Our Trip to the Police

Written October 27, 2006

Things had been going far too well. The students have been good, eager and interested in the classes. Bratislava has turned out to be a great place to live, with a vibrant cultural life, great music, excellent restaurants and easy to get around. We have done some traveling (Vienna, Nitra and the local area for a wine festival so far) and plan more. (Vienna again tomorrow and Budapest next week during the National Holiday here). The weather has been fantastic, with sunny warm days almost every day. Slovakia has excellent, unheralded wine, which is quite cheap. The beer is great and cheaper than water in restaurants.

However we knew we had to go to the police to register for a temporary residency permit. We had heard horror stories of the bureaucratic run around, but hey I'm a lawyer and used to bureaucracy. We assembled all the paper work ( birth certificates, wedding certificates, certificates that we do not have tuberculosis, syphilis or AIDS, certificates that we have health insurance, etc., etc. etc. ) The excellent people in the local Fulbright office translated all of this into Slovakian. We were all ready to go when we discovered that we needed two more papers, a copy of our lease and an official certification that our landlord actually owned the flat he was renting to us. Again we were ready to go, when we discovered that the last two papers had to be Notarized, which is not the same as a notary in the States. So back for more ribbons and fancy seals.

Finally today all the material was assembled, double checked and off we go. The Police office for foreigners is in Petrzalka, which has the reputation of block after block of grey run down apartment blocks which are holdovers of the Communist days. Actually it is not as bad as its reputation. There are broad boulevards, lots of parks and sports fields, etc. The grey apartments are being spiffed up with brightly colored paint. However it is not a big tourist attraction to say the least.

Well this morning we visited the police to get our temporary residency permit.We left pretty early to go by bus because we felt sure we knew the route because of the excellent website based transportation information. That did not work quite as well as it had before and we ended up hoofing quite a ways but finally found it only to see a long line. But we had until 12 so we did not worry too much until time kept going by and the line moved slowly. Finally it ended up in a dead heat between the line and the clock moving to 12:00. We won by a nose and just got in before they closed the door for good. (The police office is only open Monday, Wednesday and Friday until noon.) We ended up speaking with a nice young woman who spoke a little English, which is more than the others. She went through the papers with a fine tooth comb. There was a question about the term of Susan's health insurance, which we were able to answer and we thought we were home free. But I think they are required to find an error and finally she did. You see we are required to have a notarized copy of the lease and a notarized copy of the landlord's ownership papers. We had those but we did not have two copies of them, one for each of us. You would think that simply putting a note in the file to look in the other file would be enough or even a photo copy of the notarized copy. You would underestimate the love of bureacracy and paper of the Bratislava police.

Maybe she had pity on us or maybe because we were the last ones of the day, but she did accept the papers, told us we would get the residency permit but to bring the papers when we came again to pick up the residency card. And yes we have to stand in line again to get the card after we get a letter informing us to come in and get the card.

I should not complain too much. Apparently the line at the American Embassy to get a visa is even worse than this line.

Charles and Susan Routh
Namestie SNP 23
81101 Bratislava 1
Slovakia
Tel: 09/11335672 (Charles)
09/14 220 832 (Susan)
email: crouth@gsblaw.com
charlesrouth@chello.sk