DebConf is the annual conference of the Debian community. This year’s DebConf was held in Kosovo, a European country from the Balkans.

A bridge in the middle with a bird on the right and a spiral on the left. On the top, DebConf Kosovo is written while 22 is wwritten at the bottom.

DebConf22 logo

Debian sponsored me for the conference. Indian attendees needed a visa to enter Kosovo, which got complicated due to Kosovo not having any embassies in India (India doesn’t recognize Kosovo as an independent country). The organizing team came up with a solution - to send the required documents by email to Kosovo embassy in Tirana, Albania (neighboring country of Kosovo) and collecting the visas later by visiting the embassy in person. This was possible because Albania was granting visa-free entry for Indians during that time period. However, this was not the standard way to get a Kosovo visa and it was an exception made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kosovo for us.

The conference was to begin on the 10th of July. So, I booked my flight tickets from Delhi to Tirana for the 6th and bus tickets from Tirana to Prizren for the 10th of July. Further, I transferred the visa fee worth 40 Euros into the embassy’s bank account using wise.com. On the 9th of June, I emailed my documents to the Kosovo embassy in Tirana for my visa application. Here is the list of documents I sent:

  • Filled and signed Visa Application form

  • Scanned copy of my passport

  • 1 photo of myself

  • Invite letter and proof of travel, food and accommodation bursary.

  • Confirmed return flight ticket from Delhi to Tirana

  • Bus tickets from Tirana to Prizren

  • Bank statement (last 3 months)

  • Health insurance valid throughout the territory of the Republic of Kosovo

  • Receipt of payment of 40 Euros for visa fee

I did not receive any acknowledgement of the receipt of my email from the embassy. On the 22nd of June (13 days after submitting the application), I wrote a follow-up email to the embassy asking for my visa application status. The embassy responded by saying:

Your name is not in the list of approved names to apply remotely. Therefore your case cannot be processed.

A couple of other Indian attendees reported getting the same response from the embassy. However, Utkarsh from the bursary team confirmed that our names were in the list. On the 27th of June, with 9 days to go before our flight to Albania, Praveen (a Debian Developer) sent an email to the Debian Project Leader Jonathan Carter, CCing all the prominent DebConf team members and Indian attendees, sharing our frustation with the process. He proposed Debian to reimburse tickets if we don’t get a response from the embassy.

On the other hand, Arianit Dobroshi from the organizing team was fairly confident about the approval and suggested us not to panic. In the same email, Praveen also proposed Debian to include visa fee in the bursary by default for the sponsored attendees, for which Jonathan shared his views in a public mailing list here.

As the travel date approached, I was panicking. I asked my travel agent to check on the cancellation fee for my flight. They told me it was around 15,000 INR. However, repeated assurances from Arianit made me stick to my plans. On July 3rd, he sent us a letter from Kosovo’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stating that our visas were being processed in Tirana.

I wasn’t confident that the document was sufficient for boarding the flight. If I went to the airline staff at Delhi Airport and told them I was attending a conference in Kosovo, they would want to see whether I had a valid visa. Otherwise, they would refuse me boarding.

Therefore, I told the airline I was going to Albania. To my surprise, the airline did not ask me for a Kosovo visa upon seeing my conference invitation letter. Maybe they didn’t know about Kosovo, as India doesn’t recognize it?

After grilling me for some time, the airline gave me my boarding pass. The next stop was immigration. However, the immigration officer only asked me where I was going, to which I replied, “Albania,” and they asked me to show a visa. I told them that Albania was visa-free. So, they only checked whether Indians required a visa to visit Albania. I was elated after clearing immigration. This was followed by boarding the flight.

I had a connecting flight from Dubai. Here, I met other DebConf attendees coming from Kochi and Mumbai. Before boarding the flight, we were asked once again about our purpose for visiting Albania, to which we showed our invitation letters. Again, they didn’t notice that the conference was in Kosovo.

On the 7th of July, while we were in Tirana, we received the following email from one of the conference organizers, Arianit:

For Tirana applicants,

We got notification that visas have arrived in Tirana. Please show up at the Consulate tomorrow at 08:00 to get them stamped. They work until 13:30 tomorrow. We are trying to find a solution for people arriving in Tirana at 14:00 apparently.

Regards, Arianit

Next day, on the 8th of July, we went to the Kosovo embassy early in the morning and got our visas. On the 10th, we had a scenic morning bus trip from Tirana to Prizren.

The Innovation & Training Park (ITP) in Prizren, Kosovo was the venue of DebConf 22.

I am at ITP Prizren—the venue of DebConf22—writing this post. It feels like a miracle to be here in Prizren attending DebConf. Looking forward to working on some projects and meeting nice people.

Lastly, I would like to thank the organizing team and the country of Kosovo.