An Integrated Visa Application Center has opened in Irkutsk, allowing city and regional residents to apply for Schengen visas without leaving the region. At the opening, representatives of the Bulgarian, Czech, and Swedish embassies noted its importance for contacts and convenience. VFS Global will handle applications.
The official opening of the Joint Service and Visa Center took place in Irkutsk the day before yesterday. Now residents of Irkutsk and the Irkutsk Region have the opportunity to obtain visas to countries united by the Schengen Agreement without leaving Irkutsk and at a reasonable cost.Employees of the embassies of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Sweden attended the ceremonial event. As the First Secretary of the Bulgarian Embassy mission, Angel Georgiev, said: “It is very important for our country to give as many Russian citizens as possible the opportunity to experience Bulgarian everyday life, traditions, and history. And if 150,000 Russians visited Bulgaria in 2007, this year their number will exceed 500,000.”
“At present, the Czech Embassy has 10 regional visa centers, and I am very glad that Irkutsk is among them,” emphasized the Second Secretary of the Embassy of the Czech Republic, David Novy. “The presence of a visa center in the region speaks to good cooperation between the countries that signed the Schengen Agreement and the Russian Federation,” commented the Swedish Embassy attaché, Per Hedqvist.
The newly opened service and visa center is operated by VFS Global. It is a global outsourcing and technology services specialist that works with diplomatic missions and governments around the world. For government clients, the company performs administrative tasks related to visa processing, but not including decision-making on them. With 708 visa application centers and operations in 83 countries across five continents (as of June 30, 2012), VFS Global serves the interests of diplomatic missions of 38 sovereign states.
Based on materials from the press service of the Irkutsk city administration