If you are planning a trip to Russia, your head must be filled with thousands of questions. Some of you may not even know where to start. I remember this phase and was as clueless as you probably are. Lets just jump right on it.
Russian visa is a very simple and easy to get. First of all lets just understand the basic question
What is Visa?
A visa is a conditional authorization by a country to allow foreigners to enter, stay and leave country for a fixed duration of time.
Lets breakdown the activities in sequence of their occurrence
Step 1: Decide the dates (start and end) of your travel because Russian tourist visa will be applicable only for that duration unlike visa of other countries which varies from 1 month to 3 months or may be more. For example. My visit to Moscow was from 17th Nov to 24th Nov. I was issued visa from 17th to 24th Nov only.
Step 2: Fill online visa application form at their website https://www.india-ifs.com/ , Submit visa form and take print out of the filled form.
Step 3. On the same website where you filled online visa form, schedule an appointment as per available slots. Make sure you are available on the date and time you selected for submission of your visa documents. It may take 1-2 hours max for document submission. IFS Centre is next to Barakhamba Metro station in Delhi.
Step 4 : Other documents required are
a) Passport with minimum validity of six months, a color photocopy of front page and last page,
b) 2 passport size photos. Refer website for specifications
(https://www.mypassportphotos.com/country-blog/russian-passport-visa-photo-requirements-and-size )
c) Travel voucher (It can be issued by either authorized Russian Travel Agencies or Hotels). Usually one has to pay approx. 1000 - 1500 Rs for it but, I got it for free. Russian visa requires that you must have confirmed hotel/hostel booking for the duration of visa applied. I booked Jedi hostel (Best location with amazing view) for 7 days in approx 7000 Rs and also got free travel voucher. Here it is how
I made my booking through Booking.com which is partner of below website. Important thing to remember here is that you must book your hotel/hostel through below website only. There is a link to booking.com also in below website as they are partners.
http://www.saint-petersburg.com/russian-visa/free-visa-support/
To get the voucher you need to send them confirmed payment proof. But the problem on Booking.com was that they took my credit card details but were deducting amount only when I check in. There was no option of pre-payment for any Hotel/Hostel. So, I selected Jedi Hostel and took its contact number and sent a whatsapp text explaining my situation. They sent a scanned copy of my payment proof, I submitted it through website above and Bob's your uncle 😎 within a day or two I received my travel voucher.
Total Visa cost - Rs 2480
It took 4 working days. I submitted my documents on 1st Nov and got a confirmation slip with date 8th Nov to collect visa. If you want it to be delivered at your home, you need to pay approx Rs 600 extra and if you want text message notification of your visa processing, you need to pay Rs 50 extra.
This is all that is required.
I approached Popular travel agency (cant write name and it doesn't matter) for Visa and they charged me approx Rs 5500 and asked me documents like Bank statement of last 6 months, ITR of last 3 years, Confirmed flight tickets etc. Its not at all required. Russian visa agency may ask this if required but in most cases its not required at all for Russian tourist visa. Hence, I asked for refund and did the whole process on my own and it was as simple as ABC 🙂
you can check out my trip pictures on my Instagram- Excursionist_sunny
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