Visa Issues

Travelling is great, fun and really pleasing for anybody. Even for travel photographers, who see it more like a job. But preparing for a travel could be a very time and money consuming process, especially if you travel abroad. Here in Russia there're two things I hate most of all about travel planning: expensive flights and visas.

While more and more carriers are appearing in Russia, making international flights affordable for the most people, the visa issue remains a pressing problem. It's not only about ambassy's beaurocracy, but also about accessibility. No problem to get visa in Moscow, but if you live 2000 miles away from the capital, will you travel there and back just to get a shengen visa sticker or will you prefer to travel to a non-visa country?

In the last 3 years many (~30) countries abolished visas for Russian tourists, including Israel, South Korea, all South-American countries, countries of South-Eastern Asia and some European countries (Croatia, Montenegro).

The latest news was that EU abolished visas for Albania and Bosnia. But shengen visa is still required for the citizens of Russia. I hope shengen will be abolished for us too, as this is one of the most crazy and problematic visas, which are given mostly for short terms and for single entry. Even American visas are multiple and up to 2 years term.

European Photo Travel: Prague

Here I continue my European photo trip story, which started in Warsaw, Poland



Accomodation
After Lodz (by the way second in size city of Poland) we had a night car trip to Prague. We didn't plan to stay long in Prague and spend all the time in suits ;-) but decided rather to take a bed in cheap hostel. A nice guy in information bureau recommended "Hostel 5" and that seemed OK taking that we were 7 and took 2 private rooms with our personal kitchenette and shower. We were pretty happy with the rooms for the price, but the choice of hostel appeared to be the biggest mistake. EVER.

Prague and its sights
As all the shower procedures after a night in car were done, we went ahead to Prague's famous attractions right away. Even with moody skies the city looked fantastic, especially after boring and even depressive Polish towns. Prague's architecture with fairy-tale medieval bridges and towers dating back to 13th century was an impressive experience.

The old city called "Staré Město" is pretty small but is so packed with lovely shops, small restaurants, ancient buildings, that no other town in Europe can boast of. We went throught the Vaclav Square with its National Museum of Prague building, Charles Bridge, Jan Palach Square with Rudolfinum Gallery, a great representation of neo-renaissance style and of course the Astronomical Clock on Staromestska Square. By the time night came we really toured much of the city and stopped near the Prague Castle, which gave a lovely rooftop panorama of Prague as it sits on top of a hill. It has a really amazing view to Prague red tile roofs, especially at dawn.



Food in prague
By that time we really were hungry and stopped by in a small restaurant on the end of the Old Town. Oh gosh! I've never had anything as tasty as Czech cuisine, I mean it. The portions there are so big, but still pretty cheap. The most common meat in Prague is pork (it's often served with dumplings). This comes with sauerkraut just like we're used in Russia too ;-). We had Pomaiski tomato soup with melted cheese, which all of us ranked 10 out of 10. I've scanned through thousands of websites looking for the recipe, but didn't succed. Do I have to mention Czech beer, which is nothing like you had in your country. I like light beers, but if you visit Prague dark beers are highly recommend to try.
Writing all this makes my mouth water, but I really adore Prague's restaurants. When you order pasta in France you get a petit dish for 30 Euro, while in Prague you pay 3 times less and get a plate, which is too much for 2 people :-)

Czechs vs. Russians
Already on spot we learned that our days in Prague clashed with the 40th anniversary of the "Prague Spring" which was celebrated nation-wide. The symbol of the Prague Spring (Russian tank) was placed on Vaclav Square just in front of the National museum and gathered tonns of tourists. Local press even made many jokes on that Russian tank brings tourists and money to the country.

I really need to say, that despite all the tough times in the past Czechs are friendly to Russians and do not associate troubles they had, with Russia. This really makes them stand out from the Poles and also brings crowds of Russian tourists to Prague. Surprise for me to see many Russians in Prague, I guess almost half of the tourists spoke Russian on the streets, though it's just how I saw it.

Mistake
After walking all day long we came back to the hostel, flopped to beds and slept like a top. We didn't even hear someone coming to our room at about 5am and taking away our bags. When we woke up it was a shock. Two bags were missing, they had all the docs and IDs of 3 people, 2 credit cards, some jewelery and several thousand euro cash. We called the police, kept trying to get at least passports back, but if you're unlucky to get in such a scrape, be ready to complete negligence. We were ignored by "Hostel 5" owner (who didn't even talk to us), by police (the officer even seemed to smile at us) and by the Russian embassy (which took 120 euro for a new temporary ID and said that was all they could do).
The paperwork took 2 extra days in Prague, after all we could easily go anywhere without map. I wish we had some better reason for extended weakend in Prague, unfortunately the positive impression of the town was absolutely damaged. That's how we learned that Prague is in the top 3 of the pickpocket cities of the world.



Next
Actually in this situation we had to go home the shortest way possible. But we decided to not give up and continued our trip, though had to cut it short.
Next post would be from Germany.

European Photo Travel: Poland

I'm gonna start a story about our first long European photo travel, which I had in 2008 with my friends. I also had another trip in 2009, but I'll cover it later, just after I'm done with the first one.

Plan
Orenburg - Moscow - Minsk - Warsaw - Lodz - Prague - Munich - the Alps - Venice - Rosalina Mare - Chioggia - Venice - Vienna - Krakow - Auschwitz - Minsk - Moscow - Orenburg

Start
So, I'm a Russian photographer located in Orenburg, which is way too far from the Europe, actually it's on the border with Kazakhstan in Asia, and the first thing I had to accomplish to get to Europe was to leave the Asia. We (my friend and me) first took a plane to Moscow and then a train to Minsk, Belarus, which already made about 2400 km, almost the 1/3 of the travel distance. But that was just the start. In Minsk we joined our friends and headed to Polish border on orange VW minivan, which served us not only as transportation, but as shelter for night and even more.


Polish border
The process of passing the border was the first unpleasant experience. We were told, we had problems and could not cross the borderline. But in an hour's time we could pass the border and soon arrived in Warsaw.



Warsaw and Lodz
To be honest I didn't have any super impressions of Warsaw. Polish towns didn't come close to my expectations unfortunately. Maybe expectations were too high, but Warsaw looked like a common uninteresting town without any architectural or cultural appeal. Warsaw doesn't strike you with incredible funky architecture or beautiful ancient monuments. As for Lodz, it left a depressive impression with lots of drunken people on the streets and ugly shabby houses. But even having said that, seeing all this with your own eyes and lense was very interesting.

I have to mention that the general impression of Lodz was a bit improved after visiting its central square, which looked much better due to many attractions, clubs, shops, modern art installations and nice lighting.



Friendliness
I've noticed at once that the Poles are not too happy about seeing Russians as their guests. I had an incident with a middle-aged Polish Woman in Warsaw. She probably heard me speaking Russian with my friend. The lady decided it was a good chance to express all her negative attitude to Russia, personifying it with me.

Good about Poland
The biggest and most positive for us was visit to Krakow and Auschwitz (Oswiencim), just in the very end of the travel. But I gonna write about those later in chronological order.

You can buy travel photos on my Travel Stock Photos website.