Belgium 'abolished'

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by Malkav

what about other red freindly countries ;ike north korea, china and cuba?

North Corea was always closed even to its "close friends" .
China and its friend Albania disjoined the Soviet block in the 1960's. Until 1990 Albania didn't allow even "socialist" tourists. As to Cuba, I don't exactly what ttravel restriction really were. However, the large cost of travel was prohibitive by itself.

Originally Posted by Malkav

oh and what about switzerland (bloody dog eaters....!)?

Are you kidding? Switzerland was considered to have been the same "rotten" West as NATO/EEC members...

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by Asick

. Now it's not that easy, currently it is the worst period for exUSSR people travelling to West from time to time, because East Europe has not joined Schengen area still (by the way, when will these countries join it?),

1st Jan 2008 for land traffic, 1st Apr 2008 (or something around) for air traffic. Not sure about the sea traffic.

Originally Posted by Asick

If I need to go to Istanbul by a train, I have to get both Romanian and Bulgarian transit visas, which is crazy and not that easy since Turks used to put their visa at their border... and so on.

Well, are so long trains journeys cheap enough to prefer them to taking the plane???

Originally Posted by Asick

Most of Russians are set behind iron curtain from the West again, because it's close to impossible to go 2000-3000 km to a nearest embassy just to fill up an application form and then make this way again just to get visa in their own hands.

Must it be done personally? Can't travel agencies do those "paper transfers"?
In Poland travel agencies do that kind of job at least for Russian and Belarusan visas (and used to do the same for Western European or Israeli visas as long as they were required).

Originally Posted by Asick

Honestly, I didn't know that socialistic countries except of USSR had a sort of their own free travel area, so it was easy to cross from Poland to GDR, for example.

Well, it wasn't as easy as in 1990's nothing to say about EU, even non-Schengen. First of all, there were restrictive limits on currency exchanges (necessary in non-market economies). In 1972 there was even an experiment of full free trafic and full currency convertibility between Poland and GDR. Free traffic remained but there was a lack of balance about currencies - eastern Germans reamined with millions of Polish zlotys and with empty shops .

Originally Posted by Asick

Did they put those restrictions back in 80s right after Wojciech Jaruzelski proclamed state of war?

No, it was due to Lech Wałęsa rather than Wojciech Jaruzelski . Other socialist countries closed their borders in summer of 1980, right after strikes which were begging of the Solidarity. It was a prevention against the "freedom disease", effective for next 9 years . However, western countries were still open to Poles. There was even (at least since early 1970's) a visa free traffic for Poles to Finland, Sweden and Austria. Nevertheless those countries reintroduced visas in 1981 because of growing wave of Polish economical refugees. OTOH, Jaruzelski restricted foreign travels independently of other contries's policies, just to stop emmigration. However, when the passport policy loosened later in the 1980's, about 1 million Poles emmigrated anyway.

Originally Posted by Asick

On the contrary, USSR was generally closed from any country around, I mean you had to had some significant reasons to visit another country (even 'socialistic' one), which could be some things from military service to diplomatic work. Private visits were quite difficult, which was the essence of that iron curtain.

I realised that already in the late 1970's when I was a child. I spent summer holidays with my grandma or parents in Gdańsk or Gdańsk area. When I watched country signs on cars, I noticed that there were thousands of tourists from GDR, Czechoslovakia or Hungary and many from West Germany or Scandinavia but almost none from the USSR! And Kaliningradskaya oblast's is the "closest abroad" from Gdańsk! As to the borders between the socialist countries, they used to be named "borders of friendship". It was a common joke that "the border of friendship" is "the place where friendship ends" .
It was visible especially if to consider that before 1988 there were only 2 road and 3 railway border crossings between Poland and USSR available for public use (the border length was over 1200 km).

Originally Posted by Asick

On the contrary, some exUSSR republics use the only passport valid both for home and abroad, carrying just a 'foreign usage allowed' mark.

Well, something like this was also necessary here in the 1970's to cross the border with "dowód osobisty"...

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by Effendi

It's the same for us "westerners" if we want to travel around CIS countries, we need a different VISA for every country, making the journey very expensive and complicated.
Of course there are not so many crazy people like me which like to go on holiday in CIS countries so the problem is less important than the opposite!

But it's not so bad after all. We don't need Ukrainian visas. I also heard that a Belarusan visa it not required when travelling to/from Russia. Not sure about Moldova (Poles don't need it). What else remains - not-so-quite Caucasus region and Central Asia?

[Asick]

Originally Posted by Przemolog

1st Jan 2008 for land traffic, 1st Apr 2008 (or something around) for air traffic. Not sure about the sea traffic.

From this point of view (transits) the land traffic is more important, since you can stay in the 'behind the border' zone at international airports making a connection there, right? So, it's just a year remaining... not bad.

Originally Posted by Przemolog

Well, are so long trains journeys cheap enough to prefer them to taking the plane???

Yes if you travel from Russia or Ukraine or any exUSSR. Trains and buses are much cheaper in this part of the world. Also, some people (like me) just like to travel by trains and buses because you can visit many interesting places on your way too. And, which is for sure, there's always some people who are sick of aerophobia.

Originally Posted by Przemolog

Must it be done personally? Can't travel agencies do those "paper transfers"?
In Poland travel agencies do that kind of job at least for Russian and Belarusan visas (and used to do the same for Western European or Israeli visas as long as they were required).

No, it usually should not be done personally when you apply for a EU visa. Luckily, EU countries do not require a personal interview for a visa applicant (but the States and UK do it, so you can get their visa only in person). However, travel agencies take too much here for such the services. For example, my aunt was applying for an Austrian visa while we had no Austrian consulate in St.Petersburg (now we still don't have it but Austrian visas are issued by the Finnish consulate here since 2005). The cheapest service for sending her documents to Moscow and back that she found was about 150 Euros (while the visa costed about 35 Euros itself). You can imagine how much a person should pay for sending documents from Vladivostok to Moscow via a tourist firm, for example... I don't say it's the problem that can't be solved, eventually, but look, it would have even been possible to go abroad from the USSR, if you had been ready to get this as the purpose of all your life and to bother much. I mean there should be some more adequate instruments in 21th century, such as Internet visas, simplified procedures for those who has other EU visas normally used etc and now it's not the time for building new walls in Europe, eventually. Talking about Russian and Belarussian visas... well, it's just the reflection of the rules that EU sets, nothing more.

Originally Posted by Przemolog

In 1972 there was even an experiment of full free trafic and full currency convertibility between Poland and GDR. Free traffic remained but there was a lack of balance about currencies - eastern Germans reamined with millions of Polish zlotys and with empty shops .

Oh, I can imagine this. GDR was known to be the most rich 'soclalist' country in the whole East Europe, USSR was spending MUCH money to support this rich state of them to keep the contradiction between two German economics not that huge. So, it's quite reasonable why it had been ruined being gathered with another budget.

Originally Posted by Przemolog

However, when the passport policy loosened later in the 1980's, about 1 million Poles emmigrated anyway.

Oh, this is really interesting info that I have not heard here before. Surely, it could not be published in USSR in 80s, and now it's just the socialist Europe history detail which is not generally interesting for Russian media.

Originally Posted by Przemolog

It was visible especially if to consider that before 1988 there were only 2 road and 3 railway border crossings between Poland and USSR available for public use (the border length was over 1200 km).

Which ones? One is surely Brest, and which was another road crossing? Anyway, it's perfectly clear why USSR inhabitants were not allowed to easily visit 'socialist' countries. From the Soviet point of view, people in these countries lived much better than Soviet people, and they had much more 'rotten' things in their lifestyles that made them closer to the 'rotten' West. It was 'half West', so it would have ruined the Soviet lifestyle itself if it had been too close. Also, if they allowed Soviet people to easily travel to Poland or to GDR, then millions and millions from here would have bought all the goods they find abroad, making the situation much worse that it was in 1972 with GDR-Poland. Remember, in 70s and especially in 80s Soviet people had much money that they could not spend (deficit). Money exchange limitation? Well, it's a problem, but there's always used to be the black market. It's known you could exchange soviet rubles to crones or zlotys and back in hotels etc., even though it was illegal and the rates were much worse than in official banks. From the other hand, it was not very difficult to visit USSR for people from the West in 70s and 80s, here were many Finnish 'vodka tourists' in that time, for example, or even Finnish workers building some hotels and other things. Also, here were West German, French, Italian or even American tourists... Not millions of them, but quite enough to create special layer of services for them (hotels, shops selling western goods for dollars etc.).

[Asick]

Originally Posted by Przemolog

But it's not so bad after all. We don't need Ukrainian visas. I also heard that a Belarusan visa it not required when travelling to/from Russia. Not sure about Moldova (Poles don't need it). What else remains - not-so-quite Caucasus region and Central Asia?

I guess people from EU need visas to enter any country located in the South Caucasus (may be except of Georgia) or in Central Asia, but this might be easier to get than a Russian visa, for example. I've heard some of these countries allowed Internet visas (you submit a form via the Internet and then you would take real visa on arrival if it's approved) or visas at the border. Belarussian visa... well, I'm afraid it's needed, and the border between Belarus and Russia that actually does not exist might put a foreigner into trouble. Anyway, I can find this info for sure, if you need.

[Asick]

Originally Posted by Effendi

It's the same for us "westerners" if we want to travel around CIS countries, we need a different VISA for every country, making the journey very expensive and complicated.

Look, here's a difference. Europe is integrating while CIS is disintegrating, so CIS is called here 'a union for the correct divorce'. Also, not all the combinations of CIS countries allow visa free traffic. For example, Russians need visas to enter Georgia or Turkmenistan as well as people of these countries need visas to enter Russia. So, it's not like EU, far from that. I guess one day 'westeners' will not need visas for most of the western exUSSR (including Russia and Caucasus) while visas still will be needed for Central Asia.

Originally Posted by Effendi

BTW, I fear won't come to St.Petersburg this time as well... at the travel agency they told me to book after Christmas, but now that damned Lufthansa has cancelled that great offer for flying to Russia

Oh, that's so sad. Don't you have any other options? I hope there's still something that you could use. Have you ever considered trains? AFAIK there's one going from Venice to Moscow, may be it's not that expensive.

[Asick]

Well, talking about visas I've decided to get some info on exUSSR visa regulations. Here are the links.

Belarus - http://www.mfa.gov.by/eng/index.php?d=consul&id=3
Ukraine - http://www.mfa.gov.ua/mfa/en/509.htm
Moldova - http://www.mfa.md/consular-information/
Armenia - http://www.armeniaforeignministry.am...isawaiver.html
Azerbaijan - http://www.mfa.gov.az/eng/consular/visa.shtml (no countries list)
Georgia - http://www.mfa.gov.ge/index.php?sec_id=148&lang_id=ENG
Kazakhstan - http://www.mfa.kz/eng/index.php?cons=1&selected=8
Uzbekistan - http://www.mfa.uz/modules.php?op=mod...tid=157&page=1
Tajikistan - http://www.mid.tj/article_details.php?id=111 (in Russian)
Kyrgyzstan - the site of their Ministry of Foreign Affairs is currently down
Turkmenistan - seems there's no site of their Ministry of Foreign Affairs at all

Look, Georgia seems to be visa free for EU and the States. Moldova does not require an invitation for EU people to get their visa and it's visa free for Poland, Romania and Lithuania. Armenia allows Internet visa. Azerbaijan allows getting visas at the Baku international airport. EU citizens are probably able to get Tajikistan visas at Dushanbe airport, but I'm not sure. No simplifications with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and nothing is clear with Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan.

[Effendi]

Well, next summer I'm planning to visit Armenia and Georgia, it would be great if I just need visa for Armenia and I can get it through internet!

Anyway, train from Venice to Moscow should be VERY expensive and VERY long, it's surely much better to fly to Vilnius/Riga and take a train there...

[powerlifter]

Originally Posted by Asick

Look, Georgia seems to be visa free for EU and the States. Moldova does not require an invitation for EU people to get their visa and it's visa free for Poland, Romania and Lithuania. Armenia allows Internet visa. Azerbaijan allows getting visas at the Baku international airport. EU citizens are probably able to get Tajikistan visas at Dushanbe airport, but I'm not sure. No simplifications with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and nothing is clear with Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan.

Yes you can get a visa at the Dushanabe airport for I think $65.00.

If one wants to leave Turkmenistan they have to get permission from Turkmanbassay. He is the only one who will give permission to leave. It is one of the most difficult countries I have ever been in. You have to regestier with the Foreign Affairs Minstry. Of course this is with most former Soviet Block Countries.

Kyrgyzstan is quite simple to get a visa. just apply at the Embassay
and have it in three days. I have seen ppl get the visa at the airport. Cost is unknown.

Kazakhstan is also quite simple to get visa. I don't think you can get one at the airport.

Hope this helps.











d

[Asick]

Originally Posted by Effendi

Well, next summer I'm planning to visit Armenia and Georgia, it would be great if I just need visa for Armenia and I can get it through internet!

There are just two bad things with getting an Armenian visa this way: it costs 60 USD (much but still acceptable) and it's allowed only if you enter at Zvartnots airport (which is in fact Yerevan international airport), so you cannot go to Georgia and then to Armenia by train or by bus, while the opposite route is possible (arriving at Zvartnots and go to Georgia by anything you want). This might be really interesting trip, although there's quite hot and sunny summer, like in Italy.

Originally Posted by Effendi

Anyway, train from Venice to Moscow should be VERY expensive and VERY long, it's surely much better to fly to Vilnius/Riga and take a train there...

May be you are right... Have you tried to calculate the cost for such the route?