Quarantine

I appear to be in Russia again. Getting here was both deceptively easy and a massive pain in the ass. Low expectations were the key. After reviewing the administrative obstacles in my path, I just assumed I would never get round to moving here.

An example: in order to get a work visa, you first need to receive an invitation from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. So far, so reasonable. To get that, you need to list the address where you will be living in Russia. Less easy, considering this address would need to be decided a month or two before you set off, and the Moscow rental market tends to move much faster than that. I dare you to join a Facebook page for lettings (the most common way of finding a flat in Moscow) and inform the community that you’re hoping to move into a Moscow flat in two months’ time. You’ll be laughed off the scene. Either that or your post will be pinned to the top of the page as a light-hearted introduction for those searching for entertainment as well as a place to live.

Even if you find a landlord organised enough to plan for a new tenant a whole sixth of a year in advance (from what I can tell most people start looking for their new flat about a week before moving in), a new layer of complication will be added when they discover you’re a foreigner. If you aren’t a citizen of Russia, you need to get the owner of the property where you live to register your arrival at a police station or post office every time you enter the country (naturally). Most landlords have never done this, and nor do they intend to start for your benefit, when they could just rent their flat to a Russian instead and cut out the hassle. Indeed, a lot of Russians wealthy enough to own properties in Moscow don’t even live in the country, so the chances of their turning up to register your arrival at a police station every couple of months are pretty slim. Then there’s the money element – for some reason prices tend to be revised upwards when property owners discover you’re a foreigner, unleashing a whole new round of negotiations.

I won’t bore you with all the other silly hoops you have to jump through to get a work visa. Many of them are perfectly reasonable, like having a blood test, getting your fingerprints scanned, and learning to land a double backflip. The fact that more experienced workers simply get used to this process and negotiate it seemingly without difficulty each time their visa needs to be renewed never ceases to amaze me.

On the plus side, my fancy new work visa means that I am now a ‘highly skilled specialist’. This is an improvement on my last visa, which described me as ‘Volunteer in the field of youth relations’. Although in my mind, I will always be an ‘Alien of extraordinary ability’, as an old US visa once  so aptly characterised me (big up Clare Choir).

Today is the final day of my two-week-long quarantine. On the whole, I have been pleasantly surprised by it. Again - low expectations ftw. I have also been helped by my flat. It’s small, but also cosy and very functional. Being cooped up inside has made me appreciate the view out my window, which I think I would otherwise have taken for granted.

Considering I can’t to the best of my knowledge get a bank account or a SIM card without leaving my flat, I think I’ve done well to keep myself supplied for these two weeks. Thank you to Tonia and Anastasia, who helped me get food deliveries from the extremely cool grocery service Yandex.Lavka. You order anything from shaving foam to gherkins and it turns up within about half an hour (at least that’s my experience). Because they’re so easy to cook and don’t require any spices or kitchen equipment (which I haven’t yet had the chance to buy), pelmeni and vareniki (types of dumpling which you can cook from frozen) have constituted a significant proportion of my diet over the last two weeks. I have no plans to change this once I get out of quarantine.

That said, I am greatly looking forward to going outside tomorrow, when I will celebrate my newfound freedom by travelling to a far-flung suburb at an ungodly hour in the morning to pick up a work permit. Yay!