Our first priority on arrival in Armenia’s capital city,
Yerevan, was to visit the Embassy of Nagorno Karabakh (also known as RMK –
Republic of Mountainous Karabakh, NKR – Nagorno Karabakh Republic and Artsakh
Republic). We found it easily, parked outside the front, and carried our
passports to the front gate. An A4 piece of paper was taped to the fence
telling us in Armenian, Russian and English, that to enter we should press “1*”
on the number pad. Denner did, and we waited. Nothing happened, so he pressed
it again. We waited again. Perhaps he was pressing the buttons wrong, so Ben
stepped up and gave it a shot. Again we waited, and again nobody came for us.
After a few minutes Ben decided to give the gate a push, and lo and behold, it
swung open easily. Oops.
We passed the diplomatically plated cars and ascended the
steps leading to the front of the somewhat dilapidated, but surprisingly
elegant red-brick building. Inside reminded me a little of an old house that
has been turned into an obscure museum, with yellowing pictures hung
sporadically along the walls of the entrance corridor, a majestic but frayed
carpet running along the dusty floorboards, and a sturdy mahogany desk tucked
away in the corner. A man appeared from a side room, addressed us with “visa?”
and led us to a door at the end of the corridor which he knocked on and opened
for us.
Inside a young lady sat at one desk while a motherly woman
at another gestured us towards her. She asked us to fill in application forms
at the previously mentioned mahogany desk, and gave us some maps to look at as
reference for the “where do you intend to visit?” question. Despite the fact
that there was a spot to stick a photo on, she told us not to worry about that.
When we’d answered all the questions, we took the forms and our passports back
to her office and sat down while she looked through our intentions. After
giving us a little advice on where we should visit, she asked us to visit the
accountant to pay 3,000 Dram ($7.50) each.
When we returned with our receipt we were told to come back
at 3pm (it was now about midday) to collect our visas, then as an afterthought
she checked whether we want a group visa or four individual visas, and whether
we wanted it in our passports or not. She seemed quite surprised when we said
we’d like individual visas if possible and that in our passports was fine. We
are aware that with a Karabakh visa we can’t travel to Azerbaijan, but by the
time any of us go back there we’ll have new passports anyway. We thought there
could be a problem entering Turkey with Karabakh visas, but a friend recently
managed it with no problems and we’ve done a bit of research and decided it’s probably
not an issue. Considering she now had to make four visas instead of just one,
we were asked to return at 4pm instead of the original 3pm.
What a peculiar concept – an Embassy offering to issue visas
outside of your passport. It’s hard for us to imagine coming from a nation that
is not recognised by the rest of the world and people can be caused problems
just by visiting. And being offered a group visa seems like a ridiculous idea –
I have to admit it is a little hard to take a visa seriously when multiple
people can choose to share it, just for the sake of ease.
We returned just before the designated 4pm and entered the
same office as before. Our motherly visa issuer greeted us with a smile and
took her glasses off to look up at us. Our visas sat at the front of her desk,
and she picked them up to hand over to us. “I see you like travelling a lot.
You have visited many interesting places.” Well yes, we have. “You usually
travel together?” We explained that most of the visas in our current passports
are from this trip, which we are doing as a group, all the way from Australia
to Scotland. She seemed impressed by this and wished us well on our travels. A
lovely lady giving us visas and actually understanding let along taking an
interest in our trip is a nice little change. We left feeling very satisfied
with Karabakh so far and looking forward to visiting the country itself.
Interestingly, everyone we came across who worked in that
Embassy (the lady who dealt with us, her young female assistant, and the two
women in the accountancy office) were females, except for the male receptionist
who initially greeted us. How’s that for a role reversal.
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