The Italian Consulate has come up with a new trick for Russians traveling abroad

Beginning to require a work book

Only the Russians rejoiced at the assessment of the visa holders that the most active European destinations began to give us “Schengen”, and from April 1 also Bulgaria and Romania, when the Italians rolled out to us what in Russian they would call “a piano in the bushes” – the requirement of a work book for the day before the trip.

After learning the details, we consulted with visa experts on how to avoid hassle.

Just a week ago, domestic visa intermediaries, who help citizens of the Russian Federation obtain a visa stamp for the Schengen zone, praised Italy, France and Spain for their adequacy and efficiency in issuing visas to us, where the average Russian most aspires. They assured that if you “catch a slot on the website” (manage to stake out time for in-person submission of documents to the visa center), then the consulates of these countries themselves do not hold the paper for more than 2 weeks, giving the applicant an answer, and it is increasingly positive, and visas “ multi” (allowing multiple entries), and sometimes long-term (for a year or two), even if they were not specifically asked for. Alas, today the same experts say that not everything is so rosy, but in this case the Russian tourist has no one to ask. You can only try to avoid unnecessary stress.

“Last week the Italians disrupted the trips of two Russians from Moscow and St. Petersburg, for a week we all thought it was an accident,” Alexey, a capital visa intermediary, describes the “unfortunate events.” “But during this time it became clear that this is a system. And you need to know about it.

The first to report to the Runet about the “cunning” of the Italian consulates in Moscow and St. Petersburg were those who, as a result of it, “got caught up” in tickets and accommodation reservations – the trip had to be rescheduled. The fact is that literally a day before the planned flight to Italy, representatives of the country’s consulate contacted Russian applicants for the Italian Schengen visa and asked to present their work record book according to its status on the current day.

“In one case, everything didn’t look like a mockery,” Alexey explains. – The consular officers had in mind a working link to an online work book, through which they could see whether the applicant had resigned from the place of work indicated in the application form immediately before the trip. The Italians argue that if he didn’t quit, then he’s definitely not a refugee. It would be really easy to send such a link. But the applicant was from the periphery, he only had an old-school paper work book, and he was forced to go with it to St. Petersburg to personally show it to the consul.

Of course, for the one who, the day before the voyage to Europe, went to St. Petersburg with paper work, the voyage fell through, at least the planned and paid for one. But, as visa intermediaries have found, consular officials believe that they have no other way to check whether the applicant is deceiving them. Everyone, they say, attaches a copy of their work book to their application when submitting documents, but what if he then takes it the day before the trip and quits in order to stay in Italy illegally? And how else can you check this, if not the day before your planned trip, a detailed plan of which, by the way, all European visa services also require.

– And what could be a way to “avoid hassle”? – I appeal to a visa intermediary from fellow citizens.

– We were led to believe that one applicant was asked by an Italian consular officer to reveal digital information about his employment right in front of him. So this should help. Or you have an electronic work book and, when you first submit documents, provide a link to it with open access, so that consular officials can check your work status whenever they please. And if your company does not have a system for digitalizing employees, then you can work out obtaining such a certificate on the State Services website. We received it, sent it to them and flew away, according to the purchased tickets. In theory, this should all be quick and simple. This is probably what the Italians think.

Meanwhile, judging by chats on RuNet, there are more and more Russian victims of this Italian delusion. Thus, a family from the Arkhangelsk region with a small child had to personally go to the consulate, where they were not even allowed to enter: at the security booth, they opened a personal account on the State Services from their phone to show a record of their current employment. Domestic consular officials believe that those who do not have a “Schengen history” (visit stamps in their passport) and those who go on a trip with their whole family are more likely to be subject to such checks.