Job Discussion Forums

Sashadroogie · Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 7:52 am Post subject:

Been a few years since I lived in Turkey, but I see the lokanta staff are still up to their old tricks.

However, as difficult as the visa process can be in Turkey, I have a new-found appreciation regarding how things work there. Nothing the Turkish bureaucracy threw at me could compare to the rigours of the Russian process for pointlessness, irrationality, and crucially the fear factor. I never felt once in Turkey that I was ever in danger of being denied a visa or residency etc, whereas whenever dealing with Russian officialdom the possibility of not being able to return to Russia on a new visa/work permit after having endured the excruciating application is never far from my mind. Still it is good preparation for living in a land where you need your passport to just board a train to another city, and need local police registration after disembarking. Heck, you need your passport and papers to do just about anything, including lodging money into your own bank account, and that's the original passport and documentation - no photocopies will do.

Things were simpler back in the day in Istanbul. Maybe not good, as such, but better than I understood at the time.

fishmb · Joined: 08 Jul 2009 Posts: 184 Location: Istanbul

Yeah, I wouldn't want to deal with Russian bureaucracy. Also, sometimes the police just walk up to foreigners and demand money. My sister was there with some schoolmates and this happened to her friends. Their Danish teacher had warned them if it happened to just give them money or they might be arrested, so they had to give over everything they had!

eclectic · Joined: 09 Nov 2006 Posts: 1122

Sashadroogie · Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 12:33 pm Post subject:

Yes, by all accounts it has always been so in Russia. So forgive me if I gush forth about the civilized, though Byzantine, nature of the Turkish immigration process. You'll indulge me I'm sure and understand that it is not nostalgia on my part, but the result of a fair comparison between two different systems: both inefficient, but not equally brutal.

eclectic · Joined: 09 Nov 2006 Posts: 1122

...haha, as long as Talat Pasha isnt in charge.

Without even having been in either country, I would easily believe what Sashadroog said. Russia just has that precarious, sort of brutal feel to it, though Ive felt it not personally. And Turkey, well, even as an Armenian-American whose grandparents had to escape from there on A UN vessel in 1915, I still feel there's a tolerance there that Russia doesn't exude.

Ruffle the cat · Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 32 Location: different counties

always carry a pocket calculator it worked in all counties where I lived including China merchant gives you price you return calculator with your own price and go from there. Once in Shanghai I got a bag for my Chinese friend for 85 rmb the merchants starting prices was 280 rmb. Sooooo it works. I was known to my Chinese friends as a better bargainer than the Chinese.
Sorry know this has nothing to do with immigration, been there done that in 6 countries.