When the left hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing

I expect this will be my first and last rant on the topic, mostly because it's not very interesting. It's irritating and it's petty, but it's also completely impersonal, and therefore not worth getting embittered about.

I received notification today that the Citizenship and Migration Board were denying my application for a Long-Term Resident's Permit, because since I first arrived in Estonia I have spent one month and nineteen days longer outside of the country than they clearly feel is appropriate for someone who has been here almost seven years.

I don't have a problem with this - they quoted legislation at me chapter and verse pointing out exactly why I fail to qualify - except that said law is the very thing I questioned them about prior to submitting my application, and was assured that whatever the short version said, I did indeed qualify. To paraphrase the reply I received to my query: "Oh, you've been here more than five years in total, so that's alright."

Being told that black is white by one 'specialist' before being enlightened by another that black is indeed black after all is symptomatic of the Citizenship and Migration Board, so I can't say I'm surprised. I have had to deal with them half a dozen times since I came to Estonia in August 2000 and never once have things run smoothly. At least this time I encountered possibly the only friendly employee they have when I lodged the application.

I can't even say I'm disappointed, really, as it's all so much red tape. It was a waste of money, needless to say, but the decision won't affect me in any way. It will just mean that when my current Temporary Residence Permit expires next February I will have to go through the whole application process again. According to the board's figures I won't meet the Long-Term Resident's Permit criteria until next August, when I clock up five years since I returned from my last extended trip home. But given I'll have to pay another 1500 kroons for a temporary permit in February I'd be a fool to pay the same again less than six months later. I might as well wait until that one expires and then make another application for the long-term permit. Which at that rate would be some time in 2010, almost ten years after first settling in the country.

The exasperating thing of course is the inflexibility of bureaucracy. I can shrug it off - because let's face it, what else is there to do apart from bash your head up against a brick wall - but there's still a point to be made: the letter I received listed every date related to my residency in Estonia, thus making it clear even to the Citizenship and Migration Board that I have lived here plenty long enough to qualify if there weren't these pointless sub-clauses. They are also aware that I meet all the other requirements, not the least of which being proficiency in the local language (as the lady who dealt with me when I submitted my application can attest from our chummy conversation about Australian and Estonian fauna, of all things), and must therefore also know that I have invested a lot of myself in the place.

"You actually like Estonia?!" asked the woman charged with taking my money from me when I made my application. "Of course!" I replied. "Why, do most people applying for residence permits not like Estonia?" She leant in to answer in a conspiratorial whisper. "Not the Russians," she revealed. "They come in here, shouting at us in Russian; they refuse to speak Estonian, and probably can't anyway, and tell us the only reason they stay in Estonia is because they don't have anywhere else to go. And we have to give them what they ask for." I took this for what it was - a crass generalisation, albeit one rooted in truth - but it does underscore the irony of my situation: I really love Estonia and plan on staying here, and have done my level best to integrate through learning the language and getting to know the country and its people, but still they turn around and say I'm not acceptable.

For now, anyway.