Russians who want German visas have a choice: They can get in line and wait, possibly for several days.
Or they can talk to a guy named Denis.
Denis, a stocky man in his early 30s wearing a black shirt and black jeans, describes himself as the manager of the line outside the German consulate on Leninsky Prospekt.
For 300,000 rubles ($52), he promises to put you at the front of the line. An elderly woman, an employee of Denis, compiles a daily list of up to three hundred names of people waiting to hand in their applications. For a fee, said Denis, a possible three-day wait could be cut to just 10 minutes.
"These people are just mocking us," said Lenina, 71, who recently obtained a German visa to visit her daughters in Munich and didn't want to be identified by her last name. "The bandits put people at the front of the line, in front of people who have waited for days."
As summer approaches, the visa lines at Moscow's Western embassies are swelling with a deluge of vacation-season applicants. But though most consulates claim to have eradicated the giant lines of the early 1990s and to have streamlined the processing procedure, the once infamous "queue mafias" haven't completely died out.
Christoph Retzlass, the chief of the German Embassy's legal and consular section, said the queue mafia artificially inflated the list in order to get people to pay. In reality, he said, the embassy can process up to 600 walk-in applicants per day, and no one should have to wait more than one morning to hand in their application.
Outside the embassy, however, the situation is not so clear-cut.
Lenina, who suffers from arteriosclerosis, had to get up at 5 a.m. in order to register with the list manager at 7 a.m., along with around 150 other applicants. She was assigned the 301st place in the line. The list managers told everyone except for the first 150 on the list to come back at 1 p.m. to re-register, and again at 7 a.m. the next day, and so on.
The list is a scam, said Retzlass. If she had simply stood in line, she would have been seen the same day, he said.
Lenina, who got a visa in two days, said that people who tried to bypass the list were physically intimidated by queue-mafia thugs.
"We are dependent on the Russian authorities to deal with this situation," added Retzlass, whose embassy issues 250,000 visas per year. "There were two or three police actions last year, but the same people were back the next day."
The queue mafia are not the only ones with a vested interest in keeping people waiting outside the consulate for as long as possible. A whole series of cottage industries have sprung up around the line, from candy, newspaper and soft-drink vendors to people hawking bus tours and while-you-wait German lessons. Residents of the apartment building overlooking the consulate have also got in on the action, renting floor space from 50,000 rubles per night in their apartments to people who have traveled to Moscow from the provinces. A trip to the toilet costs 2,000 rubles.
The U.S. Embassy also used to suffer from queue mafia problems, until processing procedures were changed in late 1994, said U.S. consul Andre Goodfriend. Anyone in the line by 10 a.m. will be seen the same day, said Goodfriend, and most applicants will receive visas by the end of the afternoon. The line of walk-in applicants has decreased dramatically after a new policy of issuing multiple-entry visas good for one year as a standard and a rise in group applications through accredited travel agents, he added. Consulates in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok have also relieved pressure on Moscow.
"We are quite proud. ... [Long lines] used to be a big problem a couple of years ago," said Goodfriend, whose department issues 120,000 visas per year and processes up to 600 personal applicants per day.
The British Embassy, once one of the most notoriously slow issuers of visas, has also reduced waits to a few hours with a refurbished visa section and waiting room with a capacity of 100 people, as well as outside shelters for the spill over. The embassy also employs a marshall to keep the line in order and, if necessary, let the elderly and infirm in without waiting, said an embassy spokesman.
"The German Embassy used to have a bad reputation" for being slow, said Retzlass. "Perhaps [the queue mafia] works on the basis of this. ... The actual situation has improved, but maybe the reputation needs also to improve, he added."
Or they can talk to a guy named Denis.
Denis, a stocky man in his early 30s wearing a black shirt and black jeans, describes himself as the manager of the line outside the German consulate on Leninsky Prospekt.
For 300,000 rubles ($52), he promises to put you at the front of the line. An elderly woman, an employee of Denis, compiles a daily list of up to three hundred names of people waiting to hand in their applications. For a fee, said Denis, a possible three-day wait could be cut to just 10 minutes.
"These people are just mocking us," said Lenina, 71, who recently obtained a German visa to visit her daughters in Munich and didn't want to be identified by her last name. "The bandits put people at the front of the line, in front of people who have waited for days."
As summer approaches, the visa lines at Moscow's Western embassies are swelling with a deluge of vacation-season applicants. But though most consulates claim to have eradicated the giant lines of the early 1990s and to have streamlined the processing procedure, the once infamous "queue mafias" haven't completely died out.
Christoph Retzlass, the chief of the German Embassy's legal and consular section, said the queue mafia artificially inflated the list in order to get people to pay. In reality, he said, the embassy can process up to 600 walk-in applicants per day, and no one should have to wait more than one morning to hand in their application.
Outside the embassy, however, the situation is not so clear-cut.
Lenina, who suffers from arteriosclerosis, had to get up at 5 a.m. in order to register with the list manager at 7 a.m., along with around 150 other applicants. She was assigned the 301st place in the line. The list managers told everyone except for the first 150 on the list to come back at 1 p.m. to re-register, and again at 7 a.m. the next day, and so on.
The list is a scam, said Retzlass. If she had simply stood in line, she would have been seen the same day, he said.
Lenina, who got a visa in two days, said that people who tried to bypass the list were physically intimidated by queue-mafia thugs.
"We are dependent on the Russian authorities to deal with this situation," added Retzlass, whose embassy issues 250,000 visas per year. "There were two or three police actions last year, but the same people were back the next day."
The queue mafia are not the only ones with a vested interest in keeping people waiting outside the consulate for as long as possible. A whole series of cottage industries have sprung up around the line, from candy, newspaper and soft-drink vendors to people hawking bus tours and while-you-wait German lessons. Residents of the apartment building overlooking the consulate have also got in on the action, renting floor space from 50,000 rubles per night in their apartments to people who have traveled to Moscow from the provinces. A trip to the toilet costs 2,000 rubles.
The U.S. Embassy also used to suffer from queue mafia problems, until processing procedures were changed in late 1994, said U.S. consul Andre Goodfriend. Anyone in the line by 10 a.m. will be seen the same day, said Goodfriend, and most applicants will receive visas by the end of the afternoon. The line of walk-in applicants has decreased dramatically after a new policy of issuing multiple-entry visas good for one year as a standard and a rise in group applications through accredited travel agents, he added. Consulates in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok have also relieved pressure on Moscow.
"We are quite proud. ... [Long lines] used to be a big problem a couple of years ago," said Goodfriend, whose department issues 120,000 visas per year and processes up to 600 personal applicants per day.
The British Embassy, once one of the most notoriously slow issuers of visas, has also reduced waits to a few hours with a refurbished visa section and waiting room with a capacity of 100 people, as well as outside shelters for the spill over. The embassy also employs a marshall to keep the line in order and, if necessary, let the elderly and infirm in without waiting, said an embassy spokesman.
"The German Embassy used to have a bad reputation" for being slow, said Retzlass. "Perhaps [the queue mafia] works on the basis of this. ... The actual situation has improved, but maybe the reputation needs also to improve, he added."
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