Going to visit friends in St. Petersburg in early July; they're in the process of getting the invitation(using, I hear, the ever prevelant 'blat' or 'nalevo' to get it done quickly). I'm curious about the visa procedures, and the Visa Services. Which ones are recommended? Has anyone done or heard anything with traveldocs.com? I figured I would go through an agency since they would know the ropes even though I had my own invitation. Also, I read on this site that effective May 1st, the Visa will no longer be a seperate piece of paper but will be stamped in your passport. Any more news on this, true or not? Any other pertinent info would be appreciated. Thanks everyone.

Assuming you have American citizenship you can either apply at the consulate yourself, mail the material, or use Traveldocs (or other agencies--I used traveldocs once uneventfully). Especially if I were to use a visa service I would just get the visa invitation through the service agency rather than employing bribes to speed things up on the Russian end.

I understand know about using the visa services for everything, but my friends over there know a lady that works at OVIR in St. Petersburg and they kind of ran with it, letting me know the particulars later. kinda of strange I guess. Yes, I'm American and it's good to hear someone has used Traveldocs.com without incident, although I 've not decided if I'll use a visa service or mail the stuff myself.Thanks for the info.

You can see requirements at<BR><BR>www.ruscon.org<BR>and<BR>www.russianemba ssy.org<BR>

I have used travel docs in the past with no problems. I am preparing for a trip to Moscow in May and what I have been told about the separate piece of paper vs. the stamp is that as long as the application is processed before May 1, the separate piece of paper is fine, even for travel after May 1.