When I first told you about my trip idea I told you that I needed to go from Poland to Russia, I had a few options to get there I just needed to make up my mind.
I could go to Vilnius, Lithuania, where I don’t need a visa; I could go to Riga, Latvia, where I don’t need a visa either; I could even go to Kiev, Ukraine and I would not need a visa. But I had a feeling it would be easy to go visit those places some other time (Eastern Europe is definitely on my list).
So, knowing me, I chose the complicated option, I was going to go through Minsk, Belarus.
To get a visa to Belarus is not easy and even if you get it you can still have problems at the border (Challenge #2), so I knew my odds. I checked and there is a train that goes from Warsaw to Moscow and just crosses Minsk, if I was going to do that I needed to apply for a Transit Visa.
I went into the Belarusian Embassy website in UK and I started reading how this Transit Visa worked (not all Transit visas are the same, it differs from country to country). When I started looking into it, it said that a transit visa is valid for 48hs. So I thought to myself, what if I get there midday, spend a night there and just leave at midday the next day? If I had to get it one way or the other I was going to take advantage of it.
That was one of the reasons, if I had to pay for the visa anyways I might as well go visit the city, how often do you go to Belarus? Another reason, and yes I know I know it’s silly, is that I like going places that they have cool, funny names (at least for me) like Kathmandu (been there) or Timbuktu, I don’t know I just like saying them. Last reason, and I know I’m a geek for it, but I’m a big sitcom addict, and if you ever watched the show “Friends”, you know that David, the scientist, moved to Minsk to do some research back in the late 90’s (yes, yes I know it’s not real), so I couldn’t miss the opportunity to go to the places that he talks about (even though I doubt that he’d ever been) that he portrays as quite rough with an eternal winter and no connection with the outside world.
So yes, I made up my mind and I was going to Minsk. The visa requirements were quite simple, I needed to fill out a 2 page visa application, I needed to show my ticket to get in and out of Belarus and I needed to show my accommodation booking. That plus a passport picture and then you pay at the Embassy only with debit card.
The first step was to find a hostel, I didn’t have a big selection to choose from but I chose one with OK reviews, nothing fancy just cheap, that’s all I was looking for. Finding a ticket from Minsk to Moscow was super easy, just checked the Belarusian railway website (the official one) and you can get some cheap tickets. The issue was to get form Warsaw to Minsk, I checked the trains and the schedule didn’t suit what I needed. Basically I needed to get in Belarus on the 12/8 and I book my train out on the 13/8 making sure that I get to Russia before midnight, so that I don’t overstay the 48hrs of my visa. They are really strict and no one speaks English so I didn’t want to get in trouble. I, eventually, found a coach that would arrive to the border after midnight. It wasn’t expensive either so it was my best option.
Once I had all that, I printed everything, filled out the visa form, took the most horrible picture for the visa application, I went to the embassy in London.
I arrived at the embassy, didn’t have to wait long, I presented all my paperwork and the guy asks me “Everything looks ok but where is your permit to live in the UK?”I explained to him that I have dual citizenship, that I had a Polish passport and the man said “Ok just bring all this and the passport next time”.
So I left empty handed. On Wednesday they are closed so I had to go again on Thursday. This time I had my Polish passport. I presented everything and the woman asked me “Where is your medical insurance?” I told her that the website says that for a transit visa you don’t need it and that when I came last time they told me everything was fine that I only needed to bring my Polish passport. She kept saying that if I’m staying for one night I needed it (I was going to get one for my trip anyways, but I hadn’t bought it yet). Then the man came and started shouting at me saying that they had other people waiting and had no time for me. I kept saying that that’s what the website said. He kept screaming “Check the website” and I told him that was what the website said. I had to leave pissed off with no visa, only because of their mistake, the website is ambiguous and when they checked my paperwork last time they didn’t realise about it which would meant that they would have given it to me with no medical insurance or declined it because they didn’t tell me. If they told me about it the first time I would have brought it, no problem. I run around looking for an internet place but I couldn’t find any, even though they have loads of embassies around.
So that night I bought the medical insurance and on Friday I went to the Belarusian embassy AGAIN, 3rd time is the charm they say. I presented everything and YAYYYYY!!! I got it, it only cost me £15, so not too bad.
Now let’s flash forward to me getting on the coach in Poland. Considering it was almost midnight there were a lot of cars on the road.
The closer we were getting to the border, everything appeared in Russian.
We did a toilet break close to the border, the coach had a toilet but I don’t think it was working. I was getting a bit anxious, back on the bus and off we went to Terespol, the Polish city at the border.
People told me a lot of things about the border crossing, they said that the Belarusian side is hard, that they would ask for money even though I have the visa, they told me to be careful because I had to get out of Poland with my Polish passport (I don’t speak any Polish) and get in Belarus with my Argentinian and no one speaks English. I was scared what if they ask me questions or if they want to know why I have two passports, what if they don’t let me in Belarus. What was I going to do sitting there alone at the border without anyone to help me? All these things were in my mind when I was on my way there all the things that people told me made me very nervous and paranoid.
So we get to the border. A Polish officer got on the bus with a machine (it looked like a credit card one and a little screen) and a stamp. He scanned my passport with the machine, my passport details and my beautiful picture appeared on screen and BOOM! All done. I was out of Poland, out of the EU. After 30 minutes of him checking everybody’s passport the coach was ready to cross to Belarus.
We get to the other side, the bus driver gives me an immigration card to fill out. A Belarusian officer gets on the bus and checks everybody’s passport. He gets to me, looks at me, looks at my passport, tells me (sign language of course) to remove my glasses and then checks my passport and looks at me THREE TIMES!! I don’t look that different, the picture is from October, and the only difference is that I’m “blonde” now.
He then takes all the passports for further control and then we had to wait. It seems that sometimes they check luggage, I really don’t know how it works. It seemed that they were going to check our luggage and no one wanted that (remember, no one spoke English but this is what I got from what was going on) so some ladies started collecting money so as to pay the officers and skip this step.
They first came back and gave us our passports back. Everything was fine with mine (YAYYYY) but they called 2 guys aside, super scary, exactly what I didn’t want to go through. They kept them and asked them question for like an hour.
At the end we didn’t give them any money, to be honest everybody was really nice and they did check all the luggage and oh boy, people had a lot of things, someone even had a TV.
They started checking, luckily I was the 3rd person, the officer asked me if I had anything to declare, anything illegal (who would admit to carrying anything illegal?), I told her I didn’t, she didn’t want me to open my bag and let me go. I was now officially in Belarus (Country #31).
It took 2 hours to cross, a lot of people and a lot of luggage and then we continue our trip in Belarus.
It took us 6hrs to get to Minsk because they kept stopping for toilet breaks all the time!!
But it wasn’t bad it seemed like a normal border crossing, but I might have been lucky. Who knows? I’m just happy I’m finally in Belarus ☺.