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Russian citizens entering Georgia
Photo: Zurab Tsertsvadze / dpa
The phones don't ring, the e-mail boxes are overflowing: the German embassies in Armenia, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Belarus have recorded a sharp increase in visa requests from Russian citizens since the Russian mobilization.
Thousands of requests for entry permits to Germany have been received by the German representations in Yerevan, Astana, Tbilisi, Baku and Minsk since September 21, 2022, according to the Federal Foreign Office.
It is no longer possible to record and process the applications within the specified deadlines - for this reason there are no exact figures on the number of applications, it said at the request of SPIEGEL.
The applicants report accordingly by telephone and e-mail - but increasingly they also go personally to the German diplomatic missions.
Dates for hearings could no longer be given, it said.
While the German embassy in the Georgian capital Tbilisi registered ten to 20 applications from Russian nationals per month in the past few months, from the day of the mobilization until the middle of this week there were already more than 300 inquiries from Russians who wanted to travel to Germany.
The Federal Foreign Office is currently examining an increase in its workforce in the five cities.
In total, more than 200,000 Russians have traveled to neighboring countries since the mobilization – around 100,000 of them to Kazakhstan alone.
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have already imposed entry bans for Russian tourists and also for Russian citizens who have Schengen visas.
And Finland has now tightened its visa rules for travelers from Russia.
