I almost went home for Christmas, thanks to Prime Minister Zubkov. He announced out of the blue that Russia is ratcheting up immigration laws, mostly in an effort to get even with Western standards (it's a ten-fingerprinting, interrogation, waiting, expensive nightmare for Russians to get US visas--"Are you sure you don't want to stay in America? Why? Under what circumstances might you stay? Why don't you want to stay? What do you have against America?" Honestly, my students have stories.)

So now, the tons of Americans and Brits working here with no permit can't just buy 6-month business visas, settle down, get paid in cash, and pop over to Kiev or Helsinki every 6 months. Now you can only spend 90 out of any given 180 days in Russia, and you have to renew in your home country.

The language school is one of the only businesses around that can issue year-long multi-entry visas with work permits. So I would have saved myself a big headache by not quitting a couple weeks ago. In my rush to figure out how to stay in Russia, and be on a plane instead of in jail the next time I go to the airport, I asked the editor of the oil and gas magazine if she could help me out through the business. She (surprise) went through the roof. She doesn't have time for this, other people have done my job and haven't etc etc. I had assumed that her business was in the same ballpark of legitimacy as the language school, and hoo boy was I wrong. She can't issue work invitations. She doesn't even have a work permit for herself, she pays her employees in cash US dollars (way illegal), and I'll eat my hat if she declares any taxable income.

But I didn't know this, so I asked her to have a 2-minute conversation with Big Midwestern Underground Fungus. He wanted to see what her situation was before he'd agree to give me a month-long grace period on the visa, to make sure she wouldn't get him in trouble. She flat-out refused to talk to him ("I don't know who he is. You probably don't understand what I mean by that, Rhubarb, because you haven't been in Russia long enough. I DON'T KNOW WHO HE IS.")

I ended up solving the visa thing by negotiating with BMUF to teach just one class in exchange for visa support until it expires in April. He's desperate for teachers, I'm desperate for a visa, and both of us were trying not to show it. In the end I'm glad to be independent of the editor. I don't think I want to work very long for someone who talks to her employees the way I'd maybe talk to someone who just shot me in the leg (although Лена and I have plans to rent "The Devil Wears Prada," which I'm looking forward to), and partly because her business is wicked sketchy. Apparently that's how Russia has been running since the 90s, but things are changing now and it's bound to hit the fan sometime.

It's a gold mine of info about the Russian oil and gas industry though. I just wrote an article on an interview I did with 2 students who are going into the oil industry. (She decided last minute that she wanted me to interview them instead of sit in while she did it, so I had about 5 minutes to prepare then she sat there the whole time and interrupted when she felt like it.) The two guys are studying at a program run jointly by top science universities and a big Russian oil company. The universities have the theory and brains, and the company has the money and practical problems (How do you extract the exceptionally globby oil from Sakhalin II? How can you use seismic data to tell where it is?) They were really sunny about working for the company and even talked about "corporate patriotism." Big oil doesn't have the moral mixed-baggage that it does in the States. They're going to Houston soon, and I put them in touch with Tyler from the Tibet trip. I love when I can fit my incongruous worlds together.