There is a lot of talk lately about abolishing visa regime for Serbian citizens. “Visa regime”, you say. “What the heck is that?” Well, this may come as sort of a surprise to you, but not all people on this planet can travel freely and without limitations, and the Serbs happen to fall in to that category. This means that the Serbian travelers need to obtain a visa, which is sort of a travel permission from a country they want to travel to. Oh, i know about that, you say. You just pull out your passport, customs slam some “APPROVED” mark on it, or just look at it and they let you go, right? Wrong, if you are Serbian. If you are Serbian you need to go to the embassy of the country you chose as your travel destination and obtain this permit even before you pack your things and buy your ticket. This permit in fact decides if you are going to do any traveling at all. So, how hard can it be, you ask. Well, let’s see what documents you need to get in order to get a visa:
- valid passport with a photograph, couple of recent photos,
letter of invitation from someone you know in destination country,
visa application,
proof of insurance,
if you are student, you need school certificates, college and preschool degrees, statement of regular attendance from school,
proof of ownership of a flat,
confirmation that you booked a hotel in destination country,
evidence that you can pay for your trip,
copy of a reserved travel ticket,
if you work, you need to show your worker files,
if you own a company, you need to show company registration papers, tax files and bank account,
if you are retired, you need to show your retirement papers,
and a couple more papers and documents, plus visa fee that will amount to 60 EUR from Jan 1st next year, in a country with 250 EUR average salary. Note that if you manage to get all of these papers, it still doesn’t mean that you will get a visa. That’s why you don’t get to see many Serbian tourists abroad, but you do see a lot of Serbian immigrants who simply decide to remain tourists forever. Plus, there’s always the fact that not a lot of people actually have enough money to go island hopping and around-the-world traveling.
So why am i telling you all this? I just wanted to point out one “catch 22” i noticed last couple of years. Fact: more than 70 percent of Serbian students never traveled outside the country borders. Many of them that did travel only went to neighbouring countries – Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria.
Fact: in order for EU to abolish visa regime for Serbia, Serbia needs to fulfill many obligations, and at this moment Serbia isn’t exactly doing everything in its powers to move from the starting point: which all basicaly comes down to the premise that the Serbian citizens and voters must achieve one big change in attitude towards the EU and the rest of the world. In order to do this, we must actually meet the world that surrounds us a bit closer than it is possible via TV and other media – to see it personaly, with our own eyes. In order to see the world with our own eyes, we need to have the possibility to travel. In order to travel… you get the picture. Bit of a endless loop, right? Like many other problems here, it seems like this one too doesn’t have a solution, at least i dont see one. Do you?
And so, until this is resolved, foreign tourists remain one of the few real live links majority od Serbs have with the outside world. And these kind of links are always better than internet, TV and other medias. So, when chatting with the locals, feel free to share some of your culture with them, besides learning about theirs.
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This is really a sad reality… I do think that visa case is one of the most awful treatment Serbians citizen are suffering from. As you can guess I am a foreigner – well half of it….. since half of my blood is Serbian… but I’ve been lucky enough to be born on foreigner land; which gave me an European passport. From my own experience, I can tell that traveling is really important in order to mild opinions, to grow tolerance towards differences or simply to fulfill ones curiosity – especially when you are young and in the process of forming your own opinion of the world we are living in.
, maito:traveling@theworld.co.yu…” against “here everything is better than anywhere else… here we know better than… here we do it better than…(how could you know “than” if you have no point of comparaison???)” so to avoid the poor choice between virtuality and self esteem (wasn’t Serbia number 1 in a recent survey?), that visa regime must fall or Serbia will continue to walk like a crab – two feet forweard, three backward ! And such wonderful people don’t deserve that funny way of progressing.
And young people don’t need much money to travel. You can always find a way to travel and work in the meantime. All you need is a valid passport and the world is yours… so the fact that Serbians are condemned to the “visa regime” is really a very heavy weight… and I must say that I still didn’t figured out why does that regime survive. Look all the other Balkan country around? Most of them are in a similar position as Serbia (in term of corruption, massive emigration or scarce stability) but they are not living under “visa regime” (ex. Rumania). So what is the reason behind that regime ? It certainly has to do with a political whish to isolate Serbia… Don’t tell me that Rumanians are not as “dangerous” in term of immigration for a “wealthy” country as Serbians ? But the former don’t need any visa to travel… But we should not forget that western countries are not the only guilty ones… unfortunately for Serbia, it’s Institutions (Government and Parliament) are also a bit responsible for that regime and I really wonder if the Institutions are really giving much importance about the “visa regime” since most of it’s members don’t suffer from that regime. Could you imagine what kind of success one political party might get if he promised and obtain the removal of that regime ? But this is pure illusion since I really think the abolition of that regime doesn’t matter at all for most of the elite. It’s better for them to maintain the cigarettes smuggling cartel in function!
I am slowly reaching the conclusion that “visa regime” is a kind of anti Visa credit card invented by the western country (mmm it’s a long time I am in the country and I am catching the complot theory virus)… let’s say it’s a special card that give you credit not to travel… and it’s working better than the Visa credit card. When you get your visa, you also get cash money you can show to the world’s customs officers… magic… since a valid credit card is not accepted as a proof of having money enough to travel… who says that having a gold Visa credit card was a sign of richness???
The really sadness behind that “visa regime” is the effect on Serbian youth and by extension on Serbia’s future… how could you ask to a country to progress, to develop democratic mechanisms, to improve it’s economy or to enrich it’s socio cultural education without allowing it’s nationals to travel freely and so enlarge their horizons ? Youth is logically suppose to represent the future of a country no ? I am really afraid that Serbia future will become something like: “LOL,
But after all… Belgrade is an international place, here we have Lukoil, Mercator, Banca Intesa, most of the governmental and non governmental organizations, even travel agencies… with nice pictures, beautiful embassies, the Rolling Stones, rich foreigners (lucky Belgrade… no english beggars sleeping under Brankov bridge, no french diesel boys from the hood racketing locals) and most of all, we have here Silicone Valley… who the hell need to travel ????
This endless loop is creating a chasm between the younge population of Serbia and the rest of the world. We have kids who have totaly warped impression of outside world fuiled by images from TV, movies and video games… totaly out of touch with reality and totaly without any wish to actualy go abroad. And even if they do they go around only reinforcing their own pejudices, singing turbo folk songs in clubs in Greece and Hungary, and fighting both mentaly and phisicaly some imaginary War(tm) they have with the West(tm). The sense of ‘injustice’ that has been done to nation of Serbia grows even more profound. With each day of Visa Regime we sink even deeper.
Hey Ben,
the thing is – Serbians have European passports, too. Just not the one with the 12 stars.
I agree, in general it is better for people to be able to travel freely, and it is a two way street!People from outside Serbia need to go to see Serbia, because their opinions are biased and people from Serbia need the opportunity to see the rest of the world. I think some of the government complicity in the visa regime situation is fear that Serbia might suffer by comparison to other countries and that really isn’t true! For one thing Serbian people and the Serbian way of life will improve as will the way of life in other places. For one thing there are some ways life in America suffers by comparison to life in Serbia. The pace of life for one thing, and the enthusiasm Serbian people have, they are very vivacious people as my dad says!
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