Three days processing of visa-applications is history. “Always apply at least 15 days prior to scheduled departure. Our processing time is 10 days,” says Marit Egholm Jacobsen, head of the visa section at Norway’s Consulate General in Murmansk.
Norway’s General Consulate plans to keep its doors open for people applying for border citizen certificates, without them having to take a day off from work.
“Longer opening, better capacity at Storskog” was promised in the political platform by Norway’s new coalition government last autumn. Not so any more.
How come that the Barents and the Balkan regions have nearly the same average life expectancy, but their GDPs are dramatically different? BarentsObserver compares two border regions trying to find an answer.
Andrey Vokuev in Naryan-Mar fears for the cooperation between indigenous peoples. Next week, applicants from the Nenets tundra will have to fly to Arkhangelsk to give fingerprints to get a Schengen visa.
Russian vehicles might in the near future have to pay up to 2200 EUR per year for using Finnish roads. Finnish government officials say the measure is meant to alleviate problems with heavy traffic and backlogs on main roads in south-eastern Finland.
The local visa-free zone between Kaliningrad and parts of Northeast Poland will come into force on 27 July and give facilitated cross-border traveling for more than four million people.
The Russian border town of Nikel is experiencing a high increase in the number of Norwegian tourists after the introduction of visa-free travels for border zone inhabitants. Local authorities see a large potential in developing tourism.
