So I’ve never
been to the Russian embassy in Canberra, but I imagine that it’s run out of
somebody’s home; and whoever lives there is brewing moonshine / bootleg vodka
out in the back yard, and has a cluttered kitchen adorn with decorative
Babushkas, (all lined up from largest to smallest,) with dumplings and
sauerkraut sizzling / bubbling away on the stove. Meanwhile, confused people in
the process of applying for their Russian visas attempt to call the landline,
and hit the Telstra home message bank 101 service. (This is no exaggeration.)
The Russian Embassy apparently only answers the phone between 3pm – 5pm,
although how often they actually answer, I’m not entirely sure, as neither A.
or I ever managed to get through. They were too busy drinking vodka, and
stuffing their faces with dumplings, I think. The Embassy website says to email
in case you have any questions, but we didn’t like our chances of them ever
replying when their official email address is russianconsult@hotmail.com. Yup
that’s right, a hotmail account. You would think they would have moved
onto yahoo already. After staring incredulously at the Russian
embassy’s email address, A. said that she was contemplating starting her own
unofficial official New Zealand embassy in the back shed of her home in
Essendon. “Please email: kiwiland@hotmail.com”
is what her website would say. “Visa advice will cost you one bottle of
Steinlager Classic, please.”
For those of you
who have yet to stumble through the mind maze of applying for a Russian Visa,
don’t fear, the Calvary is here. Despite the many in depth and detailed guides
on the interweb, A. & I still were still left feeling very confused. What I
have compiled here are the finer details of what we found unclear and confusing,
in hope that this will save others two painful weeks of research.
Step One: Obtaining
an Invitation and Tour Voucher
Like a circus
tiger jumping through a hoop of flames, the first hoop you need to jump through
before applying for the actual Russian tourist visa, is to apply for an
official invitation into the country, along with tour vouchers to show that
you’ve “booked” accommodation and tours. For those of you who aren’t keen on
the follow-the-guide-with-the-orange-flag type of gig and prefer the
independent travel and flexibility, the easiest way to obtain this is to
purchase the invites and tour vouchers online. Most of the time, depending on
your nationality, the Russian embassy will only require copies of the
invitation and tour vouchers. Should you require originals, you need to
purchase the invites / vouchers from an online company that has the facility to
send these to you. We ended up using Way to Russia as they had a very detailed
“how to apply for a visa” guide. Incidentally, they also have the facility to
provide you with original copies of invites / vouchers should this be required.
Note: In case of
travel delays, you should always request for your invitation to start earlier
and end later to your actual dates of travel. You cannot enter earlier or
overstay your visa, but you can enter the country later or / and leave earlier
than originally planned.
When requesting
your invitation and tour vouchers online, you will need to randomly select hotel
/ hostel accommodation that you will be “staying” in. The options of where you
will be “staying” are suggested by the online company, and you need to just
select something at random. The critical
things you need to know are as follows:
1. It does not matter
which hotels you select. You are not obligated to stay there and nobody will
check. I would however, suggest that you select hotels in cities where you will
actually be staying and travelling to, so that this matches up with your
tickets / itinerary.
2. You do not need to
select accommodation for all the places you will be visiting. For our trip, we
actually stayed in five different Russian cities, but ended up putting down
only the main ones (ie: Moscow and St Petersburg). Trust me, this makes the
actual visa application easier, and no, no one checks to see that you’ve listed
every single tiny town / village you are intending to visit.
3. When selecting hotels
at random, please select ones where you can google their actual addresses and
telephone numbers. You will require this information when completing the visa
application form. We learnt this the hard way – our “hotel” in Moscow could not
be found on the internet, and we ended up having to use another hotel’s contact
details and basically prayed that the visa people wouldn’t find out.
Phase Two: Are
We There Yet? Filling out the Visa Application Form
You have to fill
in the Russian visa application form online, and once completed, it needs to be
printed out and sent in as a hard copy to the Russian Embassy. It is not the
most user friendly form, and the most valuable advice I can give is that you
should ensure to have all information required for your visa at hand. Although the online form can technically be
saved incomplete to allow you to go back to it at a later date - it does not actually
allow you to save the form should the page that you’ve been working be
incomplete. Yeah, I know,
that totally doesn’t make sense....
I would also suggest
that you purchase travel insurance prior to completing the visa application form,
as they do ask for these details. I suppose you could always say that you will get insurance, and that this is
dependent on the approval of the visa, but I personally thought it was too
risky not to, because the Russian embassy could have thought I had no intention
of getting travel insurance. To have them say “nyet” when you’re already half
way there is really not worth the hassle.
Yeah so between
trying to work the old clunky online form and frantically trying to google
details of our “hotel’s” phone number, we probably wasted another week before
printing out the damn forms and sending them off to Canberra. By that stage, we
were semi preparing ourselves for the possibility that our passports may not find
their way back, (it happened to a friend of mine a few years back,) which would have meant making a special trip out to Canberra.
Our backup plan would have been to kill two birds with one stone by going to
visit the Mongolia Embassy, which I envisage is likely just down the road from
the Russian consulate.
Step Three: So
You’ve Got Your Russian Visa. Time to Crack Open the Russian Vodka!!…Or not.
The final step(s)
to the visa process is that you are required by law to register your visa (yes,
the one stuck into your passport,) within the first 7 business days of entering
Russia. If you have booked accommodation / hotels that offer visa registration,
they will do this for you. If for any reason you are aware that this will not
be possible, you should request a reputable online company to do this for you,
as you cannot register yourself. Again, companies like Way to Russia offer this
service. Please note that you do not
need to re-register again unless you are staying more than 7 business working
days in another city. This is unlikely the case for most people travelling
around Russia.
So, we’re
finally there….I don’t know about you, but I'm tired…
Note: one should
always cross reference blog / travel forum information with information on the
Embassy website, as visa rules and regulations can be liable to change at any
time. After all, this is Russia we’re talking about.
And if for any
reason, you have issues with the Russian immigration, the best phrase you can
learn is “я не понимаю” (ya ne pa-nee-ma-yu) and…hope
they don't throw you into jail.
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