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admin · Site Admin Joined: 22 Oct 2006 Posts: 24

Please post any useful advice, weblinks or info relating to travel in Russia here.
Thanks!

A good place to start is www.waytorussia.net
Although its a commercial site it seems to be one of the best regardingt travelling to or around Russia. Info on visas, buses & trains. You can also download info about visa support docs.

For locations of Russian consulates around the world check out www.visatorussia.com

Louietraveller · Joined: 22 Oct 2006 Posts: 9 Location: London UK

Customs:
When entering Russia by plane, after passing through immigration, pick up your luggage and pass through customs. Be sure to go through the line with other Russians and get your Deklaratsia stamped. This is absolutely imperative if you intend to leave the country via a different location, in particular via the trans-siberian train. Without a stamped deklaratsia you will have trouble taking foreign currency out of Russia. Occasionally you must insist that this document is stamped - just stand there and wait. Often, they simply don't want to take the time.

If you are entering by train, remind the attendant that you will need a declaration form. Even if she/he does not speak any English, they should recognise the word: deklaratsia. Again you will deal with immigration and they will stamp your passport but there is another person who is responsible for stamping your deklaratsia. Insist that that person stamp as well. Departing the country by train in Siberia people have reported all sorts of problems: loss of monies because they had to convert to travellers checks, paying bribes or "fines", missing trains and other nightmares.

You can download the form here www.russianvisas.org/visa_download.htm Remember that you will need one to enter the country and a second one when departing. Take along some extras in case you make mistakes.

Money:
NB: You cannot take quantities of Russian Rubles into or out of Russia. Most people travel with crisp new US dollars or Euros. If you bring US dollars they should be the newer style with the large offset portrait. Bills should be in reasonably good condition with no tears or markings.

You can get money from ATM machines in the larger cities. In the smaller towns, this is less frequently an option and the amount of money that you can withdraw is less.

Louisa · Joined: 22 Oct 2006 Posts: 2

We left Russia by train via Belarus (you need a transit visa) and our passport / visas did not get checked when we left Russia / entered Belarus. So we had no exit stamp...as we weren't going back again it wasn't a problem, and when we were stamped out of Belarus in the morning there were no issues. We had been warned that sometimes there is no passport check on trains going from Ukraine to Russia (eg Kiev to Moscow) and you don't get an entry stamp - this could be a real pain and make registration and exit tricky! However, we took a train from Kiev to Moscow (Aug 2009) and our passports were checked and stamped. It was a lovely new train too!

Visa registration in Russia...our experience showed in August that visa registration is no longer linked to immigration. You only have to register your visa if you stay in the same place for for than 2 nights (it might have been 3). eg if you do 2 nights St Petersburg, 2 Moscow, 2 Suzdal, you don't need to register, and we were told exiting the country will still be fine even though you have been in Russia for 6 nights. Nonetheless, our hotel in Suzdal automatically registered our visas for us. We were not registered in Moscow though. Either way, this did not get checked for us at any stage.

Suzdal was a great side trip from Moscow. There's only a couple of trains a day and the train is pretty slow but Suzdal was worth the trip, quiet, rural, few tourists and fantastic architecture. Enough to keep you occupied for a day or two and provide a very different experience from Moscow.