Tashkent – Iran Visa

The embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Tashkent is notorious to be very reluctant to issue visa. My Iran visa struggle has started long before since I was in Kyrgyzstan. The Tashkent Iran embassy said that they wouldn’t issue any visas for Indonesian passport holders because now Indonesians don’t need visa to go to Iran. It was strange reason anyway, because visa free for Indonesians is only for 2 weeks and difficult to extend.

But my friends in Indonesian embassy in Tashkent were trying their best to help me. A staff said, “Let’s try to call them on different day. Maybe different staff will give different answer.”
She was right.
Another day the Indonesian embassy phoned the Iranian embassy, and it was another man who answered the call (I have never seen any women working in Iranian embassies that I have ever visited). The man said it was possible to apply with a letter from our embassy and we had to wait for 2 weeks for the result.

On 12 January 2007 I have heard that the visa was ready and I could pick up. It was almost 1 month since we applied for it. I went to the embassy, paid 45 dollars and signed an application form, and was asked to come 1 week later. I thought I could pick the visa today, but no. Another waiting time is needed. So the initial 1 month of waiting was waiting for nothing?

Today I went to embassy again to pick up the visa. I gave the passport to the staff. Actually he was very friendly and very happy to talk with me as I speak Farsi. Then he asked me to wait for the Consul for interview. The interview, completely in Farsi, was asking where to go, when to go, hotel booking (I have none), but everything was OK. There was another waiting time of 20 minutes before the visa delivered.

Now I have got the Iranian visa already in my passport, in much more complicated stories compared to when I obtained it in Herat.

I directly proceed to Turkmenistan Embassy to apply for Turkmenistan transit visa. Turkmenistan is notorious for difficult visa, long waiting time, and expensive. For applying for 5 day transit visa one has to wait for 10-14 days to get approval from Ashgabad, the capital of Turkmenistan.

The embassy of Turkmenistan is well hidden in small alleys in Mirabad district. It is indeed difficult to time. It opens at 11 o’clock and there were already five men in queue. One of them, Suhrat, 30 years old, is a Turkmen but with no citizenship. He was born in Turkmenistan, raised there, and went to Tashkent to study in university. That time he held USSR passport. But in 1991 the CIS broke up. As he wanted to continue his study in Uzbekistan he didn’t get the Turkmenistan passport. Uzbekistan also refused to give passport to people like him. So he lost his citizenship. It is still possible for him to get Turkmenistan passport, but the bureaucratic country required 10 years of processing time. Now he hold passport for ‘People with No Citizenship’, issued by Uzbekistan, which requires him visas to all countries in the world, with Turkey and UAE as completely no-go.

Living without citizenship, for me it is such a difficult life. Citizenship factually means to which country one belongs. But it has much more meaning than that. Citizenship also means to which nation one is mentally, historically, spiritually related. But without citizenship, it’s like someone without history, without nation that he can relate to. Suhrat needs even visa to go to his own country, and it is not cheap. 51$ per 10 day stay in Turkmenistan. He also cannot seek any consular assistance as there is for sure embassy for ‘people with no citizenship’ doesn’t exist on earth.

But that is just for me. For Suhrat, the passport which he is holding now, passport for people with no citizenship, is the best option for him.

And I have to wait another 10 days to get my Turkmenistan transit visa, after filling 2 copies of very long and asking-too-much application forms.