Getting ready
Visa regulations:
Surfing official websites about visa regulations for Ukraine can be a bit confusing. The foreign ministry, for example, still displays the list of countries with a visa waiver from 2001.
This is from before the Eurovision song contest of 2004. In this year, the Ukrainian singer Ruslana won, which meant that Ukraine would host the 2005 contest. To present Ukraine as friendly and open as possible, president Viktor Jushenko decided to waive the visa requirement for all European Union countries some weeks before the event in Kiev in May 2005 – and has since then extended this waiver indefinitely.
So currently citizens of European Union countries as well as the USA, Canada, Japan, Switzerland, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco and Iceland do not need a visa. The same is true for most ex-Soviet Union States.
This visa-free stay is limited to a maximum of 90 days after entering the country.
This used to be without any further requirements. Just crossing the border and immediately re-entering the country qualified for another 90 days – a fact happily exploited by the ex-pat community in Ukraine. Acquiring a working visa and the subsequent official registration at the place of residence can be such a lengthy process that leaving the country every 90 days often seemed preferable.
In light of this, as well as the fact that the European Union did nothing to lift or at least ease visa requirements for Ukrainian citizens in exchange for the visa waiver, the 180 day rule was introduced in 2007. This states that foreigners without visa requirements can only stay in Ukraine for 90 days out of every 180 days.
At the time of writing this rule is still patchily enforced, especially since it was passed by parliament against the will of the president and so has been the object of one of the many power struggles in Ukrainian politics. However, efforts are underway to ensure its full application, and nobody should bank on catching the right immigration officer on the right day to still be able to get into the country.
Links:
A list of countries without Visa requirements
http://www.ukrconsul.org/visa/visa_drops.htm
Types of visa
http://www.ukrconsul.org/visa/visa_types.htm
Visa application form (in English, the same information required on the versions in other languages):
http://www.ukrconsul.org/visa/VISA.pdf
Travel health insurance
Of course you should never travel without health insurance that covers you in the place you want to go – but you do that is usually up to you. For some travelers their national health system covers them for a small extra payment and others choose the commercial offer that best suits their needs.
In some countries, the Ukrainian embassies list having a state-approved travel health insurance for the duration of the visit as a requirement both for getting a visa and entering the country. These are sold by just a few health insurers who have some agreement of co-operation with Ukraine’s national health insurance. They are not necessarily the best deal, and taking out one would mean costly double coverage in some cases.
If you live in one of the countries were the embassy lists this requirement and do not need a visa for the trip to Ukraine that you are planning, then the advice is simple: just ignore it! Nobody at the border ever asks to see proof of this insurance, and when I presented mine the first couple of times when entering the country, good German that I am, it was brushed aside with a look between non-understanding and annoyance.
For a visa application I have so far not tested doing without proof of this insurance. The last time, however, I found a way to get around actually having one. I told the insurance agent that I needed to get a visa on the same day and that I was not sure whether I needed the insurance. He agreed to issue me a statement of insurance to take to the embassy, but did not send my application on to the company immediately. After presenting this statement at the embassy, I just called the insurance agent saying that I hadn’t actually needed it, and he cancelled the insurance. 350 euros saved and no harm done!
Getting there
Nothing special here – just choose the mode of transport that best suits your likes, schedule and budget. From most European countries bus services exist to major Ukrainian cities, and this is probably the cheapest way to travel. Be aware, however, that the trip can be rather long. With several unexpected delays it took me 56 hours to reach Dnipropetrovsk when I first came to Ukraine.
Getting in
The immigration form
Passing the Ukrainian border controls is generally an easy process. While the border guards are more often in an unfriendly mood than not, they are not hostile, and making trouble for foreigners is not part of their job description. There is, however, one little snag that often keeps up the line at immigration after a foreigner has walked up to the window.
This is the address line on the immigration form that travelers are given before the border. Some of us might consider it old-fashioned to be asked for the place you are going to stay, and others might not even know until their friends or business partners pick them up to take them there. The simple fact that it is an item on the immigration form, however, means that it has to be filled out. The immigration officers will not, under any circumstances, accept it being left blank.
Surprisingly enough, what actually goes in there doesn’t matter as long as it is plausible. Presently nobody checks them. So if you have forgotten where you are staying, or never knew in the first place, then making up a combination of a name and an address right when you are given the form is much preferable to the hassle at immigration later on.
Pretty safe bets are streets with the names of any of the big communists – Karl Marx and Lenin are still present as street names in pretty much any Ukrainian city, and house numbers under 50 should be okay for these as well. For the more careful amongst us, asking travelers around you for the address of an actual hotel might be a better idea. But however you do it – have your papers in order by the time you present them at the immigration desk!
Important note:
The immigration officer will hand you back one half of the immigration form. This has to be presented to the border guards upon leaving the country. Keep it somewhere safe from harm, as losing it is the beginning of a considerable amount of bureaucratic trouble before you can leave the country again!
On bribes
Ukraine generally a corrupt country, and its badly paid civil servants are often on the take. Airports seem to be the exception from the rule. Whether the pay is better here, or there are stricter controls, in any case you are very unlikely to be asked to pay a bribe for entering the country or to avoid being hassled about some imaginary violation of import laws.
On occasion however, especially with the last few travelers to pass through customs, you may be asked to pay some money to avoid trouble. Depending on your level of Ukrainian or Russian, you may not understand the details, since a lot of the border guards and customs officers speak no English, but the international gesture of rubbing index finger and thumb together will soon make the case clear for you.
At this moment it is imperative not to let on to the fact that you have understood what they want from you. Just play as dumb as possible. If they should manage to present their wishes to you in your native tongue then you still claim ignorance. Maybe you are just too stupid to understand what they want. As soon as they have come to the conclusion that it doesn’t make any sense to continue making you try to understand, they will just let you go. Since they wanted to keep the money to themselves, engaging in any official proceeding is out of the question, and they will look for a more profitable use of their time.
Getting out
Love of paper
The Soviet bureaucracy worked on a need to know basis. This meant that the question why some particular formality needed to be fulfilled was not one that the citizen asked, nor one that the bureaucrat involved in it could have answered.
This tradition has led to a high regard for the form of all things paper: a form that you are given to fill in is an ends in itself, and it is best to regard it like this. A torn edge, an unnecessary crease or – god beware – a water stain can lead to anything from unfriendly stares to long chastisements.
I once had to stand for five minutes and have a border guard rotate the departure card in front of my face, with him constantly questioning what this was. The reason? On entering the country, one of his colleagues had improperly separated the two halves of the immigration form so that a piece of one centimeter by one was missing. The guard at the departure gate seemed unable to understand how anybody could so mistreat this important piece of paper.
So do yourself a favor – treat all official papers with the greatest of respect. They may not deserve it in your eyes, but it does save you a lot of potential trouble.
The Ukrainian view on security
When I left the country for the first time, I made a grave mistake: I didn’t check my backpack for anything that shouldn’t go on a plane. At the security check, the inspector took out a pocket knife with a long, broad blade that could be fixed in position – and which I always carry in there to cut bread when I’m travelling.
They beckoned me to follow them into a small room, sat me down, and started to open and close the knife in front of me, all the while growling things in Russian, and repeating the word “problem”. Fortunately an employee of the airline if was flying with and who I knew personally came and got me out of this conundrum.
Later on I was surprised to learn that I would have encountered similar problems had I packed the knife into my check-in luggage. While most countries do not even object to guns in there (as long as they are declared and legally owned), Ukraine does not allow anything that could be dangerous in the plane’s cabin anywhere on the plane. So whether it is your trusty travel knife, your geologist’s hammer or the traditional Ukrainian mace that you bought as a souvenir – there is no getting them out of the country on a plane.
As usual with Ukrainian bureaucracy, arguing the futility of these measures does not help.
Text by Alex Gödde, Germany
