Stamps, copies and papers

Finally we have all papers. Hopefully. This will be a long story but by far not as long as the real siuation to get:
A: A working visa for me
B: A working visa for Roza
C: License plates for my car
D: A visa for Roza's son
As you know I am a little bit intrigued by counting and checking (see taxi"s).
But the main reason to write something about all this is the fact that a country as Serbia has to go a long way to be as other Western European countries. Oh yes, also other countries can be very bureaucratic but there is a big difference and that is that here there are no written rules for the public. No leaflets, no information office, nothing. How easy it would be for the Serbian governement to set up a "one-stop-shop" for foreigners who have to deal with all these issues?
Now you need to go to at least 6 different places and dozens of different officials to get the right paper/stamp. That last seems to be extremely important. Stamps, they love them here. It is clearly not the fact if the paper is original but the more stamps are on it, the more serious they take it. The two working visa's wee not even a real prolem. Besides to show all official papers that our company is officially registered it was not a real issue. A total of 17 documents, 23 stamps, a short trip to the Croatian border to get an entree stamp.....and we had our working visa!
License plates for the car. That was more difficult but to be honest one of the main reasons was the fact that the EU made a mess from my previous registration as diplomat. They unlawfully wrote a letter to the registration office that I would import my car in the Netherlands and therefore would not bring back the old license-plates. (something strange here, you need to give back licenseplates, wonder where they bring them?) As I am the "owner" of the license plates I had to collect them in my old office and happily they were still there. So, bringing back those plates was easy and within 10 minutes I had my new licenseplates (999-739) The three nines are to show the police from a far away distance that I am a foreigner. (more money to spent???)
But all this did not happen before I copied lot of original paperwork, collected stamps in the "opstina" and had to run to 4 different officials. But what is time here? POLAKO!
Visa for Roza's son.....will not bother you with it.Too bad for words and too long. It is clear that Serbs don't like to take any responsibility if they are not sure and therefore sent you to every office possible to get......a stamp!
One example was the original birth certificate, stamped and signed by the Kyrgyz Ministry of Interior AND the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But that was not enough and we had to go the the Serbian Ministry of FA. There they were very unsure and told that the stamps from Kyrgyz Republic were not accepted since they have no agreement with Serbia. So they sent us to the Russian embassy. (on my question what the independent Kyrgyz Republic had to do with Russia the man looked at me like I asked the most stupid question ever!) But anyway, the Russians are our friends because in 5 minutes they made the paper even more original with.....a stamp!
Back to the Ministry and after 3 hours waiting (the man incharge was not there for 1,5 hour as his mother fell ill) we got also there a......stamp, yessss!
Then to translate it all in Serbian language (English is not accepted here, strange!) and back to the Police to obtain the visa. But no. Another paper has to be translated in Serbian and then, yes then it will all be good! Wow. That was a short story about 8 weeks of running around all offices.
Oh....Forgot to tell that we had of cours to pay tax. For every stamp THEY want to have you have to pay. 5 Euro here, 10 there, 25 in other places etc. etc. But at the end a lot of money I guess around 1200 Euro!
See you soon!