Russia-Getting There, Visa & Other Formalities

Since my plans to visit Georgia & Armenia had been cancelled due to some immigration issues, we were hoping to extend my trip further as we had just a few days in Azerbaijan. So we did our research on visiting Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan or Russia for a week on our way back to India from Azerbaijan. We finally zeroed in on Russia as our agent agreed to process our visas locally.

Getting There:

Getting to Moscow is easy. Most big airports have a direct flight to Moscow. Delhi & Mumbai have direct flights to Moscow too, which are operated by Russian National Carrier Aeroflot. Many others airlines like Air Astana & Turkish Airways offer flights via their regional hubs like Astana, Istanbul etc. 

But; in our case, we had to board from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan Airlines operates a well priced direct flight to Moscow which was 150USD at that time. It turned out that AZAL or Azerbaijan Airlines was a very good carrier with well maintained cabins even in economy. It was 3 hour flight for us from Baku to Moscow via a Being 787 jet. There are many airports in Moscow and make sure you choose the best one depending upon the place of your stay as distances in Moscow are quite a bit.

Stay in Russia: So, now assuming that you have booked that you have booked the return tickets, you need to have a confirmed hotel booking to proceed for a Visa. Actually many countries have this interlock now which means you cant even apply for a Visa without a confirmed & prepaid hotel booking. Me & my wife both generally prefer chain hotels like Holiday Inn, Ibis or Best Western because of the fairly consistent experience they provide across countries. But being the over analyzing left brainers that we are, we could not find any good property near Indian Food Outlets and Markets. We finally booked at the Azimut Hotel in Olympisky in Moscow and a simple Best Western in front Moscovsky train station in St.Petersburg both of which turned out to be very good properties. 

Other than a confirmed prepaid hotel booking, you also need an invitation letter (also called a Tourist Support Voucher) for your Visa from from the property where your staying. The letter or voucher looks something like this:

After booking you can contact each of your hotel in Russia by email asking for this letter. Each property will provide you with a letter only for the duration that your are staying with them. Some properties can also charge you for this. It may cost about 20USD per person. I opted for both the free and paid options to increase my chance of getting a Visa. It may be note that when you pay for the invitation letter, you het to enter all the details yourself and you can get a single letter for your entire sty by entering the addresses of all your hotels in all Russian cities you plan to visit. Best Western offers a paid option that I know of.

Visa Formalities:

The official website for Russian Visa related information for Indians states that all Indians with a Non-diplomatic passport need a Visa to enter Russia. If you only plan to visit St. Petersburg by air or by cruise like a Baltic Cruise, starting Oct-2019 you can apply for a 8 day e-Visa via the Russian Ministry of Foreign affairs website. But like us, not everybody can spare the time for a month long Baltic Cruise. For us, there is the official procedure of getting a Visa form and submitting it at any of the Russian Consular Offices in India. But I strongly recommend against that as an average person does not live near a Russian Consulate and is not well versed with the Visa Process.

I need to warn you about all the tourist operators in India that offer so called Visas if you book a complete tour package with them. I don't know how they do that but I do know of cases in which people who had booked such tour packages & were returned from Delhi airport as their Visa or tickets were invalid. Book your package or Visa from a good operator like Makemytrip or Thomas Cook like I did. That way you avoid a visit to the consulate and they will guide through the process.

The is a long list of documents required for a Russian Tourist Visa:

• Last six months Bank statement with at least a few Lakh Rupees balance.
• 3 Passport Sized Photos on whit background & Matte finish paper
• The Invitation letter (Tourist Support Voucher)
• Original Passport with at least 6 months validity left from the date of travel
• Every single flight ticket in your itinerary.
• Travel Insurance of at least 50,000 USD for the entire duration of your stay.
• Other local Travel tickets if Applicable.
• A filled out Visa Application.
• A Cover letter making your case for a Visa.(Your agent will fill out the cover letter & Visa Form)

After you submit your passport & all the documents to your agent they will mail them to their preferred Russian Consulate (Usually Delhi). Your agent will have a liaison officer that will get your formalities done at the consulate. The fees for the Visa vary between agents but it is generally around 7500 INR per person. After all the formalities you will get your Visa in about 2 weeks or  sometimes earlier.

Now coming to the currency, the Russian Ruble is accepted everywhere. Unlike some tourist friendly countries which accept the US Dollar or even Indian Rupees, the Ruble is the only currency accepted in Russia. And guess what, it is not a standardized currency so you cannot get it in India at least. You will have to buy US Dollars from any authorized Forex Dealer (I use Thomas Cook India) and then convert them to Rubles when you land in Russia. Again if you haven't read any of my previous blogs, the following documents are required to buy Foreign Currency in India.

• Copy of Your Passport with sufficient validity.
• Copy of your Return Tickets
• Copy of your PAN card.
• You can also buy 50,000 INR worth of Forex in cash on a single PAN Card.
• If you pay by Cheque or Netbanking you can buy up to 5000US Dollars.

 Finally after you have your Visa, Forex, & bookings, and you do board a flight to Moscow, it takes 6 hours 30 mins to get there. When you land, the signage at the airport also includes English so that you easily find your way to the Immigration counter. It takes a matter of minutes to get through the fairly easy process of immigration. Don't be alarmed if they examine your passport with a magnifying glass as that is routine. You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.

After you clear immigration ad collect your baggage, you should head to the final arrival hall where you will find various shops. At this point I cannot stress enough the need to buy a local sim card. Your Indian will most probably catch a network in Russia but you need to enable a International Roaming pack and even after that calling & data is very expensive. Best way is to find the Megafone counter and get a local sim card at 1000Rubles which has validity of 30 day and virtually unlimited data. This will go a long way in helping you stay connected via inter based calling to your home country. The most important use of a local sim card is to stay in touch with the local tour or taxi operators that you have booked with along with getting a cab via a local cab aggregator.

The internet enabled local SIM card shall also enable you to use Google Maps and with google maps, you don't ever need ask for directions. The local Russian equivalent of Google is Yandex but google still works.  You need to get a Yandex account and add your Credit Card so that you can use Yandex Taxi.

You can set all the Yandex account and Taxi app while waiting in the airport arrival hall.

 Once you do get the taxi and arrive at your hotel you need to find the nearest Mini-Mart (Magazin in Russian) which is a small daily needs store to get some ready to eat food and water. Once that is done have some rest and even may be some dinner at the nearby Indian restaurant that you had earlier looked up on google if had followed my advice. Remember that literally none of the general public in Moscow speak a single word of English. So even if are adventurous enough to try local food you wont be able to order it or wont know what you have actually ordered. Trust just stick with Indian food and have your fill each day as you will need for all the walking tours that we shall be going on. 

Stay tuned for the Part-2 of my Russia Series and if you like my blog please follow it and stay updated about new Travel Logs, Recipes & much More.