Applying for a Russian visa

In any bureaucratic environment the number of those serving consumers of the bureaucratic product is far fewer than the number of bureaucrats whom the consumer never sees, or sees only fleetingly, in the time it takes to open or close a door or to file a report in a cabinet made of red metal in the back room.

Those at the front desk, in the front lines, are greatly outnumbered by those behind the scenes who provide the support services on which the bureaucracy depends.

The bureaucrat with no face is the most powerful.

The degree to which he or she remains without a face, and therefore unseen, is in direct proportion to the influence the bureaucrat wields, with the unseen being most powerful and the clerk at the front desk who, at long last looks you in the eye to process your application, being the least.

Olga is her name.