Originally Posted by
homelyboy
Well, not same. A quite different process.
The principal difference is, that a foreigner is registered by his host and never held responsible for not being registered. Citizens (and Belorussians, too) must register themselves through a far more onerous process and are held responsible if they don't.
In the past, this wasn't true. Upon exit, Russia issued fines (of about $300) if the foreign visitor wasn't registered. I heard of an incident where a Moscow hotel registered someone only for their length of stay, they went to St P, and then IIRC returned to Moscow and the later hotels refused to register them saying that it was the first hotel's responsibility, which should have registered them for the entire trip IIRC.
Originally Posted by
FlyByNight
I suspect the OP is confusing prepaying for registration with purchasing an invitation for the entire 30 days of visa validity needed, as a hotel could also provide visa support, but only for the days stayed.
Or not...
IME hotels charge a fee for the visa support letter. It's basically an invitation from someone on the hotel staff with Russian citizenship.