The Saustrup Family Blog

Got back from the honeymoon - my skin lobsterliciously red from sunburn. Probably drove around 2.000 km on the bike. Uploaded over half of the photos to Flickr - just added the sweet rafting shots today. Nina went back to St. Petersburg three days ago to pack up her stuff and file the papers for family reunification. I hope we will see each other in less than 4-6 weeks or so.

Oh yeah, and I sadly didn’t see the new Indy movie yet! Someone please take me to the movies!

“Good news everybody!” Nina got her visa on Friday, and after a couple of nice days in Copenhagen we’re finally back in Århus together. We just filed the marriage application about an hour ago, so things seem to be running smoothly.

Nina went to pick up her visa at the Danish Consulate on Friday. With it, she also received a paper that verified that the Russian authorities do not issue documents regarding civil status. This document should not be required, but since the wedding office in Aarhus are a little “difficult” we thought it might help us. It was a total bargain at 100 euros for a single sheet of paper. Nina arrived in Copenhagen on Sunday, which also happened to be her birthday! Monday morning we went straight for the Russian Embassy, where they kindly issued a paper that verified that her internal Russian passport did not have any notices or stamps regarding previous marriages. This is the official way of documenting that a person is not currently married.

After visiting a tiny bit of Russia in the heart of Copenhagen, we decided to chill out a bit and went to visit Copenhagen Zoo. The rhino and hippo were on vacation somewhere, but the giraffes and lions were in. Very relaxing. A nice change of pace when you’re in the middle of a paperwork war.

Tuesday morning - today - we filed the official wedding application with all the required enclosures. I’ve had a previous encounter with the lady working the desk, and I was surprised that the process went smoothly without anyone screaming or threatening to kill family members. The bureaucrat informed us that processing time for this paper would be 14 days. After this, we should take the issued “licence” and forward it to the place where we will have the ceremony. Processing time here will be around 8 days.

If none of these two offices have any objections, it looks like our schedule is right back on track. Papers will be ready in around three weeks and hopefully we’ll be set to get married on May 17.

It’s not even 13:00 here yet, and I’m already exhausted!

We finally got verfication from the Danish consulate in St. Petersburg regarding Nina’s visa, and Nina applied some strange Russian magic and managed to get an earlier appointment at the Russian consulate in Copenhagen.

Again, a day of many phone calls. First the Danish consulate in St. Petersburg said that according to the spectacular efficient new computer system, Nina’s case wasn’t decided yet. Quite the opposite of what I was told yesterday. The Danish immigration service said that the consulate had been notified of the decision yesterday and said that they would ask the case worker to resend the message to the consulate.

I waited 10 minutes before calling them again, and while being on hold in their phone queue, my cell phone rang. It turned out to be the same guy that rang me yesterday from the immigration service, and he apologised for some screw-up caused by the new system, and confirmed that the decision was now available to the foreign ministry (meaning consulates etc.). I told him that I hoped that they would eventually get more familiar with their magnificent new computer system, and I was sure I heard a lot of frustration between the lines when he replied “So do we.”

The consulate in St. Petersburg confirmed reception of the decision and promised to issue a visa for Nina on Wednesday or Thursday this week. Plane tickets have been reserved for Sunday and I’m going to Copenhagen to pick her up. This part is the really good part!

The original plan was to spend the night in Copenhagen and then drop by the Russian Consulate in the morning, to pick up the civil status statement (also known as the “no, she’s not previously married in Russia”-paper) but after yesterdays call to them, I was rather pessemistic about getting an appointment there before April 24. Nina called them and passively applied some of that special Russian magic that seems to make the wheels of bureacracy turn a little faster. The girl at the consulate promptly offered an appointment on Monday, April 14, just like we wanted initially. No hazzle what so ever. Maybe they suddenly got an empty spot in their calendar - maybe I just send out some kind of bad vibe!

Anyway, things seem to be running smoothly now, but we still need a couple of pieces in the wedding puzzle. After we’ve claimed the civil status statement, we need to file this with the marriage application at the wedding office at Aarhus City Hall. I have many short describing words for this office, but to put it politely: they’re rather difficult. They couldn’t say exactly what kind of civil status statement they would accept, but they would be happy to review and dismiss anything we would show up with. This might take about a week to process. I’m guessing. Maybe. If they decide that we’re eligible for marriage, we’ll take their decision to the very nice little town of Ebeltoft and apply to have the ceremony at their old city hall. This might also take a while to process.

Not such a quick update after all. I hope you can forgive me.

Our faithful readers - of which there are at least two - already know how very very frustrated we have been waiting for Nina’s visa to Denmark, but finally we got some good news.

I just got off the phone with a friendly guy from the Danish immigration service. He called to let me know that they made a decision in Nina’s visa case, and had given an authorization to the Danish General Consulate in St. Petersburg, allowing them to issue a visa to Nina. We’re both thrilled about this naturally and that guy really was very friendly.

With that being said, the case still took way too long to process (9 weeks) and the information provided to us during the process was bleak to say the least. I could possibly think of numerous ways of improving the information level, but right now I honestly don’t give a sh*t. I’m just very happy that we finally made it this far.

Nina’s browsing airline tickets and I’m smiling all the way up to my ears!

I just got off the phone with the Russian Consulate in Copenhagen and the Danish immigration service. Both turned out to be huge disappointments. This time around the Danes win the prize for technological ignorance and the Russians for good old fashioned inefficiency.

I previously called the Russian Consulate, and asked if they could issue the civil status paper required by the wedding office in Århus. They acknowledged this, and said that Nina had to call in and make an appointment. We thought this was a trivial matter and possible to do on a day-to-day basis. Here, optimistically one week before Nina arrives in Copenhagen, we decided to make an appointment - and in good time, we thought. I was hoping to make an appointment for April 14, and was greatly disappointed when I was told that the next available appointment was on April 24. I never saw this coming and it feels like hitting a brick wall that suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

This whole wedding thing is a very delicate and tricky puzzle, and now the Russian Consulate is pushing it even further. If we can’t get an appointment before April 24, things really have to run smoothly for us to get married on May 17.

The Danish immigration service wasn’t much help either. The last report I got when I made my ceremonial Friday call to them, was that they had sent a request for information regarding Nina’s passport to the Danish Consulate in St. Petersburg on March 26. The Danish Consulate said that they had received this request and had sent a confirmed reply on April 2. According to the lady I spoke to, no reply was received in their magnificent new visa system yet. I was puzzled to hear this, and asked if information wasn’t transferred electronically inside their new system - she kept telling me that it was, but letters and faxes first had to be scanned by their reception before it appeared in the system. Wheels were turning inside my head and then it finally dawned on me:

Even though they have a brand new computer system, some information is apparently still passed around by good old fashion paper fax and as paper information it needs to be scanned before it appears in their system.

I can’t even begin to explain how stupid I think this is. It’s like refusing to use more than the first gear in your brand new red Italian sports car.

We’re getting married! I proposed on February 4. 2008, and even though it still feels new and weird, it also feels incredibly good. One thing is a bit of a bother though, and that’s the initial paperwork. The marriage office at Århus City Hall is being everything but cooperative.

Marriage - or in our case a civil union - is not really a tricky thing in Denmark. It’s not supposed to be, anyway. All you need to do is fill out a marriage application, attach the required documents and wait a couple of weeks for the approval. When you have the approval, you can make an appointment at city hall, and the actual ceremony takes 5-10 minutes.

If you’re both Danish, all the information required is already available and you don’t really need to attach any additional documents to the marriage application. If you’re not Danish however, you need to provide documentation of your civil status. In our case, we need proof that Nina is not already married in the Russian Federation.

“No biggie” I thought. Not the case.

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