The Italian consulate in Moscow kept the passports of Russian tourists for the entire summer, leaving applicants unable to travel and, in at least one case, out thousands of euros. Two Russian women, Alexandra and Lyudmila, described their experiences waiting for Italian Schengen visas to the news outlet Lenta.ru.
Alexandra said she submitted her documents at the Moscow office of the Almaviva visa center on May 14, with a flight originally booked for July 19. At the time she applied, processing was taking 45 to 60 days, so she went ahead and bought plane tickets and booked a hotel. By mid-August, she still had not received a response, and all her bookings had expired. She said Almaviva has not been replying to her messages.
Alexandra said the processing time was 45 to 60 days when she applied, but the timeline changed on June 29. She said she and others in her situation lost a combined 8,000 euros, or about 780,000 rubles, in cancelled bookings.
Alexandra also alleged that corruption is widespread at the Moscow visa center, saying it is nearly impossible to book an appointment because free slots are scarce. She said applicants who still want to apply often have to go through an intermediary agency or use a bot run by the visa center, with prices reaching 10,000 to 20,000 rubles per slot. She said visa centers work with certain agents who take up all the available slots, charging large sums of money while bearing no responsibility, and that nothing is refunded if a passport is withdrawn.
A second traveler's ordeal
Lyudmila shared a similar story. She applied for a visa alongside her boyfriend at the VMS center in Moscow on May 27, with a flight planned for July 27. Processing times were still quoted as 45 to 60 days at the time, though she was told they could stretch to 60.
The couple hoped to receive their visas just before the trip, but by late July they were told their passports would not be returned before August 5. Lyudmila's boyfriend changed his vacation dates and, in early August, did receive a letter inviting him to collect his passport from the visa center. Lyudmila did not.
She said her letters and requests to speed up the process led nowhere. A week before she spoke to Lenta.ru, she was told her documents had been reviewed but still had not been returned, and she said she did not know whether she would receive a visa or a refusal. She said her passport spent the whole summer sitting at the Italian consulate.
Almaviva and the EES rollout
Almaviva is the outsourcing company that handles visa applications for the Italian consulate in Moscow on behalf of the Italian government, a common arrangement for Schengen-area consulates worldwide. The delays described by Alexandra and Lyudmila come as European border authorities have been rolling out the Entry/Exit System, known as EES, a digital system that logs the entry and exit of non-EU travelers at the bloc's external borders.
Turkish Airlines boarding denial
Separately, Turkish Airlines refused to let a Russian woman holding a valid Schengen visa board a flight to Italy. Airline staff at the gate told her that her visa had not loaded into the EES system. Several other Russian travelers were subsequently denied boarding on a flight to Portugal for the same reason.
