I remember my first trip abroad. For years I dreamed about Italy. Its arts and history enchanted me since childhood. So finally, when I had enough money and a new international passport in my hand, my dream was about to come true. Not so fast though. I had to get a visa.
I did manage to get to Italy and to other European countries later. But every time I planned a trip, my heart sank. I couldn’t just buy a ticket and go. I had to collect all kinds of papers to prove my intentions. I had to buy my tickets in advance without knowing whether I would be granted a visa. And then I had to wait, nervously, until the last week or even days before my flight, to see that long-coveted 10-day visa in my passport.
When I moved to Asia, traveling stopped being a nightmare. For the first time in my life I was treated as a human being. I still had to go through a visa application process, but it didn’t have the familiar tinge of trauma. As a white person from the West, I was treated with respect and attention. It may have been induced by a simple prejudice. But it feels nice to get a smile instead of a scowl and a problem-free border crossing. When, after five years in Asia I returned to Europe, the rosy picture started to fade.
The attitude toward my passport changed gradually as I moved westwards. In a registration office in Kazakhstan, I was denied my registration simply because I was Ukrainian. The given reason was different of course: According to the registration officer, the hostel of my choice didn’t correspond to their requirements. Luckily I had just helped a fellow American traveler successfully register in the same hostel, so I could refer to that as an example of the hostel’s validity and get the stamp.
The Balkans, and Serbia in particular, where I spent a year, turned out to be a virtual minefield. Before expressing an opinion on Ukraine, I had to take into account the popular attitudes toward Ukraine in the country I was in. When the tensions in Donbas barely started I was reprimanded, like a school kid for fighting with my “Slavic brother.” As the situation intensified, I was warned against claiming my nationality in local bars.
Crossing borders became more than a formality all over again. My old generously stamped passport evoked some respect, as well as a valid one-year Schengen visa. When that passport ran out of pages, I felt helpless, like a newborn baby. Two fresh rejections from the U.K. consulate didn’t improve the situation. The next time I landed in Belgrade, I was waived aside and questioned, as if I was on my way to the Adriatic coast to try and cross to London by boat. I had to virtually hide behind my fiancé’s EU passport to make myself look more trustworthy.
Speaking of rejections, neither my fiancé with his respectable passport nor the dozens of stamps in my own passport, including several Schengen visas, helped me much at the British consulate in Kyiv.
The first time I applied, the officer doubted that I earned enough to afford a week-long trip to London. The second time I applied, I mentioned that it was my fiancé who was going to take care of me during the trip. It made things look even more suspicious for the consulate though. Not only I was, probably, not earning enough, I was about to emigrate! Naturally, I got another rejection and a list of papers to collect that would prove that my fiancé and I are traveling to the U.K. at the same time, that we will be staying at the same place and leave the country together.
Getting ourselves registered as a couple wouldn’t be easy though. After applying to the Swedish consulate for a residence permit, a person has to wait 8 to 21 months to get it. And as a citizen of a non-EU country, I would be denied entry to Sweden during this period, while my fiancé has to be a resident there during that time. The influx of refugees from Syria would make the waiting time even longer.
To have visa-free access to the EU, some Ukrainians get Romanian citizenship. I am eligible for it on conditions of repatriation. Unfortunately, officers in the Romanian consulate in Kyiv simply hung up the phone on me. Instead of getting information and free service in receiving my citizenship, in accordance with Romanian law, I am forced to apply to an agency that will fix everything, for a significant sum of money, of course.
I don’t have any illusions. I won’t be surprised that even when all my documents are in order and I am able to just buy the ticket and go, as I dreamed back in my teens, the purity of my new citizenship or my passport won’t be European enough to get me through a passport control without additional questions.
