BRITISH CITIZENS
For British men I have listed some useful links below to companies in the UK who can provide all your visa requirements when you finally decide to travel to Russia. The problem with visa's is that you need what is commonly known as an 'invitation' from someone in Russia before you can apply for a visa. Invitations come in a number of forms. Firstly there is the 'private invitation', which can be provided by a friend or relative in Russia. It is probably the most time consuming of invitations to arrange. Your friend/relative will need to visit their local police office department called OVIR. Here they will apply for an invitation for you. They fill out a couple of forms and these forms are then sent to the OVIR headquarters. They check everything, send the forms back to the local OVIR office and notify your friend/relative that the invitation is ready to be collected. Once your friend/relative has collected the invitation they will need to post it to you by FedEx or UPS to make sure it arrives safely to you. It is possible to have a scanned copy of the original sent to you. Or the invite could be faxed to the relevant embassy. Check with the embassy first. This process can take up to 6 weeks so plan ahead!
The next option is provided by hotels if you book accommodation through them. The hotel will provide a voucher once your booking is confirmed. You then include this voucher with your visa application.
The final option is to obtain an invitation from a registered company that is authorized to issue invitations. All our agents are registered business' in their countries and thus are able to provide invitations. However they will only provide invitations to individuals who have booked a personal tour through our service.
One other thing to mention. And this is very important! You must have your visa registered within 3 working days of your arrival in Russia, Ukraine or Belarus. You will have to visit the office of the company who issued your invitation and have them stamp your visa in your passport. Faliure to do this will mean that you will not be able to leave these countries without paying a fine. If you received a private invitation through your friend you will need to visit the local OVIR office to register. Hotels that issued your voucher will also register your visa as will the private company that issued your invitation.
A number of visa specialists and travel companies in the UK can provide invitations and visa's. They can make life a lot easier for you too but at a price. In fact many of the companies below offer a a full range of services from flights to hotel bookings to full visa services. In other words all you need to do is fill in a form and pay a fee and these companies do the rest!
Thames Consular is a specialized visa service for British citizens. They actually provide visa's for any country in the world that you wish to travel to. They are located in the British Airways travel shop in Regents Street and have an office in Chiswick. Here is a list of countries of the CIS that they can provide visa's for:
- Armenia
- Belarus
- Georgia
- Kazakstan
- Kyrgyzstan
- Moldova
- Russia
- Tajikistan
- Turkmenistan
- Ukraine - a visa is no longer required for citizens of the UK
- Uzbekistan
ASLA Travel has offices in Huntingdon in the UK, Moscow in Russia and Kiev and Yalta in Ukraine. They can provide all manners of services to all CIS countries.
Russian Gateway can provide British clients with tourist and business visa's. A one day service is available for a fee. They tend to specialize in Russia rather than the other CIS countries although a visa service is provided to all CIS countries. They have a number of good flight deals
Intourist specialize in travel and tours to Russia but can also provide visa's services.
The majority of travel companies will insist you book accommodation in Russia through them to obtain your visa. If you are planning to stay in an apartment or cheaper hotel in Russia what a lot of men do is book an overnight stay with a travel company so as to get their visa. As explained above you will need to have your visa registered in Russia. So if you book an overnight stay you can get your visa registered easily at the hotel. You are not obliged to stay there and are free to move elsewhere. It's just a formality.
