Long time no post

So it’s been a while since I’ve written a post, put simply because all I’ve been doing is gradual boring stuff. Nothing of merit to report. It’s so boring writing and reading about work on the car so I’m trying to avoid it.

Today I actually did a heap of stuff which was surprising. I mounted the door to the kitchen unit. Not a hopelessly difficult job, but taxing. The templates and positioning is hard enough, but drilling a 26mm wide hole with nothing but a 10mm drill bit and a chisel was a challenge. Some people might suggest using one of those blade bits, but they would drill a hole through the door face, so I’m not sure how it’s done.

Rather than bore you with a story, at the bottom of the post there is a quick video and some pictures of the progress.

I’ve ordered the ‘Letter of Invitation’ which is required for the type of Russian visa we are sourcing. It’s going to cost $275 each for this letter and looks something like this:

You can see in red the English translations, but the document is most certainly in Russian! Russian visa’s are seriously restrictive – you need to register at each hotel you stay on your itinerary every night. According to all reports every Hotelier’s resents doing this registration and they are never polite or accommodating towards abroad tourists for this reason.

To jump back to the itinerary point, with most Russian Visa’s, you need to give them a day by day itinerary of your trip, prior to the visa been granted. Yes, that is hopeless.

To continue on how restrictive these visa’s are, a ‘tourist’ visa is valid for up to 30 days and are valid for a single entry/exit. We need like 60-90 days.
Private visa’s are for foreigners who have friends or relatives in Russia, is valid for up to three months, but is valid for a single entry/exit.

Consider that we need three entries:
1)  Vladivostok
2) Altay region (coming back in from Mongolia)
3) Between Kazakhstan and Ukraine

We would need to apply each time, whilst on the move – a difficult feat indeed.

We however have one ace up our sleave – We’re registering for a Russian Business visa. We are entering as business people which entitles us to 12 months of travel, with unlimited entries with NO need to provide itinerary or do the lame registration each day. It also means we won’t get ripped for $100/Day for hotels.

Apparently as we have not had a Russian visa before, we are not entitled to the multi-entry. This will result in one of three outcomes:

1) They may issue it anyway because we are nice people ;-)
2) We may only be issued a double entry (which means we miss out on Kazakhstan)
3) We may have to be issued with a single entry visa, only to not use it, which would then entitle us for the multi-entry.

One other epic bugbear is that visas can only be applied for 45 days prior to arrival date. Crazy I know. For this reason, we have specified that our ‘arrival date’ is 1/1/2012 which at a minimum will enable us to not book flights or ship the car without having secured the visa. If we did this any other way, the car would already be en route to Russia with no certainty that we could meet it!

Country	Visa Status	Rough % Complete	Cost $AUD EACH
Russia	One Letter Of Invitation Sent	10%	$476
Mongolia	Visa Application Completed	50%	$100
Kazakhstan	Have not lifted a finger	0%	$109
Ukraine	Have not lifted a finger	0%	$110
EU	Not Required	100%	$0
UK	Not Required	100%	$0

The Mongolian visa was beautifully simple. A single page, who are you, when you coming, are you bringing children… no worries, $100 please. THATS IT.

Ukraine seem to require a ‘valid and prepaid hotel reservation’ to allow processing of the Visa – no biggie, but weird as we will need to provide a date which will be like hitting a target from a million miles away.

I must say, it’s been fantastic to get the ball rolling on some paperwork. As each item gets ticked off, the stress drops substantially.

 

Cut out made with chisel

Repaired bumperett. It’s not perfect, but it is mostly unnoticeable.