Emergency cases
Emergency interpreter
There are different cases: lost passport, committing an offence, expired visa, court hearing, replacing another translator, etc.
An English/Spanish interpreter will be able to come to you promptly and provide the necessary support.
Cases Review
As we collected a serious number of cases in providing interpreter assistance, we have decided to sum up this experience. Below we give our comments on the most frequent cases of our practice.
We are going to describe most of the situations (except criminal cases) in relation to Moscow. This is not because we are mainly providing our assistance in Moscow and the Moscow Region, but because there is an interesting tendency by Russian local authorities to send foreigners to Moscow.
1. You Lost Your Passport/Passport Stolen
Sometimes even an interpreter without a diploma will do. He/she could be your friend who can assist you with oral/written translation. Your main goal is to get your emergency passport and a new visa.
STEP 1. Once you are in a city/town, task number one is to find a local police station, which covers the area you are staying in. E.g. if you are staying in Moscow in Basmanniy Raion, you need to visit the Basmanniy Police Station.
Before your visit:
1) Prepare a document proving you are staying/living on the territory of Russia (hotel receipt, hotel voucher etc.). The main idea, such a document should have a stamp and the address of your sojourn status;
2) Prepare a short (better written) explanation of how you lost your passport (or was stolen);
3) Take only the necessary things you need. There is no need to take your entire luggage. The police may not let you in if you have too many things with yourself.
Once you are in the police station, you have to find a front office.
Please note, that in some police stations in Russia you cannot get directly to the front office, and have to contact only a police officer who controls a pass. After listening to your explanation (not necessary in person, an interpreter can do it for you, you just stay aside), hand in the documents proving your stay in Russia. After the police are sure that your stay is in the area they cover, you will give a statement to the police. In this statement, you have to explain chronologically when and where you lost your passport/your passport was stolen. Sometimes the police can ask you to prepare a statement in both Russian and English. Once you complete your statement, hand it in to the front office or a police officer on duty for the examination. If your statement is right, you will be given a police ticket that says that your case is taken for consideration. In case your passport is stolen, you will be given a reply in 10 days, and the name of the officer who runs the investigation.
Time: 1-3 hours.
STEP 2 (Optional). If, apart from your passport, you have lost (was stolen) your migration card (google “миграционная карта” for picture), you need to visit one more place. It is an office of the Federal Migration Service of Russia. The principle of how to find this one is the same as for the police station. As in Moscow, such offices are typically located in the same building as the council house (Moi documenty/Мои документы). Example of googling: Мои документы (the name of the district you are staying in [e.g. Basmanniy/Басманный]).
ATTENTION: VISIT ONLY AFTER YOU GET AN EMERGENCY PASSPORT!
Before your visit:
1) Prepare a document proving you are staying/living on the territory of Russia (hotel receipt, hotel voucher etc.). The main idea is that such a document should have a stamp and the address of your sojourn;
2) You need an emergency passport;
3) Police ticket;
4) Check the work schedule of a migration office, as sometimes it is very tricky, and you will just come there “to kiss the door.”
5) Prepare a Xerox of your emergency passport, police ticket and document proving you’re staying/living in a hotel, hostel etc.;
6) Take about RUB 120 in coins or in notes to make copies of documents mentioned in 5) on the spot.
Once you are in the office, find out where the migration office is (floor, room number). Get a ticket and take a queue. Recommendation: please come around as much earlier as possible (one hour before opening), as sometimes the queue is long enough, so you will spend more time in the queue than paperwork for reissuing a duplicate of your migration card. However, sometimes, after understanding your case, a migration officer can tell you to wait, even if you are the first one in the queue. This is because your case will take more time than an average case of his/her day.
Once you are in, explain your situation through an interpreter. NOTE: It would be better to have an interpreter with a diploma, because an officer can nag it, and brush you off. After your explanation and checking your passport, the officer will check some information about your crossing the Russian border on his/her computer. If everything is okay with your arrival in Russia, you will get your new migration card in 10–15 minutes, and, of course, only after your fingerprints be taken. So remove your outer top, relax your hands and let the officer manipulate them to take your fingerprints.
Congratulations, you got your new (duplicate) migration card.
Time: 1-4 hours.
STEP 3. At this step, you have to apply to refurbish your visa. In Moscow, the place where you can do it is: ГУ МВД России по г. Москве Специальное подразделение УВМ (Ulitsa Pokrovka sorok dva, ул. Покровка, 42, Москва).
Visiting hours: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday – 9:00-17:00
Friday: 9:00-16:00
Lunch break: 13:00-14:00
Before your visit:
1) Prepare a Xerox of your emergency passport, police ticket, migration card, air tickets, invitation and document proving you’re staying/living in a hotel, hostel etc.;
2) Prepare 2 photos; take glue;
3) Pencil (black).
Once you are in, take the left. If you are lucky and a ticket machine works, get a ticket for your queue. If the machine does not work, you need to find out who is the last person in your queue. Please, remember this person, how he/she looks etc., just not to miss your turn. It may be quite difficult as the room is small and may be overcrowded; moreover, you have to understand which of the windows you need today: one window may work only with individuals and another works only with entities, and they may shift each day.
Of note, if the ticket machine does not work (see picture below), visitors just write the queue on a sheet of paper.
Find an application form -- it should be somewhere in piles. As a tip, we recommend you to prepare this form beforehand. You can ask your interpreter to google it. Thus, on arrival, your interpreter just has to mirror it in Russian. Even after you fill out the form, there may be a lot of waiting heading on. Therefore, if you are sure that there is more than one hour to wait, do not waste your time and take receipt to pay the fee for refurnishing your visa. You can find bank details on one of the boards on the wall. In addition, we recommend doing it from Step 1.
How to pay: Ask your interpreter to pay on your behalf, because sometimes bank clerks are not cooperative and ask for a notarised translation of your passport.
When your turn is coming, prepare your documents to hand in. We do not recommend you to glue your photo until an operator confirms that your application is OK. Sometimes there are some lines which the operator may ask to rewrite. So, be ready to come back again the next day if the work off. To make a conversation with the operator easier, let your interpreter do that.
After you submit all your documents (including an emergency passport), the operator will give you a ticket. You will use this ticket to get back your passport stamped with a new visa. Generally, you will get a prolonged visa – plus 1-2 additional days to the original ones.
As a rule, your visa will be issued in 5–7 days (if urgent, they can hurry up). When you are back to get your visa, the operator will give you a passport and visa separately to check everything is OK. Only after that, will the operator stick a new visa in your emergency passport.
Congratulations, you have completed all the steps and got your passport and visa back. Now you can continue your trip.
Time: 1-3 days to apply; 4-7 days to get new visa.
2. You Have Overstayed Your Visa
If you read this when the storm is coming, and you are sure that you will overstay your visa, we strongly recommend you to document this fact as much more as possible. Going forward, we want to say that the finish line of this case is a court, so if you are determined to give a battle in court, you will need a great number of documented facts proving that your overstaying is a result of bad luck and not your negligence or else.
Moreover, despite the tendency of local Russian authorities to brush off these cases and direct them to Moscow, we want to highlight another tendency – some local courts' rulings do not contain a 5-year ban. 99% of Moscow courts’ rulings will ban you for 5 years from visiting Russia. However, you can try to overrun this barrier by lodging an appeal.
STEP 1. Once you understand that you have overstayed your visa, we strongly recommend you not to drag this process out. Inform your embassy and find an interpreter.
ATTENTION: In this case, an interpreter MUST have a diploma, otherwise Russian authorities demand you to find another one with a diploma.
What is next? You have to go to the police station or migration office, which covers the area where you have been staying/living last time in Russia. If local Russian authorities brush you off, and you have to head to Moscow, it does not matter in general which police station or migration office to choose for “surrender”. Please note, that this is not a good start when you understand that you have overstayed your visa right down at the airport, because you have not been allowed to get on board.
As we said above, there are two options to surrender: police station OR migration office. What is the difference?
Police station
Pros. Speedrun (Our record is 7 hours). Take fingerprints without inks (scan pad), but take mugshots. Police officers are more professional in preparing case papers and, in general, have good relationships with courts and judges. Even a junior officer can prepare your case papers and send you from the police station immediately to court in a police car. And of course, they work 24/7.
Cons. Grim atmosphere inside the police station. No Wi-Fi. You can be brushed off to the migration office if the court hearing is not on the same day as your case papers are ready.
The police can keep you at night in the police station until the next day of hearing (have to surrender your phone). It is very rarely, but it can happen, especially when you have not surrendered voluntarily or not cooperatively.
Migration office
Pros. Have Wi-Fi in the building. Less strict than the Police in preparing your case papers. It can provide you with necessary legal advice on how to challenge your ban – as it is up to a migration office to ban you. There is a more illuminous and not depressing atmosphere inside the building. No mugshots.
Cons. Can brush you off to the police station station. Take fingerprints with inks (rarely scan pad). Only a senior officer can prepare your case papers, or you have to wait for his/her order for a junior officer to do so. Inconvenient work schedule. Senior officers are often late or absent. Migration officers do not like going to court and therefore have fewer good relationships with court and judges than the police.
Before your visit:
1) Take only the necessary things you need. There is no need to take all your bags. Police/bailiffs cannot let you in if you bring along too many things.
2) Prepare a short logical summary of why you have overstayed your visa in simple English, translate it through Google Translate, for example, and print it out. You will have an opportunity to give it to a police officer/migration officer or judge to scan through.
Before we discuss how case papers are made, we would like to cover your right to an attorney. The attorney is optional and expensive.
Attorney
Once you have found an attorney, you need to conclude a contract with him/her or with the legal firm he/she works for. Payment per hour or per day. Only in roubles. A minimum of US$200/hour. Speaking from our experience, an attorney can be useful only if you are going to lodge an appeal to challenge a 5-year ban. However, if you have strong exculpatory evidence to challenge the 5-year ban in the courtroom, the attorney's assistance is worth it.
Case papers
Your case papers start with your oral explanation (through an interpreter) to the responsible person of how, why and where you have overstayed your visa. The same is true for both a police station and a migration office. However, in the police station, they immediately take your fingerprints and take your mugshot, and only after that, a police officer start drafting your case papers. In the migration office, fingerprint taking is at the end.
Case papers in the police station and the migration office are absolutely the same.
Typically, case papers include:
-Report on your detection. It says why, where and how you have overstayed your visa. Before you sign it, your interpreter will translate it for you.
-Explanation of rights (e.g. you have the right not to give evidence against yourself, your close relatives, have the right to an attorney etc.). Your interpreter should translate it for you before you sign it.
-Copies of your passport, fingerprints, and mugshot, made when you have crossed the Russian border (they download it from database).
-Details of your attorney (if applicable).
When your case papers are ready, a police/migration officer will tell you the address of the courthouse and time of hearing (actually morning).
Time: 1-3 days.
STEP 2. In court
Before your visit:
Take only the necessary things you need. There is no need to bring your entire luggage. Police/bailiffs cannot let you in if you have too many things with yourself. Do not take sharp things, even scissors. Speaking from our experience, you will have to wait more than the hearing itself will last.
Once you meet your police/migration officer (who will be with you during this entire step), you will pass through a bailiff who checks your passport, asks to take out all metal objects and may visually check your bags for security purposes.
Then your police/migration officer asks you and your interpreter to surrender your passports (and diploma of an interpreter), which need to be presented together with your case papers for preliminary examination by the judge. If everything is OK with your papers, you just keep on waiting. If not, you come next time because there are mistakes in your case papers which the judge has found. These mistakes should be fixed by your police/migration officer. Sometimes the judge can return your case papers immediately in 10–30 minutes, and unfortunately, sometimes, at the end of the day after 5–8 hours of waiting.
In addition, you will be given two papers, which you should sign after your interpreter translates its context for you. First, it says that you do not speak Russian and will speak the language you have a good command of. Second says about the rights you have.
There are two ways what can happen next:
1) You will be lucky if there is a judge who decides your case even without a hearing. It happens the following way: a court secretary comes to you, gives you a court decision, and asks to sign it, explains to you about a fine, and you are free.
2) Court hearing. Please note, once you are with an attorney, a speedy hearing is impossible, and everything will be strictly formal. Once you enter the courtroom, there is already a judge, a secretary, a bailiff and sometimes a prosecution attorney. If there is no judge, do not forget to stand up when he/she comes in.
First, the judge identifies your interpreter, explains his/her rights and obligations, and warns of responsibility for an obviously wrong translation.
Second, the judge verifies your identity; asks for your date and place of birth, nationality, residential address, previous criminal/administrative records, occupation, married or not married, education (everything through your interpreter).
Third, the judge starts asking about how it has happened that you have overstayed your visa.
And fourth, your attorney’s speech, if applicable. After that, the judge retires to sentence.
Then two ways:
1) If you have an attorney, the judge will, for sure, officially declare the decision, which is actually a monotonous and speedy reading of your case papers and a decision that you are culpable (99%);
2) No attorney. You have to wait in the hall until the secretary brings you the decision that you are culpable (100%).
Once you get the decision, you have to sign it. Ask your interpreter to translate it if you do not understand something.
As a rule, overstaying a visa is punishable by a fine of RUB 4,800-5,000. You have to pay your fine before leaving and bring a confirmation of the payment to the court registry, so they can give you an authorised copy under the seal of the court that your fine is paid. You need to do this to avoid problems when leaving Russia.
And in general, after the court’s decision, you have 15 days to leave Russia. We strongly recommend you to leave Russia within 7 days, because the calculation formula is quite tricky.
In addition, you have 10 days to lodge an appeal. And how to do it, you would better discuss it with your attorney. Of note, your presence is not necessary during the appeal. So, you can control how your appeal is going on outside Russia.
You can check your ban status here.
For nationality:
СОЕДИНЕННОЕ КОРОЛЕВСТВО ВЕЛИКОБРИТАНИЯ – GREAT BRITAIN
АВСТРАЛИЯ – AUSTRALIA
НОВАЯ ЗЕЛАНДИЯ – NEW ZEALAND
КАНАДА – CANADA
СОЕДИНЕННЫЕ ШТАТЫ АМЕРИКИ – USA
For document type select “Национальный паспорт” = National passport
At the end of this step, take a tip on how to check in with an emergency passport and an overstayed visa.
Take your interpreter, find a hostel/mini-hotel. Once you are there, discuss with the receptionist the possibility of checking in without getting an official document that you are staying with them.
Congratulations, you have passed through this endeavour and can continue your trip.
Time: 1-7 days
3.You Have Overstayed Your Visa Twice
It means that you have failed to leave Russia within 15 days of the court’s decision. First, inform your embassy!
In this case, the additional punishment, apart from a fine, is placing you into a detention centre for foreigners (address for Moscow and the Moscow Region: Подольский район, владение 1 строение 33, Варшавское ш., 64, Москва).
Before your visit:
1) Decide who will get you out of the detention centre (we can provide such assistance, and offer discounts in this case);
2) Prepare enough money in cash:
-for a fine (about RUB 5,000);
-for an air ticket to your home country (only a direct flight from Russia).
3) Check your bags and take out all the alcohol or something more serious.
4) Prepare a separate small packet of personal care appliances (toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, towel), change of clothes and warm clothes.
5) Reasonably replenish your mobile phone balance.
6) Make several lists with the necessary phones (embassy, interpreter, attorney etc.).
Step 1. Take your interpreter and go to the police station/migration office, which has prepared your first court papers.
The procedure for your case papers is the same. Please note, in this case an attorney is an absolute waste of your money (99% ineffective).
Do not forget to say that you have luggage.
Step 2. The court procedure is the same, only without evictions and with a furious judge – if you get the same who have been the first time.
The judge may ask additional questions, like what you are going to do next, why did you overstay your visa the second time, etc.
And of course, the court’s decision will be 101% guilty, no dice.
Step 3. After the judge pronounces the last words of the verdict, and you sign to get a copy of your decision, you are subject to forcible deportation and detention in the special centre for foreigners. Your right of movement are restricted. Then you will be placed in a room of the courthouse to wait until a car from the detention centre arrives (sometimes the car arrives in the middle of the night). Until this time, your luggage will be examined and documented. You’ll get a list of values you have (money, credit cards), you can also have your interpreter at hand (of note, our company does not charge for this time).
Once the car from the detention centre arrives, an officer from this car asks you one more time to take out all value things, surrender your passport and mobile phone – you can take only a SIM-card.
Generally, there is no one who speaks English, so that is why you do need an interpreter at hand at that moment. When everything is ready and checked, it is time to say goodbye to your interpreter and get in the car.
Step 4. Typically, in the centre, you are placed in a cell with whom you can speak English. The cell is not big. Shower once or twice a week. You can use only a local mobile phone to insert your SIM-card, and get no more than a 10-minute phone call.
Only in 10 days (period to lodge an appeal) a person (contact person), with whom you have agreed to get you out of the detention centre can start visit the centre to arrange your departure. Before that date, he/she can bring parcels for you through a special counter.
There are some main restrictions on parcels:
-Everything that is in a package/carton should be put into a transparent bag;
-Only lump sugar;
-Tea, coffee in bulk;
-Cigarettes, without packages;
-Not more than 5 kg at one time;
-Not more than 35 kg per month;
-Meat and milk products depending on the season.
Your contact person shall communicate with court marshals (bailiffs) to arrange your departure with them. To visit you in the centre, your contact person should ask permission from an officer who is responsible for your detention. Such a visit lasts 10 minutes. Before the visit, it is necessary to surrender your mobile phone.
When your departure is arranged, you will be escorted under the guard at the airport when the date of your flight comes. You will get your luggage only at the airport.
That is about all.
Time: 15 days – 2 years
P.S. Why 2 years? Because this is the limit (if nothing changed) of detention in this centre.
