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INTRO |
 GREECE (BASED ON A SPECIAL LAW) DOES NOT ISSUE ENTRY VISA TO ANYBODY (IRRELEVANT OF THE NATIONALITY) IN WHOSE PASSPORT THERE IS TRACE THAT HE OR SHE HAD VISITED THE TURKISH PART OF CYPRUS(KIBRIS) AFTER 1984. I know people, friends and acquaintances, who can enter Greece any one way they please. But I also know people, also friends and acquaintances, who cannot enter Greece any one way they tried. Out of personal experience I know that one can enter Greece on foot, by train, by car, by airplane and by boat. That would make thethis chapter Entering Greece, a peace of cake. Almost. Once you have a valid visa and a particular passport. The citizens of the Republic of Macedonia,to who this site is more or less prepared for - have problems with both the visa (small) and the passport (big). Occasionally they also face problems with the immigration officials who may (out of a myriad of personal or other reasons) make the entry into Greece a memorable, usually awkward, experience for those carrying Macedonian )or even Commonwealth) travel documents.   Personally I enter Greece without major problems because I do not use the blue passport of the Republic of Macedonia lately. I consider the whole procedure of acquiring an entry-exit tourist visa with a Macedonian passport a sort of humanely demeaning experience. That is why I travel on my Dutch passport. But I know, because I have witnessed what happens at the border crossing and read very documented press reports about horror stories experienced by various individuals.In short, some nationalities perceive entering, sojourning and leaving as a traumatic or not altogether pleasurable experience. There is absolutely no reason to elaborate further on this topic. It does not lead to anything. Especially when one keeps in mind that for the already claustrophobic because of the difficulties to get any Schengen type visa - experience their Greek holidays as a claustrophobic would enjoy a lavish picnic with friends on by the Central Park serpentine in New York. I will not recite what documents are needed with the application form for a greek visa for Macedonian passport-holders. Thee is no point indicating the going price for the service of somebody queuing for you to obtain a roll-number and how one can evade the messy crowd waiting, sweating and pushing in front of the Greek consulate in Macedonia.  
Now, for the sake of simple objectivity, I need to say that many other countries do not treat the Macedonian visa applicants any better. The British, to make sure the group of student of a cultural folklore association really was going to perform folk-dances at a reputable international folk-dancing festival in the UK, I think in Llangholen, the consular section officials wanted to make sure the applicants were really those who were going to perform in the UK. So, they made them dance. What if the applicants said they were surgeons or beauty-contest participants? Or take Switzerland for example, a country swarming with junkies from all over the world. Every shady character is there. The open spaces in many cities are littered with discarded needles and syringes extended for free by the Swiss to those hordes of hopeless junkies - but the immigration officer turns the pages of my beautiful blue Macedonian passport as if it was the dirtiest porno-booklet. I told him (with the Dutch passport in the pocket it is somewhat easier to fight anybody at the border-crossing) that he should look at me, not the pages of the passport because it is me who is entering the confederation of cantons, but he, as if Greek, disregards me and scratches hi helvetic head as if attacked by all the the lice of the world. Long time ago I loved traveling around the world on the SFRY passport. It was treated as top-class travel document. Only the Greeks were the same - the letter RM in front of the passport number told them it was issued in the Republic of Macedonia and then - it was, the SFRY passport, just as badly treated as the Macedonian one today. I do not know why Tito allowed them such an attitude. There must have been some big, fat counter-service. Otherwise, the wane person he was and with all that international capital and aggressiveness - the marshal could have closed them into a mouse-trap.  |
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