Way to Russia Talk Lounge

sasha999 · Just Starting Joined: 05 Jul 2009 Posts: 1

Hello everyone,

This website is great - a lot of information. However, I can't seem to find any in relation to my problem.

I am a Canadian citizen, born in Russia - Russian citizen as well with a valid passport. My girlfriend is Canadian-born. We'd like to go visit my grandparents next summer. It wouldn't be a problem for me to go there, but what about her? It would be great if anyone with a similar situation could share their experiences with me. I know little about visa support, but since we're not going to be using a travel agency or staying at a hotel, but rather at my grandparents', can my grandmother invite my girlfriend and subsequently, she can be issued a 30-day tourist visa? What are the procedures for this, for my grandmother? As far as I know, the invitation is notarized and sent to the Russian consulate. Is this correct? Are there any limitations to this?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

romdur · Lounge Lizard Joined: 03 Apr 2009 Posts: 151 Location: USA

The kind of visa your friend could get with an invitation from your babushka would be a private (or private-stay) visa, not a tourist visa. If you take a look at what

http://www.waytorussia.net/RussianVisa/Types.html

has to say about this type of visa ("This is the worst kind of visa you can apply for"), well, it is complicated and a lot of work. It is also slow, but you seem to have a year, so that is not a problem.

I don't know whether the process has gotten any quicker for private visas, but it appears that your friend can get visa support for a tourist visa for about the same cost, or perhaps less cost.

nikir · Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 11:20 am Post subject:

The information regarding private visas was written quite some time ago and now it is a viable alternative to the tourist visa.

From your end all you have to do is fax or email a copy of the photo page of your girlfriends passport to your grandmother and wait.

Grandmother will have to go to the local OVIR office with the printed passport page, fill out the necessary forms and wait one month for the checks to be done. They may or may not call her for additional information and after exactly one month they will call her and say that the invitation is ready to collect.

She will then have to send it to you y the quickest means possible, courier or express post, and once you have it fill out your visa application and get it off to the consulate without delay. Depending on processing options in Canada you might be wise to opt for fast processing, I always do in Australia.

The good thing about private visas is they are simple to register at the same OVIR office that they were issued from and the guest does not have any involvement in the process.

meghanaskamdar · Just Starting Joined: 05 Jul 2009 Posts: 2

Russia certainly has one of the most stringent visa application processes (after the U.S.).

There's probably no really efficient and clear way to get your passport. There are 5 consulate offices in the U.S., and they each operate independently. Some accept mail-ins and others only accept walk-ins. The process can also take up to 20 days to get approved.

So much depends on which state you live is, so make sure you do your homework on this one.

For U.S. Citizens (and Canadians) you can stay up to 30 days on a regular Tourist Visa.

You might want to check out: http://www.oneeasyvisa.com/country/russia

They have good explanation of the process and the required documents for a tourist visa.

My recommendation for a Russia visa is to probably go with a good third-party agency to get your visa for you. In this case, it's well worth the money.

gaijin · Lounge Lizard Joined: 03 Oct 2007 Posts: 155

The process for a personal invitation is horrible. You'd have to hate your grandmother to impose it to her. Just buy online a 30 day invitation, then if you worry about your girlfriend being controlled by the police (very unlikely if you don't do anything wrong) you can either buy a registration in Moscow or Piter, or give a little bribe to a hotel employee (go to the shittiest hotel) to do a registration for the whole stay.
note : an invitation for 30 days is 30 dollars, either here or on visatorussia.com . The registration in Piter or Moscow costs about the same. Doing it with your grandma would mean countless trouble for your grandma (do you know what a queue is ? Russia is the place to learn), and paying about 15 dollars for the registration anyway, after some more queuing.