Foreigners Now Need to Prove They have 784 UAH / Day to Enter Ukraine

According to a decree passed by Azarov's government on December 4 that is just now starting to be enforced, foreigners entering Ukraine will now need to provide proof of sufficient funds to enter Ukraine. It is quite a surprise to most of us that the new government has not canceled or modified this decree.

In the text of the decree, "sufficient funds" is defined at 20 times the subsistence level, which is currently set at 1176 UAH per month ($100 USD at the current exchange rate). The resulting monthly sum — 23,520 UAH — is divided by 30 to get a daily amount — 784 UAH — and five extra day amounts — 3920 UAH — are tacked on to the actual number of days the foreigner plans to stay in Ukraine, for good measure.

In other words, the formula is 784N + 3920, where "N" is the number of days you plan on being in Ukraine*.

So, here are the amounts you'll need to prove you have at your disposal for stays of different lengths:

1 day: 4704 UAH (approx. $400 USD)
7 days: 9408 UAH (approx. $800 USD)
30 days: 27440 UAH (approx. $2500 USD)
90 days: 74480 (approx. $6500 USD)

* However, it is unclear whether the extra 3920 UAH will need to be included for stays of one month or longer. 

Exemptions from this requirement are: diplomats, employees of international organizations on official business, and foreigners with Ukrainian residency.

Acceptable documents proving financial solvency include: bank statements, ATM receipts, credit card limits, cash, or a letter of support from an inviting party. These documents do not have to be certified. If no documents are provided, foreigners may be refused entry to Ukraine.

Also, to demonstrate your declared length of visit, you may need travel/transit documents (return/out-bound tickets).

Adapting to a New Country: Part 1

I am currently residing in Tbilisi, Georgia, setting up a second "base" with a new circle of friends and activities. This is a creative response to Ukraine's visa and registration regulations, which make it difficult to stay in the country for more than 90 days out of a 180-day period. I have chosen not to fight the system for the time being and will not attempt to do any complex paperwork to try to stay in Ukraine longer than 90 days at one stretch. In the spring I plan to return to Kiev and Crimea for another 3 months before coming back here or traveling somewhere else. If I choose, I can stay in Georgia for up to a year visa-free, but I can only stay in Ukraine for 90 days at a time.

No one likes having established activities, plans, and relationships in a place and yet not knowing whether they will even be allowed to stay there. This sense of insecurity and unsettledness is a fact of life not only for countless foreign citizens residing in Ukraine, but also for many Ukrainians who live in a system with constantly changing rules that often threaten their livelihoods. Of course, insecurity is not unique to Ukraine or to the former Soviet Union.

Moving to Georgia has given me a new perspective on the process of adapting to a new country and language. I had almost forgotten what it was like to not understand Russian or Ukrainian, to not be able to read signs on the street, to feel awkward addressing people in a foreign language (e.g. Russian or English) not knowing if they'll understand you, to feel slightly tense and disoriented because of your unfamiliarity with my surroundings and with the cultural norms of a place.

For me, the formula for overcoming these initial challenges is to 1) learn as much of the language as possible, 2) make friends with whom I can relax and talk about what's on my mind, based on common interests, and 3) familiarize myself with the place by walking around a lot and seeing what's going on, by studying maps and by reading about the place.

I have tackled all three of these areas at once by 1) arranging in advance for private Georgian lessons 5 days a week starting 3 days after my arrival, 2) staying with couchsurfers (see couchsurfing.org) for the first few days until I found an apartment (through them, by the way), getting involved with Spanish club activities, and taking guitar lessons with a Russian-speaking teacher I found through street advertisements, and 3) picking up maps at the tourist information office and walking around the city center and outlying hills a lot to get to know the place. It has not been painless, but it's been immensely better than starting out with none of the above. Admittedly, my fluency in Russian has given me a big advantage because about half of Georgians are fairly fluent in Russian.

Georgia is like Ukraine in that it has a strange alphabet that creates significant obstacles to learning the language and understanding your surroundings. It takes quite a while to be able to read signs with a speed even remotely approaching your familiarity with your own alphabet.

Based on my experience so far adapting to Georgia, I would like to give some specific recommendations for foreigners who visit Ukraine under similar circumstances (for several months, knowing nobody or almost nobody before arrival). My insight comes from having gone through this multiple times in different countries where different languages are spoken. Georgian will be the ninth language I have studied (counting English) and the fifth country I've lived in for an extended period of time.

Watch for the next post!

Visa Requirements for Ukrainians to Travel to Countries Around the World

Many of you may find this article at Wikipedia useful.

As you can see, many countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the former USSR are accessible to Ukrainians for visa-free or visa-upon-arrival travel. Naturally, these are not the countries most Ukrainians are interested in visiting. А зря! Latin America offers quite a nice lifestyle with a culture more compatible with Ukrainian/Russian culture than most western nations. Turkey, Iran, Kenya, Namibia, Nepal, and Thailand are fantastic travel destinations. And Russia and the 'Stans cover an enormous portion of the Earth's land surface.

Compare Ukrainians' opportunities with those of Russian citizens. The latter have some advantages, particularly with regards to South America, most of which offers Russian citizens visa-free travel. Otherwise, the maps are quite similar.

Commentary on Ukraine's Immigration Policy

If I had had things my way, today I wouldn't be an expat with an English language website about Ukraine for foreigners. I would probably never have taught English in Ukraine, worried out visas and registrations, or had to worry about "border runs." I would just be living somewhere in Ukraine (maybe Russia) doing interesting work that had nothing to do with the English language or the fact that I was born and raised in another country.

But visa and immigration regulations make this nearly impossible. You can't just go to most countries of the world and become a local there and forget about your national passport. Even if you have become completely conversant in the language and the culture and are, for all practical purposes, a local.

When you think about it, these are the kind of people countries should receive with open arms, really. An immigrant with no adaptation issues, who can contribute immediately to the local economy and culture -- certainly this type of person should be Number One in the list of groups to attract for immigration.

But that's not the case. Ukraine's immigration policy is to bring in only relatives of Ukrainian nationals (no matter what their level of adaptation), an occasional rare businessman who has paid $100,000 to get permanent residency, and even rarer celebrities whose immigration is "in the national interests of Ukraine."

People like me (and I know there are not a few) who have been here for a long time, speak the language (or both) fluently, and are young enough and skilled enough to provide the country with years of productive activity can only "get in" if they marry a Ukrainian.

That might not seem like such a bad requirement for foreign men whose sole purpose in life is precisely this. However, what if you happen to marry another foreigner who is also well adapted to life in Ukraine?

Furthermore, experience shows that most foreigners who come here hoping to get married do not integrate into the language and culture and ultimately end up back in their home countries -- along with their Ukrainian spouses, thus robbing Ukraine of yet more young people who have just entered their adult years of maximum productivity.

When you think about it, it's in the economic interests of a country to attract people either right before college or right after college, have them spend their entire working lives in the country, then send them back home as soon as they retire. This way the receiving country gets all the economic benefits of immigration without having to provide many free services such as schooling and social security.

Conversely, the worst is when you invest money into your citizens' schooling and upbringing and they promptly leave upon reaching adulthood. This is Ukraine's situation. Many of the country's brightest and most industrious citizens have left, leaving behind those who are, on average, somewhat less productive and capable (not all, of course, but on average this would seem to be true).

To be fair, many elderly and working-age Ukrainians have also successfully emigrated to Europe to enjoy the retirement and jobless benefits.

Ukraine could partially offset its "brain drain" by making it attractive for bright, young, well-adapted foreigners to stay and work in Ukraine indefinitely. Not as come-and-go language teachers, under-the-table document editors, or under-the-bridge second-hand clothing vendors, but as full-fledged members of society.

I know an Iranian MBA student who speaks Russian fluently and cannot work in Ukraine legally during his studies. Other foreign students are in the same boat. Ukraine's policy is to get foreigners here to study (not without hoops, of course), prevent them from working while they study (but they usually must, so they work illegally), then get them out of here.

If regulations were changed, many of these same students would stay in Ukraine and work indefinitely as productive members of society. By the end of their studies most of these people are already well adapted to Ukraine and are fluent in one of its languages. They have Ukrainian friends and are no longer socially and culturally isolated from the rest of society. Ukraine should welcome these people in. For practical purposes, they're basically Ukrainians already.

Likewise expats like myself who see no compelling reason to leave Ukraine, but like it here and fit in. The reason this category of people sticks to English-related work is because that is the only work you can expect to get a work permit for, since part of the process is proving that a Ukrainian citizen cannot perform your work.

Thus, you have highly skilled professionals who limit themselves to teaching English because that's the only work they can hope to legally perform. Wouldn't Ukraine be better off trying to get these people working more productively in its economy?

After all, being a poorer country, Ukraine is not going to attract people who come to earn money to send home to their families in the U.S., Europe, or even Turkey. Economically, it doesn't matter if an expat comes and earns $5000 a month or $500, as long as the money is spent in Ukraine.

Of course, there are also plenty of expats who don't have intentions of staying here for a long time and who don't make much effort to learn a language. This is actually the category of people that should predominantly be teaching English and other foreign languages, which is generally unskilled labor (with a high burnout rate) consisting of generating conversation in one's native tongue and occasionally correcting errors.

Ukraine, like east Asian countries, should set up a policy of facilitating the legal temporary employment of foreign language teachers. Let them come here and work for a year, or two or three, and return home. Let Ukrainians learn foreign languages from natives, for heaven's sake.

Alas, Ukraine's national policies are often not aligned with its national interests. Furthermore, its de facto policies often differ significantly from its official regulations.

To be fair, this is true to some extent of every country. We Americans are xenophobic about hard-working Latinos who contribute immensely to our economy. Western European countries let in unqualified, poorly adapted Turks, Africans, and Arabs and yet have no route for highly qualified and adaptable Eastern Europeans just out of college.

If it were up to me, I would instate immigration routes for the categories of people a country is interested in economically and socially. The family member route would remain and is, I believe, dictated by international law. The businessman route and the celebrity route can remain, as almost no one uses them anyways.

But I would also add a route for contributing members of society who have adapted to Ukrainian culture and learned its language(s). A requirement of two or three years spent in the country plus advanced Ukrainian or Russian language skills and at least a low-intermediate knowledge of Ukrainian would be appropriate. Furthermore, the person should have at least 10 years left till retirement and should be easily employable in Ukraine.

This would give successful foreign students the possibility of continuing their lives legally in Ukraine, as well as expats who have a lot to contribute and have made an effort to fit in. The policy would be: "Want to live in Ukraine? Then learn the language(s), develop professional skills, and demonstrate that you are willing and capable of getting by here."

Finally, as mentioned above, I would establish routes for temporary legal employment of native teachers of foreign languages, as is done in China, Korea, and Japan. This is important in the long run if Ukraine seeks to expand its economic and cultural ties with the rest of the world.

Implementing these common-sense policies could be a lot of work in a country where private language schools aren't even allowed to declare "language instruction" as a business activity, but pretend to engage in "consulting services" because all commercial education services require accreditation by the uncooperative Ministry of Education.

ADDED OCTOBER 10, 2012

A reader named Michael brought to my attention another group of foreigners who might want to emigrate to Ukraine and contribute to its economy: senior citizens who have assets to support them or who receive pensions from foreign governments. I can see no good reason to prevent these people from moving to Ukraine indefinitely, especially if they draw no additional money out of the Ukrainian government budget.