For those who find this post and are in a hurry to catch the plane, press read more and you’ll find the excerpt of what you have to do.
Shit happens and you lost your residence permit. You’ve just realized it 13 hours before your plane back home is going to fly. Just to make it more interesting, it happens when you’ve decided to marry the girl of your life. S***!
We experienced something like that last year. It was hell. We have already thinking of the worst scenario where we have to cancel the wedding. But, being too ashamed to tell our parents that we want to call off the wedding because we lost the residence permit, so we cool our head down and think.
The first thing that comes to mind is to contact the nearest police office – Il Emniyet Mudurlugu. The office opens at 9 o’clock so we have to wait for some times before going in. We were really clueless and acted based on guts only. Pancit asked one of the police officer what he should do and, unfortunately, the police officer said that nothing he could do. The police officer was kind enough and helped him to find his residence permit number and suggested Pancit to go to Polis Karakol and make a statement letter that he lost the residence permit (kayip raporu) and process the residence permit again, yet it will took him, at least, three weeks to get everything done, while our plane leaves in 10 hours.
So, we decided to gamble; we packed all of our stuff and went to Ataturk International Airport. We didn’t have any more money, so we decided to call our family and asked them to transfer some money, just in case.
After arriving at the airport, we wasted no time and directly checked in (and making sure that we will not get any refund if we cancel the ticket), we went to immigration locket. I’ve never liked immigration locket, neither does Pancit and Turkish immigration officers are not (I believe) one of the best in the world. Pancit was asked to go to another locket, where higher rank officers sit. “It’s none of my business, you couldn’t take care of yourself so why do I have to take care of you?!”, said them. Kind of police-ish – feeling arrogant with all of the power they got. Not all of the police officers are like that, many are very kind, but few are pain in the ***.
Fortunately, one of the police officer there was in his right mind and told us to go to the airport emniyet mudurlugu where they solve immigration problems – like those whose visa/residence permit is expired. So we went there. We looked at receipts that people have to pay, it was around 500 TL, so we prepared the money (and heart to give away the money).
There were many people there and the queue was quite long, so we wait for some time before Pancit’s document got processed. The police there just asked about the problem and then checked Pancit’s data in his computer. After making sure that Pancit’s residence permit hasn’t expired yet, he signed Pancit’s residence permit copy and written “have been checked” on it.
After that we went back to the immigration locket (this time without going through the queue line) and passed through it without any problem. “Thank God we did not cancel the marriage”.
In conclusion, what you have to do if you lost your residence permit at the day written on your ticket are:
- Calm down
- Go to the airport – no need to waste time going to the nearest police office.
- At Ataturk International Airport, go to the immigration police office (if I’m not mistaken), located near the Ladies Mosque (Bayan Mescit).
- State your problem to the man (if possible in Turkish) and, if available, also give a copy of your residence permit, or your residence permit number. If you don’t have the copy or don’t remember the number, I’m sure he’ll find it.
- Accept the signed paper from the officer.
- Go to the immigration locket.
- Board the plane.
- Marry your girl 😛