Viewing topic: WARNING for UK Newcomers. HIV certificate!

Hi all,

The visa situation for new teachers is in flux - for which read, total chaos. However, there's one thing that new teachers coming from the UK should be aware of.

Some teachers may come to Russia on the 3-month "business" visa, with the intention of renewing or changing that visa later. Let's leave aside the question of whether that's quite legal or not. It is, at least, do-able.

You should note that AN HIV CERTIFICATE will be required. This isn't a specified requirement on the consular website, but it is the case nonetheless. If your application/invitation specify that you're going to work (and that will apply to anyone getting an invitation via a language school), the consulate in Britain WILL want to see that HIV certificate. It can be from a British doctor, in English, no problem.

You can, of course, stand there arguing that HIV certificates are not normally required for a business visa. It will do you about as much good as arguing with the referee in Euro 2008

A certificate costs about 36 pounds, and can be obtained in a week, or in a couple of days in emergencies. I don't know what the situation is in other countries - maybe they're not so stringent.

Best,

Damon

HIV tests have always applied to any stay of over 3 months.

If you ask your GP for the test, be sure to stress that it is for the purpose of getting a visa, and request that this be noted in your medical records, or that it not be recorded at all.

Believe it or not, having a HIV test done can severely affect your credit rating, particularly for mortgages.

The logic being that if you had a HIV test done, you must have thought you might be infected, thus you were sleeping around, ergo you take risks with your health and are likely to die young and then won't be able to repay your debts

Yes, that has always been the case - and I always go armed with an HIV certificate just in case I come up against a jobs-worth at the embassy or they change the rules unexpectedly.

Of course, if you are already in Russia and are returning to Britain to get a new visa, it makes more sense to get it done here - but get it done no more than one month before the visa application is to be made or they won't accept it. The cost is about 200 rubles (£4/$

If you're in Tallinn for a visa and have been unwise enough not to get a HIV cert before you left Russia, you'll need to go to the city's AIDS clinic, where you'll find yourself giving two blood samples. The second is for a syphilis test. Do you need it for a visa? No, says the visa clerk at the Consulate. Yes, say the grimly efficient nurses at the clinic. The result is that you pay more than you need and endure the discomfort of having two sizeable quantities of blood removed from your veins.

Some years ago, I applied for a visa at the Russian consulate in Daugavpils. I didn't have a HIV certificate, and wasn't asked for one by the visa officer, but the attache happened to overhear him say that it wouldn't be necesary and pointed out that all entry only visas (i.e. visas that require an exit visa on leaving) do need a HIV certificate. So, if you are on a 3 month visa that is valid for entry and exit, you can be in the terminal stages of AIDS and spend thr three months of your stay spreading the infection indiscriminately with the blessing of, or at any rate without objection by, the immigration authorities, but the healthiest visitor on an entry only visa is suspect and must be tested for the virus.

Yep, expect a very long and cautionary rant from me about 'how not to do a visa run' very soon. Stay tuned as the chaos unfulds...

Hi all
I am a new comer to this site but am currently going through the 'Visa' requirements here in Australia. Same situation except we are required to get the HIV cert. from an HIV Clinic not a GP. Clinics don't do the test, only GP's!! A bit of research and I found a GP who works with Victorian AIDS Council and had all the necessary creditation and FREE! Bonus.
For those in Melbourne the clinic is in St Kilda 03 9525 5866.
Cheers Den

Thanks for the info, larryparradine - but could you confirm if it is still now possible for Brits, for example to get any type of Rusian visa in Tallin?

I have heard various views on the subject - but preferred to not take the risk and headed back to London to get my own, self-arranged work visa, anyway.

Cornfirmation if you have recently obtained your visa (and its type) in Tallinn would be useful to many maybe... although it would still be wise for people to re-check before they travel, of course...

I wish I could give you some definite info about the present visa situation for Brits going to the Russian consulate in Tallinn, but at present I'm as much in the dark as you and others are (see the recent posts, mine included, on that subject in expat.ru forum). However, I've just asked my next employer to put Tallinn on his application for a priglashenie for me, and I expect to put it to the test in about two weeks' time. Before then, I'll try to contact the consulate, but didn't get an answer when I e-mailed them last year, so won't hold my breath waiting for an answer this year. It's a gamble, also I don't know for certain that I can still get a fast visa service there (if you plough through all the recent posts about visas in the expat.ru forum, you'll find speculation and guesses galore, but a paucity of concrete information.) Unless someone takes the plunge before me, I'm probably going to be the guinea pig, and I'll post in this forum and the expat.ru forum (can't in eslcafe.com as I'm banned!) as soon as (thinking optimistically) Tallinn issues the visa or(pessimistically) tells me to go to London.

Thanks, larryp

Teh reason I asked is that your last post made it sound like you might have just returned from getting your visa.

It'll be great if you can post your experiences and result here, not so much for me, as I've just got a new work visa, but maybe for anyone else who has to do a visa run soon.

I suppose that you could always have an Easyjet ticket booked in advance as Plan B, as it were, and if you get turned down you can just zip to the airport and then go on to London.....

I'm sure that you are busy - so I've helped you out on the rant scene, bobs12 -

For a man of cal-i-ber, it won't be too hard to find

As pointed out by my esteemed colleague below, You will need an HIV test certificate for a 3 month Business visa but you will also need the certificate with any teaching visa that you have. Usually, schools issue a 3 month, single entry teaching invite to new teachers before they come out to Russia. Once the teacher arrives in Russia, the school will convert this to a multi-entry one year teaching visa through the local ministry of foreign affairs office. Two things you should be aware of; your 3 month invite MUST be the original document and you MUST have an HIV test certificate (preferably with a negative result - sorry, dark sense of humour). They will turn you away if you don't produce either of these. Good luck

Well, just to throw a spanner in the works

The consulate in Edinburgh didn't give a monkey's 'nad about my HIV certificate (I was very proud of it, what with having passed an' all). New rules (the multi-entry biz visa doesn't let you stay more than 3 months - must be connected to that and the fact that we need other types of visas to be able to infect Russians).

Nonetheless, the best way to tackle visa applications is to go armed with every possible document that they might ask you for. And it's always fun to wait for the results of a test for a deadly disease