A Terrible Vengeance

Everything below is true and based on first- or second-hand experiences of the author. The names have been changed, but no one is protected.

It all started when Gogol, Nikolai Vasilyevich of blessed memory, rose from his grave and went to work in the Interior Ministry.

There, he found that his new colleagues included Bulgakov, Mikhail Afanasyevich ditto. Mikhail Afanasyevich welcomed Nikolai Vasilyevich, performed due obeisance to his literary hero, and the two went to smoke a cigarette and discuss their new duty—reforming Russia’s visa system.

Pavel Ivan’ich Chichikov, having been resurrected once previously by Bulgakov, appeared in Moscow a second time. A Ukrainian—like Gogol—Chichikov was soon stopped by the police, robbed, and told to get a visa. So he went in search of work.

Gogol and Bulgakov, pleased to hear that their favorite character was up to his old tricks, decided to change the visa system and see how Chichikov would get round it.

Having found work at an expatriate newspaper, Chichikov submitted his documents for a work visa. This process took three months, as the newspaper first had to get a work permit, which involved submitting 22 documents, paying the OVIR (the Interior Ministry’s visa department) just to look at them, and then paying for the permit. Meanwhile, Chichikov was stopped and robbed by the police at least weekly.

Chichikov and a colleague submitted their documents to get visas at the same time. Chichikov, a permanent staffer, applied for a one-year, multi-entry visa; his colleague, a temporary hireling, applied for a three-month, single-entry visa.

The Interior Ministry mixed up Chichikov’s documents with his colleague’s. His colleague got an invitation for a one-year, multi-entry visa; Chichikov got something else entirely.

Gogol and Bulgakov had devised a new type of visa, a cunning document without a concrete expiry date that declared itself to be a single-entry visa but that allowed its holder to exit and re-enter the country as many times as he dared—provided they had another visa from the OVIR, called a vyezdnoi list.

Chichikov went to Helsinki with his odd-looking invitation, and was given one of the new visas. The new visa had the number 90 on it instead of an expiry date. This referred to the period of time during which Chichikov had to enter the country, and not the duration of the visa, which was valid until his work permit ran out.

Chichikov, irritated to be foiled in his bid for a one-year, multi-entry visa, decided to get on with the business at hand, and decided to register himself in a hotel in order to comply with the three-day registration period stipulated by Russian law. Kharms, Daniil, was the official dealing with visa registrations at OVIR.

To get registered, Chichikov had to prove that he didn’t have AIDS. He went to a Russian government-run clinic, got a clean AIDS test, and took it to the OVIR. Kharms duly informed Chichikov that said clinic was not on the official list of approved clinics, and that Chichikov had to go to a foreign clinic.

Chichikov went to an American-run clinic and got another AIDS test, which also said he was free of the disease.

About this time, Chichikov’s business took him to Riga. So he went to the OVIR to get a vyezdnoi list. Kharms told Chichikov that a vyezdnoi list was out of the question, because Chichikov’s visa could not be registered at a hotel, even though the hotel had in fact successfully done so.

Chichikov asked why Kharms had not told him this earlier, for instance when they had discussed the question over the telephone. Kharms smiled and said, “That’s why you come here, to find out these things.”

Chichikov returned to his office and spent a morning swearing blindly at Russian officialdom. Moved by Chichikov’s suffering, a colleague volunteered to register him in her apartment.

The colleague went to OVIR, collected various pieces of paper, filled them in, and took them, and Chichikov, back to OVIR. Kharms signed the pieces of paper without even looking at them, and Chichikov got his registration.

Chichikov then submitted his new documents to OVIR and got his vyezdnoi list. Only, instead of having to pay Kharms the standard 150 rubles, he had to pay 1,500 to get it quickly, as the trip to Riga was upon him.

On the Russian-Latvian border, an official asked Chichikov for his immigration card. “Never mind,” the official said, on learning Chichikov did not have one. “You’ll get one on the way back.”

On the return journey, Chichikov filled in an immigration card. The official checking documents asked to see his work permit. Chichikov did not have it with him. Why should he? He had a work visa, after all; the Russian Embassy in Helsinki had seen his work visa and declared it valid.

“You understand, if you work in Russia, you have to prove to me that you have permission to do so,” said the official, adding that Chichikov had to register his new immigration card with OVIR. Chichikov showed his existing registration. The official said he had to get the same stamp on the new card.

At OVIR, Kharms refused to accept the card, saying he had to see the registration stamped in the passport.

Chichikov, riled, concluded that working in Russia was impossible, sent everyone to the devil and disappeared into the Ukrainian countryside.

Gogol, Bulgakov and Kharms, their jobs done, melted back into the pages of literary history, leaving behind the system they created.

– Peter Morley