RobertJasiek wrote:
15 days of work (say 7 to 10 hours per day, then rest 5 hours) are easily accumulated for:
- 2 days for finding out whether the passport number contains a 0 or O (the font absolutely gives no hint whatsoever, so I had to visit a local German office for asking and learning that in German passports O does not exist) and reminding each involved person about the correct spelling several times and getting corrections of documents with corrected spelling,
- 2 days for confirmation of health insurance,
- 4+ days for reading embassy documents and finding out which things I would need to show,
- 3 days for filling out documents and fighting with buggy consular wegpages,
- ca. 3 days for visting embassy-related offices (they were kind to me but I have heard of others who actually needed to show all the detailed documents and spend more days at the office; in my case, it was almost sufficient to demonstrate a heap of papers with which I possibly could have proven the details),
- 3 days for digging out documents and information (such as proof of income, what is like a tax declaration including all individual receipts if you are a freelancer), photocopying and sorting everything.
Plus waiting ca. 7 weeks for several documents to arrive and free embassy-related dates becoming available. Not counting the time for congress registration, travel information, hotel registration and purchase of travel tickets.
Lots and lots of Finns who live near the Russian border regularly visit Russia just to buy cheap petroleum. I doubt they would repeatedly renew their Visa if it took even tenth of that time (1,5 days).