Russian Visa Support Agencies - Helpful?
 

There are many internet agencies which advertise help and support in obtaining a Russian Visa, such as waytorussia.com and gotorussia.com, etc. They seem to shortcut and simplify the process greatly compared to dealing with a Russian consulate directly (for a considerable fee, of course).

Is this a legitimate process and can the agencies do what they claim? Does anyone have experiences with any of them, positive or negative, or any recommendations?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Mike

Well, you MUST go through an agency to get the invitation you need to get the visa. Once you have the invitation, you could just go the embassy/consulate youself (that is what I did).
I can't see any benefit in using an agency for the visa itself, unless you are nowhere near a consulate.

The agent will also register the visa for you. Visa registration rules/opinions vary depening on who you talk to, but you would be best to use an agent who is in the city you will arrive in so you can register the visa. Someone who only has an office in Moscow isn't very helpful if you arrive in Valdivostok!

Shustrik at the Vladivostok HU community (used to?) work for a travel agency that issues invitations. Maybe you should drop him a line.

You could also try the St Petersburg International Hostel, its at
www.ryh.ru
They can issue LOI's for tourist visas and register the visa for you if you enter via St Pete.
I used them for mine. Remember that multiple entry business visas are more difficult to get and the tourist visa is for 30 days only.Not extendable.

cheers

alec

Scott Tours in London did the job for me (at a price).

Don't forget to ask them about registration and where to do it...

www.scottstours.co.uk/



[This message has been edited by Fuzzy Duck (edited 14 January 2005).]

Hi, I came back from Kazakhstan by car through Russia 18 months ago and experienced the following:
Met a pal in Almaty who runs a travel agency and issues LOI/Hotel voucher for russia in connection with a St-Petersburg based company. Went through the process (the guy went to the embassy for me as I don't speak russian good enough) and when I arrived in RU (Omsk was the first stop), there was no way the St-Pete based company could register my visa as they don't have a branch in Omsk. BUT, the guy in Almaty had told me that ANY russian based travel agency CAN register any visa if they do want to. So we found a small local tour operator and explained our story. The result was an immediat trip to the OVIR (Visa registration office) with the girl from the agency who was unsurprisingly enough a good friend of the boss there. We got the stamp from the OVIR smoothly and for free the next morning. Then we learnt that every city has a first class hotel that is also allowed to register visas for which they haven't issued the LOI for, so this might be another way, but would cost the price of a 1st class hotel room!!

Ok, sorry for the long post! Hope this helps! Happy trails, Séb

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Normal cars go to paradise, 2CV's go everywhere!

I used Travel Docs in Washington DC last year for a vacation to Moscow. I could have certainly done it on my own, but wanted some assurances since I had a short timeline and don't speak much Russian.

Everything you want to know about the Russian visa process can be found here: http://waytorussia.net/RussianVisa/Info.html. And here are the folks I used: http://www.traveldocs.com/.

Have fun!

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/smile.gif

Thanks, everyone, for your feedback. Since I'm located about 600 miles from the nearest Russian consulate, I will be using one of the agencies.

Mike

Which of the US based Russian visa agencies has an office in Vladivostok, if anybody knows?

I am leaning towards the TDS (traveldocs.com) guys, since they were the only ones to reply to my email... :-)

Stan

Realrussia.co.uk