Unlimited Plan (*)

Weird place for a USB key

18

Moscow, Russia

Moscow is not such an easy city to visit. Besides a passport, a visa is still essential to pass the border. The procedures for obtaining this document are tinged with the remnants of a former authoritarian government inclined to protect the motherland from capitalist influences.

The process remains burdensome. It is not set up with efficiency in mind, much less speed. Traveling to Russia is planned in advance whether for tourism or business. First step: to justify a repatriation contract that covers the duration of the intended stay. But the rigidity goes even further; your insurance company must be part of the restrictive list recognized by the consulate as valid institutions.

For a tourist visa application, proof of accommodation on site is necessary, or evidence you already paid the hotel in full for your stay. If the latter lasts more than fifteen days, you will have to provide a complete itinerary of your movements—validated by an accredited tourism agent—in addition to all the other paperwork. In the case of a business visa, it is no better. A formal invitation from the company or organization requesting your presence is mandatory. That is, an application initiated by the company directly to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Ministry then verifies the claim and submits its approval to the traveler's country of origin consulate.

Once you have completed all these essential steps and obtained the documents—in Cyrillic of course—you will still need to fill out an obscure form. Without resembling a true inquisition, it nevertheless contains a few uncommon questions. Such as why you may have changed your first names and what they were before, the address of your employer with your exact position there, even for a tourist visa...

Then all that remains is to proceed with the visa application itself. A tedious procedure since consulates impose a quota on the number of files processed daily and do not accept requests every day of the week. The issuance of the visa is also arbitrary, based not on the order of petitions' arrival, but on departure dates.

In short, the Russian Federation is not waiting with open arms for its visitors. An ironclad motivation is necessary. Naturally, all this rigidity has given rise to a parallel market where one can pay a few dozen dollars on the Internet to find an invitation, or use an intermediary to submit an application at the consulate. The intermediary, most of the time, will manage to obtain a visa in twenty-four to forty-eight hours, even if it's one of the days when the consulate does not take official requests. The Russian administration often operates at multiple speeds when a bit of money is involved.

Despite this, the team dispatched by Major Kyle Kinkaid lands on Russian soil and exits the Ramenskoye airfield without any trouble. Is it their diplomatic passports? Is it their numerous letters of reference? Or is it just that to be able to land on these airstrips, one must already have shown a clean slate to higher authorities? In any case, no one thinks to demand visas from the three travelers.

About twenty-five miles southwest of Moscow, along the eponym river's meanders, the Ramenskoye airfield is the cradle of military aviation and the Soviet space program. It holds the record for the longest runway in Europe but remains an airfield, not an airport. The only civilians who land here are those who have paid a hefty sum for a few days' package to fly in the legendary MIG fighter jets. A thrilling activity that has emerged since Russia opened up to the rest of the West. This business stands, however, anecdotal. The city of Zhukovsky—named after the founding father of Russian aviation—which borders the runways, represents a major center for aeronautical, aerodynamic, and aerospace engineering research. In fact, the intellectual potential of the town is such that many foreign investors, besides the Russian government, of course, inject a significant amount of currency.