A Russian Visa Scare

I was quite excited to see a FedEx envelope waiting for me after lunch today. Then I opened and carefully reviewed our visas. And, doggonit, don't you know there were a couple possible problems? Firstly, we depart on 12 July, but don't arrive until 13 July in Moscow. Our visas show we arrive 12 July, but that is apparently not an issue.

The next one could have been a big show-stopper. If you are a woman who had a passport before marrying, you probably know that your passport simply gets amended with your married name. Its a little blurb on the last page of the passport. I would think this is a fairly routine thing to see, but nine times out of ten when I travel outside this country, it stymies everyone from the local airport people to anyone we deal with in the destination country. WHY???? I have no idea, but it is constantly brought up that my flights are in a different name than my passport...uh, no they're not. Look at the amendment page....derrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Well, wouldn't you know that they put my visa in my maiden name???WTF? All the paperwork was filled out with my married name. When I saw this I felt panic rising. I called the agency that handled the visas, and they seemed to think it wouldn't be issue but had to check for sure. I need immediate gratification you see, so they're "couple hours" time frame didn't work for me. I checked the Russian embassy website...not back from lunch until 2:30 and it was 2:15. So, I posted on FRUA. Nobody responded. So, finally I called the Russian embassy in DC, and got through to a woman who really seemed to have no sense of humor whatsoever. I explained the situation and asked, "Is this going to be a problem?". "No." That's all I got. She was a woman of few words for sure, but I guess that's all I really needed from her.