About 500 meters from the Kremlin and Red Square on Tverskaya Street squats the 52,200 square-meter grey building of The Central Telegraph. Granite steps lead to a central entrance and above the glass of the massive wooden front doors hangs an old Soviet State emblem with the prominent terrestrial globe and stylized hammer and sickle below it.
The list of foreigners still waiting for Bulgarian citizenship—and passports—is longer than 51,000, and their requests, dating as far back as four to five years, have not even been considered. In that time, the Ministry of Justice has considered another 8,204 requests and rejected half, mainly because candidates lied about their Bulgarian origins or presented false supporting documents.
The South Macedonia woman waited impatiently in Skopje airport, asking if there were any delay of her plane to Oslo. Told that the plane to Norway was still on time, Suzana Gorgiovska began talking about her ordeal with the Norwegian embassy in trying to get a visa, so that she could, at 70, visit her son and see her year-old granddaughter “before I die.”
Moldovans seeking to move to the Schengen area have one tool that many others do not—they can ask to claim citizenship of Romania, a process officially called “regaining of citizenship,” because the people share a language and once shared mutual territory. That citizenship would guarantee them a Romanian passport and membership in the EU, which would allow them to move freely throughout EU countries.
Businesses in Ukraine flourish that say they can skirt the system and help get visas, residence permits, second citizenships and even honorary consulates, but just getting to travel to Europe for ordinary citizens is nothing short of an ordeal.
For five years the Prosecutors’ Offices and police in BiH have continuously uncovered the masterminds and associates involved in counterfeiting of Bosnian identity papers. Many abuses have been reported and among those who got false documents were criminals and citizens from neighboring countries.
In Ukraine, a folk ensemble danced under the windows of an embassy to prove they should get visas so they could participate in a cultural festival.
Investigations across the region by reporters with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) have turned up many ways to bend or break the law in obtaining identity documents, as opposed to using the regular legal procedures.
One of the most vivid examples of the treatment that ordinary people might face was the widely celebrated case of Ukrainian Valentyna Maley, who wanted to spend her vacation in Greece last summer.
Wealth and connections are the building blocks to a rarified form of freedom from travel restrictions, the title of honorary consul.
