LINK
From Russia With Blood, Beauty, and Beasts
Slate’s Travel Dispatches are back!
Excerpt:
You can learn a great deal about what a country wants from its visa application. For example, the Brazilians just desire the fee. Thailand encourages “multiple entries”—a double entendre I suspect is intentional. The Chinese want visitors who are free of diseases, specifically HIV, open tuberculosis, and leprosy.
What do the Russians want? Apparently, they want to know everything about you: every country you’ve visited; every school you’ve attended; every charity you’ve donated to; every place you’ve worked; every supervisor you’ve ever had, along with his or her phone number; and whether you have any military experience related to nuclear, biological, or chemical “activities.”
