Life In 19x19

Visa regulations differ greatly from country to country, from time to time and per visa type.

RobertJasiek wrote:Visa regulations differ greatly from country to country, from time to time and per visa type.

Sure they do. That's why I used division by ten. I might have used 50 (~2 hours) as well. The point is that I believe you are either (greatly) exaggerating the time required, or you need way more time to do this than (practically) everyone else.

I don't disagree with the original point, though. I agree that on average it is more time consuming to prepare to travel to Russia than to Germany. I just disagree on how much so.

I might have done it naively, like probably many. Then they would have found 1 or 2 missing papers, I would have needed to come 1 or 2 times more but overall saved some days. The problem with this approach: If they are strict, they can use any missing paper as pretence not to issue me a visa at all. I wanted to minimise risks to maximise the likelihood of getting the visa. So I abided by all their rulings strictly and prepared meticulously so that I could have shown them all those documents they might want to see.

For any other travel purpose, I would simply not travel to Russia, but EGCs are a joy of my life and do not want to miss any. Therefore I am ultra-defensive in my visa preparations.

I am not exaggerating the days. Maybe by 1 day margin of error, but hardly more.

Last time I had to ask for a Russian visa, it must have taken me ~20 hours in total, accounting for the mails and places I had to go to find the requested documents (hand-signed travel insurance certificate and, iirc, original criminal record were major offenders with a two-week delay).

The private company that received the visa applications had a full agenda and the delay to get an appointment was three weeks. No online applications. This had to be done about three weeks before the actual flight or else the consulate didn't have time to do its job. In the end I got an appointment too late and didn't get the visa; my fault, I didn't realise the waiting period was three weeks.

I'm not blaming Russia (EU countries probably have similar requirements) and this wasn't my worst visa experience (Vietnam and esp. Myanmar comes to mind). I just wanted to chime in my personal experience relative to the 15 days claim.

In 2002 and 2003, getting Russian visa was very much easier: 10 minutes plus 80 to 130€. Since 2004, matters became increasingly tougher for Germans.

Russia and Germany have updated their application documents with some relevant changes of contents and voting has started:
http://www.eurogofed.org/index.html?id=92

The EGC 2017 will be in Oberhof, Germany! "27 of 37 members voted and with the proportional voting power the final result is 47 votes for Oberhof and 9 for Sochi."

http://www.eurogofed.org/index.html?id=95

Votes:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 1d5f#gid=0

Note that the EGF Committee then had to decide with a 2/3 majority.

Let's hope attendance is high and everyone has a fun and safe time.

I am happy (in a purely egoist manner) since it means that I will be able to participate. My second congress since Sibiu, Romania.

There seems to be a lot of natural beauty around and I am particularly interested by this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rennsteig

Yes, nature, forests, lower mountains, not too far by train some mediaeval towns, castles etc.

The congress webpage is assigned to the German congress: http://www.egc2017.eu/

Martin Stiassny, EGF president, explains his view on the previous months: http://www.eurogofed.org/egc/2017/perso ... GC2017.pdf
It reads "sponsors, sponsors, sponsors" and neglects tournament organisation and responsibility for participants in view of the human rights / political situation in Turkey. If the quality of EGCs is as important for Asians as he wants, he should not measure quality by amount of money and noise / food of an opening ceremony but mainly by the quality of overall congress and tournament organisation, which is not / hardly measured by money.

Anyway, it is nice that finally organisation of the congress in Germany can start meaningfully.