First steps for Russian trip planning
 

HI, I am in the first steps of planning a trip to Russia for an extended family (no children). The trip will be next summer.

I have some starting questions for all the experts on this forum. Thank you in advance for your responses.

1. Tour or independent? Use a travel agent? - all thoughts and suggestions and specific ideas welcome. We will be trying to plan a side trip to Minsk to visit relatives.

2. We expect the trip to last about two weeks ( probably including travel to and from the states). - on our list is of course Moscow and St. Pete, and we would love to see the wooden churches. Other thoughts andideas that are manageable or must sees?

All the best!

If you stop off in Novgorod between SP and Moscow there is a museum of wooden architecture. Town is worth seeing anyway.

I visited independently, although I had an agency book my train tickets and homestays (do NOT recommend homestays although they may have improved since 2004). However, if you have a big group you will be better off with more support. Finding a TA with the relevant expertise may be difficult, depending on your budget you might want a tour company to do a tour specifically for your group.

If you plan to move around a great deal and don't speak ( read) Russian
you might consider some time with a tour.
I traveled on my own ( SP and Moscow ,only for 4-5 days each ), made all bookings on line (flights, hotels, train, theatre etc) ; I studied Russian for three moths ahead of the trip. Had no problems.
English is spoken in hotels and upscale restaurants..

I strongly recommend that you find a travel agency that will help you with your visas.I tried to get my visa through the Russian consulate in Seattle and was not satisfied with the help I got.

I finally telephoned Red Star Travel in Seattle. They were very helpful with obtaining the visa. I think it cost me about $285. That was not the charge for the help. It was the charge for the visa.

If I had it to do over again, I would use a travel agency to arrange tickets for the sights I wanted to see. As it was, the lines for tickets to the Hermitage, the Church of the Spilled Blood and other palaces were horrendously long. I wasn't able to enter any of the venues because of the long lines.

I visited independently back in 1994, but I did so solo. As thursdaysd and danon note, depending on the size of your group, a travel agent or tour might be worth considering. BTW, I learned to transliterate from Cyrilic, but knew only a few words of Russian -- just the most basic civilities. I had a WONDERFUL trip.

I visited St. Petersburg and Moscow, and FWIW, I thought 5 or 6 days about right for each city. Of course, that depends on what you want to see and do.

For traditional wooden churches, you might visit Kolomenskoye when in Moscow
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/634

BTW, you might want to rethink calling it "St. Pete." I was there just after the city was renamed St. Petersburg, after years during which it had been called Leningrad. So many residents with whom I spoke noted have very glad they were to finally have the chance to call their beloved city by what they considered it's rightful name. Things could have changed -- and some might say they have -- but IMO, St. Pete is in Florida; the magnificent city in Russia is St. Petersburg. JMO.

Hope that helps!

Thank you for all the input so far. There will be 8 of us with two Russian speakers. Any specific suggestions for travel agencies specializing in Russia?

Red Star Travel in Seattle. I don't know where you live, but I don't suppose it makes any difference if you don't live near Seattle.

I booked hotels in Moscow and train ticket SP-Moscow through
Express to Russia , a local company .( 2015 and 2016)
They promptly answered each time ...there were no problems.
I did not book tours or anything else with them.

sorry...local as in SP

I researched packaged tours offered at home and found it less expensive
and more convenient to select hotels and organize travel on my own.
With a large group you might need some help.

If you are planning a side trip to Belarus, you might or might not need a visa depending on the number of days you intend to stay there. You will need a double entry visa for Russia, if you intend to go back to Russia after your stay in Belarus.

Hi, thanks for all the helpful input so far. Anyspecific suggestions for:
1. Travel agents specializing in Russia
2. How many days to spend in St. Petersburg and Moscow
3. Whether to visit other cities?

Many thanks.

As already noted, for MY interests, I thought 5 or 6 days about right for St. Petersburg and also about right for Moscow.

I'd love to see Novgorod.

I agree with pp....
it depends on your interest...On my first visit I concentrated more on SP and spent only
3 nights in Moscow ( listened to advice from a poster)
Realizing my mistake , I returned to Moscow the following year for five nights.
( could have stayed even longer)
SP is very beautiful, but I found Moscow more interesting .
I have not visited other cities..would love to go back to Russia in the future.

I would use an agent to get the invitations necessary for the Russian visa application but do the visa myself online directly with the Russian consulate website. Or you can ask the hotels that you book to send over the official invitation, which is what I usually do.

The process for applying for a visa changes regularly, so what happened 2 years ago might not be valid now and might not be valid in 6 months time, a poster has recently written their experience of obtaining the visa themselves online. It's the same form that been around for at least 30 years, only now it can be filled in electronically. You can only apply for the visa 3 months before travel and in your case, will need to be double entry if you do your side trip to Belarus.

For Russian rail tickets, hotels etc, I would recommend the use of a Russian travel agent. Only certain agents have the license to sell rail tickets, local agents also have better hotel rates. You can book them yourself online, but need to understand Russian to do so. The home page is in English, but the screen responses are in Russian. Also you will need to understand the ticket types for long train journeys(sv first class-2 person compartment, coupé 2nd class-4 berth, if you want all 4 berths you must book entire compartment or you could end up sharing etc)

For entrance tickets, many can be booked online in advance.

For air tickets, book with the airline or OTA, as you see fit.

For airport transfers, the rail links in Moscow are very good.

If you decide you would like some organised tours, they can be arranged thru various local tour operators or even take a guide on the day, usually official guides wait outside the main sites.

5/6 days (4/5 nights) in Moscow and St Petersburg is about right, 1 night Novgorod was sufficient for me. Moscow has more of the onion domed churches than St Petersburg, there are many interesting estates that you can visit which are not on the regular tourist trail (Sheremetyev, Ostankino etc).

<<I think it cost me about $285. That was not the charge for the help. It was the charge for the visa.>> A single entry Russian tourist visa costs $90, double entry is $144. The rest would be fees of the processing agent, delivery costs, urgent processing etc.

Currently you cannot get a Russisn visa by mail without using Invisa, their official agency.