What are the dates on his [fictitious] Hotel Voucher/Invitation?

The extra days are a good thing, perfectly fine for Russian border control, and done by the better visa expeditors.

You cannot leave Russia without a valid visa. If your visa is for your exact travel dates and, say, your flight is canceled and you can't get out on the day you were supposed to leave, you've suddenly got a much bigger problem. If you have some padding in your dates, you're covered.

Don't know - he never saw it. As he filled out the application online, he just requested an invitation online as well. Visa stamp in his passport does list in remark/reference line the name of the LLC they are using.

FWIW, from personal experience 1) always carry your invitation/voucher with you in country, 2) if you are on a type 4 tourist visa do not try to register in a city not listed on it, even at a hotel. There's a fairly recent law (since previous trip in '08) that I discovered in country regarding recommendation #2 this year when I was sick and made an unexpected stop to rest:) YMMV and in Moscow/St P this is not usually an issue, I've never been asked for it there, but I have had to provide it when registering in other places, especially smaller cities/more remote regions.

Sorry for such a simple question, but a university in/around Moscow will sent a letter of invitation and they are asking what consultate I will use. Of course, there is not one close to OKC and my flight next week to ATH does not go through Washington DC.

My trip is in May and my host says they can't initiate the paper on a business visa until 45 days before arrival so is that going to be enough time to get the paper pushed through?

Any secondary web with step-by-step instructions would be great to know about at this point.

The consulate in Houston has OKC in it's district:

http://www.russianembassy.org/Embass...ulates_us.html

To apply for the visa, you'll need to use one of the three services on this page:

http://www.russianembassy.org/Embass...ness_visa.html

You can contact them for step-by-step instructions.

Thanks dcmike. There were so many fake pages I was getting confused.

Here goes with another beginner's query.

The form at http://www.rusconshouston.org/Forms/...on_form_US.pdf does not come anywhere close to having enough room to list all the countries I visited in ten years, all the degrees granted, the full addresses of several places, etc. Does one submit a supplment page to the one of the agencies like CIBT?

I used this form linked on Travisa's site to create a pre-filled out PDF with all of the information. When filling it out, I used the one for San Francisco. Travisa removes the writing blocks so you can fit a lot more information into the application. I used a different service than Travisa to submit the application, as I wanted one physically located here in the PHX area.

Thanks Dilemma. It looks like I will need to have all my info together when I start the form since one cannot complete the application offline.

I also noticed that Travisa claims one can apply for business visa 90 days in advance in the US with the exception of SFO. I will be using Houston and will need to check with my friends in Moscow to see what they will do because it would worry me to start this process 45 days from departure.

Newbie question here, but I saw a $500 roundtrip fare to Moscow and was interested in booking a flight there in a few weeks. However, after reading threads and searching online, guess that option is out since it is a pain to get a tourist visa on 2wk notice. Plus, for tourist visa the time limit for entry is pretty slim - i.e. in Brazil you get several years of re-entry after you get your visa which helps offsets the $160 cost.

Am I missing something here or do I have to plan well in advance to go to Russia, know the travel dates ahead of time, and apply for the tourist visa and use a service that will cost me about $150-200 plus shipping fees so they can "sponsor" me? Ugh.


edit: after reading a few more threads, my trip in 2 weeks was going to be 3/24-3/27 so only in Moscow for 3 days. Can I just use a transit visa instead and what are the benefits? No stupid invitation/support?

Russian Tourist Visa
 

Hi Folks,

I have a 1 year multiple entry Russian Business Visa and am travelling to Moscow every week for next few months.. Wanted to bring my wife along on one of the trips in May and so I need to apply for a tourist visa for her.

From the link of the russian embassy, it seems for a tourist visa requires only the following :
Your original passport with at least 2 blank visa-designated pages (passport must be valid for at least 6 months after intended departure date from Russia).
2. Two copies of Russian visa application form, completed and signed.
3. Two passport-size photos signed on the back.
5. If Individual Travel: Confirmation of hotel arrangements from authorized Russian travel company, or directly from the Russian hotel, showing reference number and confirmation number for the visa.

So, if the hotel where i am staying in or planning to stay agrees to give the invitation letter in the format (which am sure they will b having), I guess its ok right ??

Any advise appreciated...
thanks

First, I want to thank everyone for helping get me through the visa application process last year. However, I have a new set of questions today.

I am going to Belarus in early October and just today learned that I must have a double entry transit visa because my flights to/from MSQ go through SVO.

I am first worried about the time and secondly distracted by the $400 cost. I used Travisa so will likely go back to them. But is there a way to streamline the process and expense since I went through all of this last year?

I just sent my passport off to the Consulate General of Belarus in New York today and will get this back just in time to fly to Greece. One back from Greece, I have only three weeks before going to Germany then on to Belarus.

I am sure those with more experience will chime in, but there is no visa check between Russia and Belarus so only a Russian visa would have been needed. The only thing is that you can't use the Russian visa to exit Belarus except back to Russia.

Thanks and I've heard one may not actually show the Belarusian visa to anyone in Belarus or Russia, but the following link seems to say I need the Belarusian visa to get the Russian transit visa:

https://russiavisa.travisaoutsourcin...ements/display

The link probably does not work but perhaps this one does, e.g. the faq on transit visas make mention of Belarus: https://russiavisa.travisaoutsourcing.com/russia/faqs