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Poland’s consulate in Moscow to start issuing 5-year visas

08:07, 2 декабря 2011

An unexpected development emerged from the “visa traffic jam” at Poland’s consulate in Moscow. Yesterday tour operators received an e-mail from the Head of Consulate Department Mr. Mikhail Grechilo, that read “those who wish to visit Poland as tourists and already have at least two properly used Schengen visas may submit an application for a multiple-entry visa valid for up to five years”.

In an interview to RATA-news Mr. Grechilo confirmed that such a decision was made in order to amend the visa situation before the high winter season and to avoid such problems in the future by gradually reducing the number of visa applications. “We would like to see more and more Russians coming to Poland without any additional troubles. This is a policy of Poland’s MFA, such an instruction came from Warsaw” – said Mr. Grechilo. We are not saying that each and every applicant will be granted a five-year visa. “Each application will be dealt with individually, we can issue one- or two-year visa instead – says the consul – But in case a tour operator asks for a five-year visa for its client we’ll be pleased to process such applications”.

There’s no doubt that the possibility of obtaining a long-term visa will enhance the tourist flow to Poland. But as for now the consulate is struggling to deal with the huge number of applications. But as we were told by some tour operators there is a positive development of the issue, consulate service staff is in touch with the tour operators and provides opportunity to submit tourists’ personal details into the electronic application system.

However the pace of this positive development is raising some concerns. In his official reply to RUTI’s appeal Mr. Grechilo said that as of November 29th over 700 applications had been submitted, it makes “approximately 1/10 of the entire quota” requested by the tour operators during the meeting at the consulate on November 21st. Thus, during the previous week the consulate managed to process only 1/10 of the submitted passports stuck in the “visa traffic jam”. Does it mean that they are going to deal with the issue during 10 weeks, which is 2.5 months? The mass departures for New Year holidays are to start in less than a month’s time and new packages are being sold. “We are trying to speed up the applications processing time, we really want to resolve the issue and we will do it” – assured RATA-news Mikhail Grechilo – Following the MFA’s decision two new members of staff were sent to Moscow from Poland, and they have already joined the working process”.

As per the consulate’s data the number of Russian tourists wishing to visit Poland is growing year-on-year. “As of today we have already past the 2009 level of 67 thousand visas and it’s likely that this year we will issue much more visas than last year” – Mr. Grechilo pointed out.

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