I know that there are other topics on this, but I am still confused. I am Canadian and need to get a visa for April, a long ways off I know, but going to Burma for the month of January so want to get as much done for our Russia trip as possible before I go to Asia as I will be swamped with work when I get back in Feburary.

In Canada you can not go to the Embassy it seems to get your VIsa any more. The Russiam embassy is in Ottawa, I am close to Vancouver, but you now go through a third party, like Visa Link who are located in Vancouver so that is fine. More expensive, but no choice there I guess.

So here is the question. I looked over the visa application and it appears to me that you can apply at any time before hand as long as you have the dates you will be in Russia. So unlike my Burmese visa which is only good for 90 days after issue, if I read this correctly I can almost apply now for travel in April? Does any one know if that is the case?

My other question is, I know that you have to get invitations from hotels first. We can do that, we will spend around 5 or 6 nights in St. Petersburg and then 4 or so in Moscow. We also thought about spending a couple of nights in places around the Golden Ring.

I know that each time you get an invitation from a hotel they charge money, which is fair. However, if I am spending one night here and one night there, do I need to get an invitation from each hotel?

I guess my question in summary is do you need to have every day accounted for in your visa application?

Thanks for any help or advice on this.

It's been a while since I did this. I did have reservations for the whole trip, but my invitation was from the agency that arranged them, not individual hotels.

The best sites for info on Russian visas (aside from the embassies) are:

http://www.waytorussia.net/
http://www.myazcomputerguy.com/everbrite/Page2.html
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntre...readID=1202091

My understanding is that you have to have every night of your stay covered - otherwise they will have no idea where you are.

We started our Russian visa process June 30 and it was extremely unfortunate that they started an online visa applciation process July 1.

Go to www.travisa.com. You plug in where you are going your nationality and it pulls up the very specific requirements you need. It also tells you about the extremely specific requirements that each Russian consulate requires. So where you send it, depends on what you need to send. How one consulate can have one requirement and one in another city another, is _____(fill in the blank).

You do not need to travel anywhere to submit the application. We were extremely glad we used travisa as they sort of pre-processed our application and so when submitted to the consulate, it was good to go. If consulate denies it for whatever reason, you need to repay the fee when you resubmit. So travisa's modest fee was worth it. So if you go with them, and send it to their Houston office, you follow the requirements for the Houston russian consulate.

You only need 1 invitation from 1 entity, hotel, 3rd party, tour company, etc. You just tell them the dates you are going to be in the country. Some hotels do for free, others charge and 3rd parties like travisa, do for it a fee. You cannot process your visa app without the information from the invitation. I don't know how far out I would process it as you never know what requirements might change. Again, a travisa would probably have that info.

Since you are so far out from your trip, be careful of the dates on the visa invitation, as it appears you cannot extend the visa exit date.

We are going to Moscow, SPB and some Golden ring cities. I put them all down but apparently not necessary as they are supposedly included in the Moscow environs.

Took about 2-3 weeks to process everything. With all the traveling you might have already done and your upcoming trip, consulate requires a completely blank page in your passport, or when you open it, both pages you are looking at are blank.jk

Good advice from Jan47, most visa companies like visahq.com will apply for an invitation for you, either the 30 day tourist or 90 day business. The invitations voucher was never for a place we actually stayed.

If your applying for the 30 or 90 day visa, put the stay up the whole time allowed for that visa.

For example your arriving on Oct 1 and leaving October 10th, on your application put your departure date as Oct 30th, not Oct 10th. Otherwise you must leave on Oct 10th, and if your flight is delayed or other delays you could run into problems.

I always get the multiple entry if you can, not sure it tourist visa has that option, I typically get the 90 day business visa, Multiple entry.

If the hotel on your voucher does not match the hotel you stay at, not worries I have never had them match in dozens of trips to Moscow.

okay I get it now. Thanks everyone for your great information.