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I thought I would put the information about the nightmare of paperwork needed for a foreigner to get married in

Belarus

. The last few weeks and last few days in particular have proved to be very difficult for us and finding information about this process is almost impossible. I hope I can somehow help someone else out by putting this information online. The process is about Belarus but its also probably very similar to what also happens in Russia and Ukraine.

Needed before you start:

Passport
Visa to Belarus
Someone willing to marry you!
Patience

What you (should) need to register for marriage:

Certificate of non-impediment
Translation of passport
Migration card showing you have registered with police in Belarus.

Certificate of non-impediment

You can either get this in the

(probably similar systems in other countries though) or in

Belarus

. Either way you have to wait 3 weeks for this document.

Getting ‘certificate of non-impediment’ in UK

I got my certificate in

Belarus

so I can’t say too much about this process. It however involves getting the certificate from your local registry office and waiting 3 weeks. Then you need to get an apostelle for this document in London. I believe you can go in person or send it by post which takes 4 weeks.

Getting ‘certificate of non-impediment’ in Belarus

You need to check that your embassy in

Belarus

will be able to give you a ‘certificate of non-impediment’. In my case I went to the British embassy and they seem to be doing them regularly. I also heard the US embassy does them (as long as they continue to have an embassy in Belarus) and probably others do to.

Its worth mentioning that when I first rang the British embassy in Minsk from the

they told me that I need to get this document in the

before coming to Minsk. However if you want to get married in Belarus you need to quickly develop a persistent attitude, in my experience people in Belarus will always give the answer that will get rid of you the quickest, they seem to have no interest in actually helping you, so work out what you need to know and keep asking and asking.

Go to your embassy in Minsk and register for a ‘certificate of non-impediment’, $124 in the British embassy. You will then unfortunately have to wait 3 weeks while this document is displayed inside the embassy. 21 days later you can return to the embassy to swear on the bible that you are available for marriage and pay another $124 for the privilege. This might not be quick; I was there at 9.30 in the morning and only left with the certificate at about 16.30.

Next stage is to get this document stamped by the Ministry of foreign affairs so that it can actually be used in

Belarus

! This is at K. Marx St 37 which conveniently for us Brits is just around the back of the British embassy. At the time of writing they only accept documents from 15.00 until 16.00 (so of course it was closed after we finished at the embassy) and then allow you to collect the notarized copy between 19.00 and 20.00. It costs around $2. All they do is stamp and sign it which actually the British embassy already did but you will get used to such stupid systems. So if you are in a rush remember that even after the 3 weeks waiting there is potentially 2 days of extra waiting around for the certificate.

Translation of passport

This is simple and if you are waiting 3 weeks for your certificate in Minsk you can do this in the meantime. Take your passport to an official translator in Minsk and they will be able to translate the personal details page of your passport into Russian and then notarize this translation. Only costs about $20. If not sure where to go ask in your Embassy.

Migration card with registration

This should be simple however nothing in

Belarus

is simple. You are required anyway when you visit

Belarus

to register with the police. Just go to the local Police station of where you are staying with your passport, migration card and insurance documents. Now according to the

Belarus

embassy in London British citizens don’t need insurance. The Police where I register never heard about this. I anticipated this would happen and so anyway I had my worldwide insurance certificate of quite a well known company going by the name of American Express with me. Well apparently this was not a valid insurance certificate so I had to go to a local insurance office and buy their insurance. Doesn’t cost much but pissed me off somewhat.

Registry office

So you now have your ‘certificate of non-impediment’ either from your own country with apostelle or the version from your embassy in

Belarus

notarized, translated and notarized passport and migration card with registration.

Take a deep breath and present these to your local registry office and you should be able to marry anytime after 15 days. I would advice that this is not a surprise visit if you are in a hurry; its better to have been consulting them from the very beginning because different offices can interpret the rules differently and might ask for something unusual. If they ask for something outrageous then its better you have time to try and either get them to consult further up the ladder or get your embassy on to them. Having said this we consulted with our local registry office weeks before I was even in

Belarus

and my future wife checked and double checked the documents they wanted. Upon arriving with all our documents the 'helpful' woman said that she is not sure about these documents and would need to take them to Minsk later that day to show her superior. She quoted some bizarre story about a girl being married to a foreigner who later turned out to have 5 wives so she explained she was trying to be helpful and doing us a favor, hmm.

The next day the ‘helpful’ woman explained that the wording of the ‘certificate of non-impediment’ is wrong. It said something like ‘the British government knows of no impediment for my marriage in

Belarus

’. She said that it should say ‘I am available to marry’. It’s good that my Russian is very basic and doesn't include rude words or we would have been banned from that office. We were quite sure the British embassy wouldn’t rewrite it the way she wanted as it’s a standard document. We rang the British embassy and explained and as predicted they said they wouldn’t change it, so she asked if they can talk to the ‘helpful’ woman. They talked for ages, then the ‘helpful’ woman talked to her superior in Minsk and probably he/she talked to the British embassy too. Eventually after yet another long wait she announced that we are very lucky and they will allow us to use this document. Such a ‘helpful’ woman!!

So documents accepted we had to wait 15 days until we could marry.

I still cannot believe all the problems and paperwork involved with a certificate which essentially doesn’t prove anything. It merely says that I swore on the bible that I can marry.

Extension of visa

You may have noticed that if you get your ‘certificate of non-impediment’ in Belarus and plan to stay until you get married that you will be in Belarus far longer than the usual 30 day visa. You can get longer visas but it’s more complicated to get one. I was in the situation of having a 30 day visa but needed at least 36 days from applying for the certificate until the day of the marriage. Of course after 2 extra days getting the certificate in Minsk, an extra days delay due to our ‘helpful’ woman at the registry office and also losing a day for Christmas it ended up being quite a bit longer for us.

The

Belarus

embassy in the

says quite clearly on its website that visas cannot be extended. I was working on this assumption and was planning at some point during the process to leave

Belarus

and go to Warsaw to get another new visa. However we found out at the British embassy (the waiting around was productive) that I can actually go to the police and extend my visa. I don’t however think this can be used in all cases as they need to decide if you have a legitimate reason to extend your visa. We explained that we are getting married and that was ok, we just needed to show proof of the wedding booking. Some police offices may be more relaxed about this though, difficult to know until you try.

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