Do you know about Transit Visas...we do now!

We got on our plane to Prague from Moscow on May 16th. We were in some ways relieved to leave Russian when we did. We really enjoyed being there, but it was a tense place to visit in a lot of ways. We were relieved that we had not had any problems with the police there. The majority of the people in our hostel in Moscow had been stopped by the police at some point, and 2 of the guys had had to pay off the cops. So, Shane and I felt pretty lucky that we had not had any problems. However, our sense of relief was soon to be shot all to heck!

Our travel agent had made every effort to find us the cheapest flights, and in doing so, we have made a lot of unusual transfers in random airports. From Moscow to Prague, there are loads of direct flights, but in trying to find us the best deal, our agent scheduled us to transfer through Minsk, Belarus. When we arrived in Minsk, we were to have a 4 hour layover before our plane left for Prague. When we got off the plane, we were a little surprised to see that we had to go through passport control, since we were just transferring to another flight. But, we had done the same thing in Germany, so we stood in line patiently, without a worry in the world. When it was finally my turn, I went up to the passport control officer, handed her my passport and my ticket to Prague. She started searching through my passport looking for something, and I just thought she was looking for a blank space to stamp it (at that point, my passport was almost full.) She then looks at me and says the word that you never want to hear when you don't have one..."Visa????" Confused, I attempted to explain that I was just transferring to another flight and I was not leaving the airport. Well, English was not a language she spoke, so that was a pointless attempt.

She motioned for Shane and I to step aside and wait until everyone had passed through. We stood waiting, not really sure what to think. Then, this other lady, who spoke no English, motions for us to follow her behind this locked door. So, we follow her through the door and all the lights are off, and is a part of the airport that is obviously closed. At that point, I let my imagination run wild a bit, and started imagining all sorts of horrible things that were going to happen to us. We were in a former Soviet country, and who knows! She ended up leading us to the Visa office, though, instead of some torture chamber.

At the Visa office, one of the ladies started trying to explain that we needed a Transit Visa in order to transfer planes. Evidently, Russia and Belarus have some sort of agreement, and this is the law. It ONLY happens if you fly from Russia to Belarus (of course!). She explained that if we had flown from any other country, it would be no problem. She explained that they consider flights between these 2 countries domestic flights, and that is the reason why you have to get the visa.

So, we argued and lied (sorry Parents and Mamaw & Papaw, we know we shouldn't lie, but we were desperate) and tried everything to avoid buying the visas. You see, being Americans, our visa cost was more expensive than any other nationality. We were expected to pay $180 per person. The ladies in the visa office really put up a good fight for us. They admitted that they thought it was ridiculous for us to have to pay for the visas. Even the passport control officer that was sent to question us, ended up apologizing to Shane. He tried to tell Shane that if he goes to America, he has to pay a lot of money too. Shane responded simply by saying, "Yes, but you actually want to leave the airport and STAY in America. We just want to leave Belarus!!"

My argument at one point was that if the flight is a domestic flight, our Russian Visas (that we had spent a fortune to get) should be valid there too. That argument was totally lost on them, being that their English was limited. So, I tried a different approach, claiming that we had no money and were flying to Prague to meet our friends and family who were going to provide for us there. The passport control officer didn't really buy that story either. However, he did call his boss to tell him we had no money to pay for the visas. So, his boss's solution was to buy us both tickets back to Moscow and send us back to Russia since we couldn't pay. Now, there is more than one problem with that solution...1. We didn't want to miss our flight to Prague, have to buy another one and lose our reservation at the hostel in Prague and 2. We would be arrested upon arrival in Russia since our visas expired that day. So, sadly, we coughed up the money and $360 later, with transit visas securely attached in our passports, we went to our gate to catch our flight to Prague.

We tried not to dwell on the fact that we had just had the most expensive layover in history, and just tried to look ahead and stay positive. It has made for a good story to tell people we meet, so we have gotten over being bitter about it.