Category — Kyrgyzstan

So, I was supposed to call the consular section today. I did. Just before 11 am as they had told me to. The usual voicemail - press this button and the like. I do and only get a person who says that the embassy is closed. What???? Ouch. My passport. Closed until Tuesday. What????

Alright, so I am pleading my way to the duty officer who is very nice to me. I tell him what I am calling about and he tells me what is going on. Due to the summit (it’s Medvedev again - seems like he is getting in my way all the time, remember here?), the road the embassy is located on is completely closed off and the embassy is closed for Thursday and Friday. The staff didn’t find out until Wednesday, 5pm and has no access to the premises. They called everyone they said, but because they had no phone number couldn’t call me.

And now they are closed for the day, starting at 10:30am. Bonk. What to do? I ask. From what I understood, my passport is in the embassy, the visa in there and so I am ready to go, but can’t. That’s no good. The duty officer calls the consul again and calls back. Turns out that the visa is still not through, so I wouldn’t have been able to go. I can’t believe it. Everything prepared for, did everything I could have done and now this … So there is no use of anyone going in and getting my passport out over the weekend. I don’t like this at all, I am now stuck in Bishkek for the weekend and Monday being Columbus Day I can hope for Tuesday at the earliest.

This also means that I will now almost certainly not be able to reach the Yellow Sea under my own steam. This now kills it as it adds another week pretty much - and that is time that I really don’t have now any more. What a … never mind.

So, off to town I go. I buy lots of good pastries for myself and … it’s Heike and Ingo again. Remember? We met by chance in Istanbul a long time back. Now, we are meeting again here in Bishkek. What a coincidence. Here is the picture to prove it. Oh wait … and if that wasn’t coincidence enough, there is also Bastien, whom I met in Tehran at the Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan embassies.

Great seeing them again before they are leaving for South-East Asia by plane. I will be here for a while still …

So, I somehow confused days and therefore have put what would have been Thursday into the Wednesday post and only just realized that now. Those that subscribed to the newsletter may be getting what happened on Thursday and what I mistakenly posted under Wednesday twice now. My apologies.

Really, all that happened on Wednesday was that I called the consulate and they told me that the visa wasn’t ready and that I should call again on Thursday … which I did (and those who read the post already know the outcome).

Not much going on until I got to the embassy where things went rather smoothly. The usual security checks and then I was at the glass window. “Sir, what are you doing here?” “I am applying for a work visa, H1B.” “Oh, OK - please submit your documents. And the money.”

All done. You wait. And wait some more. I watch the American flag flying in the Kyrgyz wind outside. And listen to the TV behind me which is on repeat on a all-too-short 8 minute cycle with bad music and commentary that you know by heart after the second time.

Then your name is called. A very friendly consul seemed to have everything ready to go - but she said that there was a number missing and that I would not be able to pick things up tomorrow most likely. I should call to confirm. But things will most likely take until Thursday, but no longer. Wow!!! Things do seem to go without a hitch. Keep your fingers crossed they do indeed. It would be nice if at least one visa application on this trip would be going entirely smoothly.

The rest of the day was uneventful … so I will spare you non-interesting details. And again, no pictures. You’re not allowed to take anything with you to the embassy they say. So I didn’t.

So, off to the office where the documents were waiting for me. Little did I know that I would be spending all day there in the end. It was a good thing, so thanks a lot to J. for letting me do this. Lots of space to lay out all the papers that were in the package, checking for things and printing out, among other things, scans of all of my last three passports. Yikes … and filling out more and more forms still.

The internet connection in this office was absolutely smoking … it gave me the opportunity to upload all the pictures in one go practically. At the end of the day I had a couple of days posted, pictures uploaded, but most importantly I also had everything in order for the visa interview tomorrow. I am also getting a $1 bill from Nazar as I have come up dry finding one here in a few places. Nazar and I also met up through the human rights project and yet again, if I stayed over the weekend, I would have received an invite to a wedding.

Little bit of a shock today as I was preparing things … I get an email from the consular section. Argh …. time change!!! I was flabbergasted. I don’t want any changes!!! Turns out that the main road is closed for a summit meeting tomorrow morning and it was rescheduled for the afternoon. Ufff …. But those emails where the subject line is ambiguous … can’t stand them.

Today, news percolated of an earthquake in the South of Kyrgyzstan. There is no need to worry, I am not close. I would have been though had I not come up here to Bishkek. Bit of a scary thought. It would have been quite possible that I would have been staying in or around the village of Nura which has apparently been almost completely leveled today. Keep the people in mind there – my bike is in the area too, but this is not a major concern at the moment. I will see what state it is in when I get there.

Really, this was a day in the office … no pictures. Go to the flickr site for those of the Pamir, I have been told that they are worth checking out.

Uneventful day really. Late start … not. I tend to wake up at the crack of dawn at the moment. And lo and behold there was power in Osh today.

But it was Sunday and therefore it was a slow day. I made my way to the airport by way of a little mashrutka (small bus), found the lone gate and was part of the small crowd that wanted to go to Bishkek today.

The airplanes were all not so new – 4 out of 5 were propeller planes. But the flight was good. I got to see a bit of the landscape through the clouds, longing to be able to ride these roads. But that I will – if ever – have to do some other time.

The airport in Bishkek was empty and deserted. After fending off the usual crowd of taxi drivers (what part of net do you not understand), Ainura picked me up. We go back a while and she had set things up perfectly. The first time we met was in 2004 I believe when I first came to Central Asia to conduct human rights seminars and have been in touch ever since.
Turns out that she found a place for me to stay. A German lecturer who also worked on the same human rights project, Tanja, was nice enough to let me stay at her place and so all is set to go. After yummy lunch at a Uygur place we pottered back stopping over at an internet cafe.

As I said, uneventful day.