Does anyone have any recent (last 6 months?) experiences applying for a Russian tourist visa in the US? I have to renew my daughter’s visa soon. In the past, we never had a problem with it by applying directly through MID (Foreign Ministry) website and a short interview in NY. At this point I am wondering whether recent political developments had any impact on visa process. I know the situation seems bad for Russians applying for US visas in Russia. Did Russians consulates in the US retaliate? P.S. Don’t send me to the sticky, please. I know it is there to discuss visas, but with hundreds of useless posts in it, I don’t know why that thread even exists. Thanks in advance!
Hope this is still useful to you, but back in June, we (my wife is a US citizen, and at the time I was a UK citizen with US permanent resident status) applied for tourist visas for Russia through ILS Visa Services in NYC, whom the Russian Consulate recommend all visa applicants to use. It was pretty straightforward: the ILS people spotted an error in our visa support from our hotel so I had to get that re-issued and came back the next working day to complete the application. We travelled in September (spent a week in St. Petersburg).