Brynn Marie Evans

Chris and I spent a month in Northern Europe this fall (Finland, Sweden, and Russia). It was a fantastic trip all around, but obtaining a Russian Visa was a bit harrowing. We wanted to share our experience here so other Americans can learn what to expect, and what steps to take to get a visa (especially if they apply for it in another country).

We did not go through a travel agency to book our visa. Some people had recommended this to us, but instead we forged ahead on our own.

Secure reservations in Russia

The first thing we did was to secure our hotel. We stayed at the Nevsky Forum Hotel in St. Petersburg. This place was recommended to us by our friend, Vitaly Vlasov, so we created our reservation via email with the concierge there. It was a little nerve racking to give away sensitive information to this “stranger” on the other end, but 1) we had no alternative and 2) we trusted our friend. (It was fine in the end).

After we pre-paid for our hotel, the hotel created a tourist voucher for us. We filled out a form with basic information: check in/out date, passport number, and date of birth. They used to this to create a travel voucher as proof that we had made our reservation and that we would be staying at the Nevsky Forum. Getting the hotel to issue the voucher does cost money — for us it was 800 Rubles total (or about $26). (Apparently there are “vouchers” and “tourist vouchers” — we learned this when we got to the Russian Consulate. Make sure your “voucher” also has a confirmation of your paid hotel on it. I think the regular “voucher” is just the tourist invitation that travel agencies provide.)

Our tourist voucher looked like this:

Complete several forms

Visa Application Form

Additional Questionnaire

We applied for single-entry tourist visas. For this, US citizens have to complete (1) a Visa Application form and also (2) an additional Questionnaire.

We then scanned in these forms and printed out a second copy. I had heard that we should have 2 copies of everything, although when we actually made it to the Consulate, we only needed 1 copy. Perhaps 2 copies is just for back-up.

Passport photos

Finally, we had to have 2 x 2″ sized current passport photos. Instead of going to a place to have our photos taken, we opted to create these ourselves. This actually wasn’t hard, but it requires some attention to details. Here is what we did (also, an official guide on passport photos):

1) Find a photo from within the last 6 months, or take a new photo that meets these guidelines:

• frontal face shot
• some of the shoulders are showing
• nothing on the head (no hats, no sunglasses)†
• no sunglasses worn on the face
• but if you wear regular glasses currently, the photo must have you wearing those glasses
• white or light colored background

†yarmulkes are permitted if they are worn everyday AND if the accompanying passport photo also shows a yarmulke

2) Then you have to go into Photoshop to make the photo meet the size/shape requirements

• the head must be between 1 – 1 3/8″
• head must be squarely in the center of the photo (with some shoulders showing)
• whole photo must be 2 x 2″ in size
• photo must be in color

I followed the instructions here to make our passport photos, but later discovered an even better service, epassportphoto.com, that has a very simple way to verify that your passport photo meets requirements. (And it actually is free. You only pay if you want them to print the photos for you.)

NOTE on the manual process: I had trouble getting the DPI setting correct, which meant my passport photos weren’t 2 x 2″ in their final form. To achieve this took some tweaking on my part, most of which I forget now. Use epassportphoto.com!

Other passport requirements

There are a few more requirements you should know about to get a Russian Visa:

Your passport must be valid through the next 6 months. If it expires in less than 6 months, they will not grant you a visa.

Your passport must have 2 clean pages left. They prefer that these pages are side-by-side. Chris did not have 2 side-by-side and, but after getting approval from a supervisor, we learned this was OK. You might want to play it safe and have two clean pages next to each other, though.

Additional documentation

For a tourist visa, you do not need vaccinations, medical insurance, or proof of anything else. I had heard that we’d need medical insurance, travel insurance, or HIV certificates. This didn’t prove to be true. I believe these requirements apply if you request for a different kind of visa (like longer than a few weeks, business visa, or double-entry). For example, if you stay for more than a week, they require you to produce an HIV (negative) certificate.

Applying for the Visa in person

Now, if we had been smart, we would have gone to the Russian Consulate in San Francisco before we left for Europe. We went there too late, so they didn’t have time to issue us the visa. If we had, though, we could have gotten an express visa in 3 business days for ~$150 dollars each.

A note of caution: there are websites out there that say “Apply now for your visa” — this only gives you a tourist invitation. This is not the application for the visa itself! You have to go to a Russian Embassy or Consulate and apply in person.

So…instead of applying in the San Francisco Russian Consulate, we flew to Helsinki for the first part of our trip and applied in the Russian Consulate in Helsinki on our first day. Their Consulate (as the one in SF) is only open for visa applications between 9am–12pm. Get there early! We arrived promptly at 9am and there was already a line!

Next, be forewarned that some consulates in foreign countries only issue Russian Visas for citizens of that country! I was told that the Russian Consulate in Paris only issues visas for French citizens. Luckily in Helsinki, they will issue Americans visas but it takes 2 full weeks! For Finns, an expedited visa will take 3 days (and should cost about €39). But apparently there is an “agreement” between “our” countries (I assume Russia and the US?) which makes it so that we, Americans, can’t get a visa (from Helsinki) ASAP.

However, Chris and I had our stuff together. There were 2 copies of every form, completely filled out and signed. All our forms were together with our passports and passport photos, and paperclipped together. Perhaps because we were polite (?), or because our forms were diligently completed (?), or because our tourist voucher said we were only going to be in Russia from Oct 8–13 (?) — they somehow agreed to prepare our visa in 1.5 weeks. They told us it would take until Oct 12 to be ready; and by the time we left, we were told to return on Oct 7 to pick it up!

(Later I heard that it really only takes 30 minutes to issue a visa. If they tell you it will be produced on January 1, it will be produced on January 1. If you arrive to pick it up and it’s not yet ready, they make you wait 30 minutes to complete it. So this should provide some relief that the system works as expected.)

Paying for the visas

Interestingly, our visa fees weren’t much more than I would have expected to pay in the US — though they were considerably more expensive than the €39 the Finns pay. We were given a receipt that had both our last names on it, and the price in Euros we had to pay. We were told we could pay this at any bank, even an Internet bank. (This seemed totally weird to us.) Chris thought that an Internet bank would be best (out of convenience), but we would then have to produce a receipt of payment that included both of our names and the receipt number. I wasn’t sure how this would be accomplished over the Internet.

So I found a bank in Helsinki. It was called Alandsbanken — right across the street from our hotel. You truly can pay in any bank, but you have to pay cash only (the cost of our visas was €182, total). And the bank we were at added a €7 fee on top of that. I had to take out cash from an ATM at this point (and got some more cash from Chris), and paid our €189 Euros (~$276) to the bank. They then put a stamp on our receipt, which is apparently all the proof you need that you paid. Then you return that receipt to the Consulate on your pick-up date and retrieved your Visas.

We immediately put that receipt in the hotel safe!

…a week an a half later…

Picking up the Visas

While we were waiting for the day to come to pick up our Russian Visas, I had heard some terrifying stories about people who were told their visas would be ready on one day, only to arrive at the Consulate and learn that it wouldn’t be. Because of this, I decided to go to the Consulate on Tuesday, October 6, and make sure that the visas would be ready the next day — when they were supposed to be done. I waited in an hour-long line just to ask my 4-minute question. And they literally laughed in my face, scowling and snickering that this silly American would come ask if the visas would be prepared tomorrow. They said yes and sent me on my way.

Sure enough, I walked through some windy, wet, gray, and cold weather the next day to arrive at the Consulate shortly after it opened. There was no line. (Grrr — expressing frustration at all the other experiences I had had there.) I produced my receipt. It was heavily scrutinized. The woman looked through the visas on her desk. Nothing matching our names. She went into the back….and returned with our two passports! She showed me the visas inside and pointed out where they said: 1) the type of visa (single-entry), 2) the entry and exit dates, and 3) the purpose of the visit (tourism).

We subsequently had an amazing visit to St. Petersburg!

Good luck with your application process — it’s worth the hassle to be able to visit Russia!