Consulate. Are you panicking? Butterflies in your stomach? Cold hands? Thoughts getting tangled? Starting to stutter? Forgot your name and where you're going?

Why on earth do you need that consulate then?)))) Better drink some mint tea and take a walk in a spring park.

The consulate is not a torture chamber, not an exam, and not even a banal interview. A meeting with a consul is just a normal conversation. That's it! Do you get this nervous when talking to your parents? Or to professors in class?

So keep it simple, people) I just saw girls and boys sitting there, genuinely worried, shaking, and crumpling papers in their hands... some were even sitting there with cheat sheets (!!!) and cramming why they want to go to the States and what their parents' names are. Yeah... quite an atmosphere, for sure.

In order. Consulate in St. Petersburg.

Arrive 15-20 minutes before your scheduled time. Go up to the booth and hand your passport to the guy in uniform. He takes it and tells you to go sit on the bench opposite the consulate for now. Then he brings your passport out, and you get in line. Right there, by the benches. So as not to crowd right by the consulate doors and not attract unnecessary attention. While you're standing there, warming up in the spring heat and watching the process of checking parked cars for explosives. Men walk around with a long stick with a mirror and look under the "belly" of the car... very fascinating)))

The security guard at the door calls people in one by one. You walk up. Hand over your passport and the little green receipt from Pony Express. She verifies the data, gives them back, and asks you to turn off your phone. We go inside. At the entrance, there is a metal detector and a security guard. He "beeps" you, checks your bag, pockets... You hand him your turned-off phone and all devices: flash drives, players, calculators... anything at all. Then he sends you to the stairs and to the left. There is the waiting room.