This thread was incredibly helpful. But I have a couple of additional questions on the visa front. We are (U.S. citizens) headed to Russia for a quick vacation in August - 3 days in St. Petersburg and 3 in Moscow.
1. Does it make more sense to go ahead and apply for the 3 year visa, they seem to be the same price and at first glance this seems to be the case. If so, what do we put as our departure date? 3 years out from the arrival date?
2. On the letter of invitation, we have looked at doing it through a service as opposed to the hotel since we will be staying at two different hotels. Since my husband and I are traveling together, do we get one letter of invitation that has both of our names on it or do we pay for 2 letters given that we have to each fill out a visa application?
3. Should we pay for the optional "visa registration" from one of these services or is this something the hotel will do for us upon arrival?
In case it matters, we live in DC and just plan to drop off our application at the ILS office here in town. Sorry for what may be very elementary questions, this is our first major visa application.