Round 5: Off to Ekaterinburg June 1 to June 11

[Al_C]

Well, here goes Round 5:  I am off to Ekaterinburg June 1 to June 11.

One question at this point:  I will be staying with the lady in her apartment and have received conflicting advice on what to do about a visa.  Some have said that I need the private visa, which is the theoretically correct one, but I have also read that it is much harder to get than a tourist visa.  But I have also read some stories of trouble in getting a tourist visa when one is not staying in a hotel.

There are an ample supply of agencies out there willing to get me a tourist visa, and one agency, Passport Express, who told me that I must get the private one, and that it is really not a big problem to get; however, they will not help me get the private letter of invitation.

I really do not want to subject my lady to the Russian bureucracy  if I can help it.  I would much rather do the whole deal from this end.

Any advice or ideas?  Any visa stories I might like to know?  Any agencies that might help?  I don't mind paying a few bucks to have the professionals do this right.

[Faux Pas]

I would recommend just staying with the tourist visa. My situation is much like yours and thats how I deal with it each time. Also a tourist visa doesn't tend to raise eyebrows and is much easier to obtain. Although the company I use says there is no difference other than your lady will have to visit her local immigration office to obtain and register your invitation letter. I get my invitation letter from waytorussia.com and use Travista for the visa.

Once arrived your lady will have to register your visa. The only option to that is find a hotel to register it for a fee.

Good luck

[Al_C]

I found an agency called Ekaterinburg Travel Agency, with a local office in Ekaterinburg, who will register my visa for a $25.00 fee.  Is this something I should be interested in, or is it just as easy to visit the OVIR office and do it myself?  Translation will not be a problem because the lady, who speaks fluent English, will be with me.

[Faux Pas]

I found an agency called Ekaterinburg Travel Agency, with a local office in Ekaterinburg, who will register my visa for a $25.00 fee.  Is this something I should be interested in, or is it just as easy to visit the OVIR office and do it myself?  Translation will not be a problem because the lady, who speaks fluent English, will be with me.

Your lady can do it at the post office or OVIR. If you can read, write and speak Russian you can do it. Nothing is in english. At the post office is the quickest if everything is perfect. Meaning everything on the visa corresponds with your passport. If they spot one little insignificant error the post office won't register it and you'll have to go to OVIR anyway. Example: my first name was not correctly translated into cyrillic (two letters swapped in position), they sent me to OVIR anyway.

OVIR can be quickly or take a full day. Have copies of your passport, visa and migration card and your ladies passport. I think the fee to register is 40 rubles IIRC.

I know this sounds confusing but the brass tacks is this: If everything is in order the Post Office is the quickest way. OVIR is the surest way but can be time consuming.

If I knew of such a place in Tomsk to register my visa for $25 bucks, without question I would gladly and cheerfully pay it. It is a hassle but not insurmountable. The negative is it can be time consuming when you had rather be doing other things.

[GoodOlBoy]

I get my invitation letter from waytorussia.com and use Travista for the visa.

Hello Al_C.

Faux Pas is absolutely correct.

A Tourist Visa is the best way to go (no hassles).

I also used WaytoRussia.com to get my invitation letters. No Problems.

The company I used to process my Visa application through the Russian Embassy was called "TRAVISA". I used the branch in San Francisco.

If you are planning on making several trips to Russia, you may want to consider a "Business Visa" next time.

Have a safe trip!


GOB

[TwoBitBandit]

I'll third the tourist visa route. 

There's lots of agencies that will take care of the invitation part for you, get your passport to the consulate, get it back and send it to you for a fair fee.

I have used gotorussia.net for my last couple of visas, but there are lots of others.

You're just asking for grief if you try to do a "personal" visa.  It's doable but there's more bureaucracy involved on both sides.

[mendeleyev]

Like the other guys who've given you excellent advice, the tourist visa keeps her out of the OVIR limelight and having to spend days and perhaps even bribes just to get the letter and later to register. As Faux Pas says, the post office option is most common and very quick.

If you use a travel agency which is "registered" with the Russian government you shouldn't have to pay for an invitation letter either. Such an agency can issue the letter themselves as part of the flight service and it should be free. There are others but we use East-West-Tours (I have no connection or benefit other than as a satisfied customer for almost a decade) and they extend the invitation and also walk my passport/visa application across the street to the Seattle Russian consulate for a quick and painless visa process and when it's ready Fedx my passport with visa and the flight tickets.

[mendeleyev]

Hope you've had a chance to visit the Monastery of the Holy Martyrs. It was built as a memorial to the Romanov family, the last Russian Tsar with seven unique wooden chapels, one for each family member murdered at the Ipatyev house and then dumped down mine shafts in the forest. The Monastery is built in the forest.

[Al_C]

Hope you've had a chance to visit the Monastery of the Holy Martyrs. It was built as a memorial to the Romanov family, the last Russian Tsar with seven unique wooden chapels, one for each family member murdered at the Ipatyev house and then dumped down mine shafts in the forest. The Monastery is built in the forest.

Thanks for the tourist tip.  I have not yet begun to research where to go because busy season at my company (70 hour, 6 day work weeks) is just starting to wind down.  Another 2 to 3 weeks, and then I will have time for this all impoirtant task.

I applied for my visa today from www.russia-visa.com.  They did not strike me as the cheapest way to go, but this job is too important to give to the lowest bidder.  They promised ma an average turn around of 6 to 8 business days, total fee with Russian Consulate fee was $205.00.

[Vaughn]

They promised ma an average turn around of 6 to 8 business days, total fee with Russian Consulate fee was $205.00.

Sounds like a bargain. When you add up the cost of securing an individual invitation plus the
visa fee itself (before the Russian Consulate stopped taking mailed apps), then add to that a
prepaid return mailer, you've practically broken even - and saved a world of headache.

I'm sort of envious - I've always wanted to visit Ekaterinburg.

Vaughn

[Faux Pas]

Thanks for the tourist tip.  I have not yet begun to research where to go because busy season at my company (70 hour, 6 day work weeks) is just starting to wind down.  Another 2 to 3 weeks, and then I will have time for this all impoirtant task.

I applied for my visa today from www.russia-visa.com.  They did not strike me as the cheapest way to go, but this job is too important to give to the lowest bidder.  They promised ma an average turn around of 6 to 8 business days, total fee with Russian Consulate fee was $205.00.

Thats about right. I used two different entities for my recent trip, one for invitation and for visa and paid slightly less than that. IIRC it was about $190. My turn around time was about 12 days. I used Travisa out of Houston. They even did some customer follow-up which impressed me.

[bobb]

Do not go to OVIR with your woman to register your Visa on a tourist visa.  I did that in January on my trip.  They told her I had the wrong kind of visa.  In the end we were able to register it but they told her if this happened again they would fine her.

[Al_C]

Do not go to OVIR with your woman to register your Visa on a tourist visa.  I did that in January on my trip.  They told her I had the wrong kind of visa.  In the end we were able to register it but they told her if this happened again they would fine her.

Roger on that.  All the more reason to go to the pros.  As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I found an agency with an Ekaterinburg office that will do it for $25.00.

[Al_C]

OK, here we go.  The plane leaves in 24 hours.

My next post will be from Frankfurt, Germany, my one stopover, 2 days from now.  After that, I should get a post off from Ekaterinburg with my first photos about two to three days after that.

Let's hope this trip is more successful than 1 through 4.

[Sculpto]

Bobb is 100% correct.

As I have stated before I did not register one either trip and there were absolutely no consequences upon departure.  Don't do as I did unless you are adventurous.

[JR]

Bobb is 100% correct.

As I have stated before I did not register one either trip and there were absolutely no consequences upon departure.  Don't do as I did unless you are adventurous.

If there are absolutely no consequences how can there be adventure?

[Sculpto]

What is the most dangerous thing you have ever done?

[Andrew]

What is the most dangerous thing you have ever done?

I live in Johannesburg 

[Sculpto]

lol is it really so dangerous there?

[Andrew]

Not at all. There was a time, about 10 years ago where there was a lot of murder within the city itself, but that was when there was an influx of Nigerians and Zimbabweans into the country. Obviously they come here with nothing and crime is a "quick start" in trying to get ahead. Then there was the incident a year or two ago where the locals had had enough of the foreignors and their crime and there was that genocide scare but it was nothing in comparison to other countries. It's the total opposite of all the media hype. My fiance lives in St Pete and quite honestly, Johannesburg is far less scary than St Pete. In my opinion it's like being in Sydney or London. Not much different at all. Heres an amusing article from Jeremy Clarkson (Top Gear). I think this sums it all up:

I dare you to visit Johannesburg, the city for softies
It’s the least frightening place on earth, yet everyone speaks of how many times they’ve been killed that day

Every city needs a snappy one-word handle to pull in the tourists and the investors. So, when you think of Paris, you think of love; when you think of New York, you think of shopping; and when you think of London – despite the best efforts of new Labour to steer you in the direction of Darcus Howe – you think of beefeaters and Mrs Queen.

Rome has its architecture. Sydney has its bridge. Venice has its sewage and Johannesburg has its crime. Yup, Jo’burg – the subject of this morning’s missive – is where you go if you want to be carjacked, shot, stabbed, killed and eaten.

You could tell your mother you were going on a package holiday to Kabul, with a stopover in Haiti and Detroit, and she wouldn’t bat an eyelid. But tell her you’re going to Jo’burg and she’ll be absolutely convinced that you’ll come home with no wallet, no watch and no head.

Jo’burg has a fearsome global reputation for being utterly terrifying, a lawless Wild West frontier town paralysed by corruption and disease. But I’ve spent quite a bit of time there over the past three years and I can reveal that it’s all nonsense.

If crime is so bad then how come, the other day, the front-page lead in the city’s main newspaper concerned the theft of a computer from one of the local schools? I’m not joking.

The paper even ran a massive picture of the desk where the computer used to sit. It was the least interesting picture I’ve ever seen in a newspaper. But then it would be, because this was one of the least interesting crimes.

“Pah,” said the armed guard who’d been charged with escorting me each day from my hotel to the Coca-Cola dome where I was performing a stage version of Top Gear.

Quite why he was armed I have absolutely no idea, because all we passed was garden centres and shops selling tropical fish tanks. Now I’m sorry, but if it’s true that the streets are a war zone, and you run the risk of being shot every time you set foot outside your front door, then, yes, I can see you might risk a trip to the shops for some food. But a fish tank? An ornamental pot for your garden? It doesn’t ring true.

Look Jo’burg up on Wikipedia and it tells you it’s now one of the most violent cities in the world . . . but it adds in brackets “citation needed”. That’s like saying Gordon Brown is a two-eyed British genius (citation needed).

Honestly? Johannesburg is Milton Keynes with thunderstorms. You go out. You have a lovely ostrich. You drink some delicious wine and you walk back to your hotel, all warm and comfy. It’s the least frightening place on earth. So why does every single person there wrap themselves up in razor wire and fit their cars with flame-throwers and speak of how many times they’ve been killed that day? What are they trying to prove?

Next year South Africa will play host to the football World Cup. The opening and closing matches will be played in Jo’burg, and no one’s going to go if they think they will be stabbed.

The locals even seem to accept this, as at the new airport terminal only six passport booths have been set aside for non-South African residents.

At first it’s baffling. Why ruin the reputation of your city and risk the success of the footballing World Cup to fuel a story that plainly isn’t true? There is no litter and no graffiti. I’ve sauntered through Soweto on a number of occasions now, swinging a Nikon round my head, with no effect. You stand more chance of being mugged in Monte Carlo.

Time and again I was told I could buy an AK47 for 100 rand – about £7. But when I said, “Okay, let’s go and get one”, no one had the first idea where to start looking. And they were even more clueless when I asked about bullets.

As I bought yet another agreeable carved doll from yet another agreeable black person, I wanted to ring up those idiots who compile surveys of the best and worst places to live and say: “Why do you keep banging on about Vancouver, you idiots? Jo’burg’s way better.”

Instead, however, I sat down and tried to work out why the locals paint their city as the eighth circle of hell. And I think I have an answer. It’s because they want to save the lions in the Kruger National Park.

I promise I am not making this up. Every night, people in Mozambique pack up their possessions and set off on foot through the Kruger for a new life in the quiet, bougainvillea-lined streets of Jo’burg. And very often these poor unfortunate souls are eaten by the big cats.

That, you may imagine, is bad news for the families of those who’ve been devoured. But actually it’s even worse for Johnny Lion. You see, a great many people in Mozambique have Aids, and the fact is this: if you can catch HIV from someone’s blood or saliva during a bout of tender love-making, you can be assured you will catch it if you wolf the person down whole. Even if you are called Clarence and you have a mane.

At present, it’s estimated that there are 2,000 lions in the Kruger National Park and studies suggest 90% have feline Aids. Some vets suggest the epidemic was started by lions eating the lungs of diseased buffalos. But there are growing claims from experts in the field that, actually, refugees are the biggest problem.

That’s clearly the answer, then. Johannesburgians are telling the world they live in a shit-hole to save their lions. That’s the sort of people they are. And so, if you are thinking about going to the World Cup next year, don’t hesitate.

The exchange rate’s good, the food is superb, the weather’s lovely and, thanks to some serious economic self-sacrifice, Kruger is still full of animals. The word, then, I’d choose to describe Jo’burg is “tranquil”.

[Sculpto]

hilarious!

[Andrew]

Yep! Big, Bad, Jo'burg................. the place I choose to call home   

[Sculpto]

sounds awesome.. hows the art scene?

[Andrew]

The art scene is pretty vibrant. Very different to anything else. Yuou either love it or hate it, nothing in between. Not my cup of tea.

[Sculpto]

The art scene is pretty vibrant. Very different to anything else. Yuou either love it or hate it, nothing in between. Not my cup of tea.

All gallery oriented with wine and cheese and a bunch of posers?  Or.. outsider art that is hard to describe?