А с бумажкой – ты букашка с бумажкой.(translation below)

 Last year after countless hours of travelling on buses, waiting, being sent away to return with another piece of paper, or told to come back on another day, I got my three year temporary residency permit. Yay! No more paperwork!

Beep! Wrong!

First of all, it’s only temporary and can’t be renewed, so I still need to apply for the less temporary residency permit. This is somewhat like running the gauntlet again, and I’m sure I’ll blog about that soon enough. But, in the meantime, to keep me busy, every year I still have to declare my intention to stay here and show that I can support myself financially. And even though I didn’t actually receive my permit until July last year (due to all the other document issues we were having with the children), it was approved back in March, and so the time to report has already arrived. So quickly!

After wading through the immigration website and finally finding the form we needed, we thought we were pretty smart because we were well prepared. Having it printed and filled out in advance before we went to tackle the immigration office would mean one less time of being sent away. We also thought we were smart, turning up mid morning to avoid the inevitable rush and ridiculous cue that forms even an hour before opening (often by mid morning it’s a lot quieter). However, when we arrived there were at least 40 people still waiting and with only two hours to go until the end of the session, we quickly despaired of being seen that day.

Um, where IS the queue?

Um, where IS the queue?

 

I have talked about the process of queuing in Russia before. It is a system that takes a bit of getting used to, a reasonable amount of Russian, and requires a better memory for faces than I have! Basically, when you see a group of people like this, you need to ask, “Who’s last?” Someone will volunteer, and then you need to say, “Ok, I’m behind you”. Of course, this is probably not literally behind them, because, as you can see, in Russia, a queue does not necessarily mean a line. Simple enough?
Well, not really, you also probably need to know who are the next couple of people in front of them – because people do sometimes give up and leave. Or they go to a cafe for a cup of tea, planning to waltz back up just before they are due to be seen. So, actually, a room full of forty people could be a queue of eighty as the other forty sit outside having a smoke, listening to music in their car or at the closest eatery while someone else suffers in their place.

You also should know who the next couple people after you, for the same reason. Once the next person joins the queue, you may be tempted to relax because you don’t need to volunteer when asked who is last. However, the people after you may also tire of waiting and ‘disappear’ – either temporarily or permanently. You will need to know which (unfortunately they won’t usually tell you, but will tell the person behind them, which only helps if you know who they are), so when someone asks, “Who’s last?” (and when no-one else volunteers), you will be able to say, “Well, I am, but there are also x number of people after me who are temporarily dispatched”. Somewhere.

Can you see why I struggle?

Of course, there is a system that is a little more ordered. This is when the person at the front of the queue maintains THE LIST. Each new person that arrives has to find the holder of the list to add their name. The holder of the list (who acquires quite a bit of power in being so) needs to maintain the list also if people leave. Make sure you don’t cross off someone who was just having a smoke, or you may be in big trouble… The list moves down the queue as people are seen, so you can relax that you have your place in the queue, and you don’t need to remember the people on either side of you. Unless the list gets lost.

This is what had happened when we arrived. At one point I thought fisti-cuffs would break out!

Did I mention that they actually have an electronic queuing system at this office? They installed it over a year ago. But they don’t use it. I mean, they already have a perfectly functional system, don’t they…?

So, the person who had the list, lost it! No wonder everyone was upset. How do you know when you’re turn is now?

 

We decided that before we tried to figure out where we would be in the queue that we would at least just poke our head into the office where we lodged the childrens’ paperwork. The lady we had got to know quite well last year was no longer there, having received a promotion, but another lady we had got to know a little in our many trips there was in her place. We greeted her, had a bit of chit chat and asked her where we needed to go to process our documents. She told us we would need to go back out to the main window. Bummer! Just as we thought :/

We started to think the whole exercise was futile and planned to go home to come back again when there was hopefully less chaos. But before we went, N thought he would just double check we had all the documents we needed by asking this lady again.

 

Now, to digress a little… Over my time in Russia I have come to formulate a few theories of my own about Russia and her culture. As I see it, in Russia, relationship is EVERYTHING. It’s even more important than money. There is a long, long history of trust, mistrust and distrust in Russia. And the idea of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer is somehow in the fabric of Russian culture.

We have gradually got to know several people in our community. Making acquaintance with people has its benefits – even in the supermarket. One time I went to buy a certain mince and the deli assistant said to me a little conspiratorially, “Oh, you don’t want THAT one. Buy this one instead, it’s better quality.” The first one was apparently half soy, so not even all meat – they apparently don’t have the same labelling laws here…

Having a background in linguistics, I am really interested in the relationship between language and world view – does one affect the other?

Interestingly, the word for relationship in Russian is отношение (otnosheniye), and the word for attitude is also отношение. So you say exactly the same thing for good relationship as for good attitude, and the same thing for bad relationship as for bad attitude. One thing I’ve noticed here is that if you don’t have a good relationship with someone, they often automatically assume a bad attitude towards you. Nowhere is this more evident than in bureaucratic offices and on the road.

But if you have formed a relationship with someone, the whole attitude changes – even if that relationship is through a friend of a friend. Connections and relationship are what make the world go round here.

 

So, back to our story. If we had not already had some kind of relationship with this lady, N would not even have been able to ask her this question, but would have been snapped out for disturbing her and to go and wait in line like everyone else. But when he did ask, she said, “What do you need to lodge? Show me your documents. Ok, you still need this and this. When you’re done, bring them back to me and I’ll take them for you.”

!!!!

So, we filled out the extra form, got the extra photocopies and brought it back to her. Within an hour we were done, and the queue was not any shorter, nor any calmer. The favour of God was on us for sure, but it made me really think more about this relationship thing and how important it is. Lots of life applications right there.

 

 

 

Translation of picture at the top:
Without papers, you’re a bug. With them – you’re still a bug, but with papers…
(Image from motivators.ru)