 150 applications per day. This is all they can accept despite the fact that this frenzy occurs every year.
“We always have a lot of people coming in July and during Christmas holidays. What can I say…? We are doing whatever we can,” Mr Karas said.
The consul advised all those wishing to travel to the Czech Republic to visit the embassy’s web site and obtain all the necessary information in order to avoid coming to the consulate several times.
There are approximately 250-300 people near the Polish embassy. Monica Sadkowska, the embassy’s spokeswoman told the European Radio for Belarus that they had staged a special press conference early this year to advise the members of the Belarusian public to start processing their applications at least two weeks before the scheduled trip.
Ms Sadkowska says there are many group applications with knights traveling to a tournament devoted to the Battle of Gruenwald, musicians going to the Basovischa rock festival or sportsmen. Apart from that, tour agencies bring in at least 150 private applications.
“All in all, we process around 450-500 applications daily. This is a lot. But the Polish Consulate staff is going to work extra hours this week, so the line near the embassy will disappear within the next several days,” Monica Sadkowska assured.
Over 1000 people are in front of the Lithuanian embassy, trying to get a visa. The Lithuanians predicted this frenzy, so on May 28 they started an experiment inviting people to sign up for appointment over the phone. It turned out that instead of standard 150 applications, the consulate would receive calls from 250 visa aspirants. As of now, appointments have already been filled in up to August 5.
On July 11 a ERB reporter failed to get through to the Lithuanian consulate because all their lines were always busy.
Tour agencies are quick to offer their services to those who do not wish to waste their nerves and time in lines. The cost will definitely be several times higher. But can they guarantee that visas are issued on time?
Liudmila Shlyk, the managing director of Helena travel agency, says they’ve never had problems with getting visas on time. Meeting requirements of the consulates is the most important thing in this regard.
“We visit the consulates by appointments, according to a certain schedule and the number of applications. We follow exactly what the embassies tell us. In our turn, we give exact instructions to our customers,” Liudmila said.
In her view, “visa frenzy” and lines in front of the embassies occur due to low self-organization and awareness of people.
