zak Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 I have a friend living in St Petersburg who has invited me out there. Getting a Visa seems a right ball ache and i live in London. I presume 1 or 2 from here have been.... how much time does it take? I don't want to take a full day off work just trying to get a Visa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 I went in 2009 but I just paid an agency to do it as it I didn't have an supporting documentation from a Travel agency Paid a bit extra but all I had to do was stick my passport in the post along with some photos ..think it was Glasgow I sent it off to the other problem we encountered was that you are supposed to register your visa at your hotel within a few days of arrival (might only be if you are staying over 5 days can't recall now) ..only we'd hired an apartment and didn't have a hotel ... no problem the letting agency put us in touch with someone in St Peterburg who registered us as being residents of some random hotel in St Peterberg .. so far so good , until we got stopped by 3 policemen coming out of a bar at 5 am somewhat worse for ware and they asked us where we were staying and none of us could remember the name of our "hotel" in our passport visa thankfully they didn't seem to care or check and surprisingly didn't ask us to part with any of our money either so we were on our merry way , but you do hear of some horror stories of tourists and corrupt Police in that area so act with caution of course this may have all changed now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zak Posted February 6, 2015 Author Share Posted February 6, 2015 I went in 2009 but I just paid an agency to do it as it I didn't have an supporting documentation from a Travel agency Paid a bit extra but all I had to do was stick my passport in the post along with some photos ..think it was Glasgow I sent it off to the other problem we encountered was that you are supposed to register your visa at your hotel within a few days of arrival (might only be if you are staying over 5 days can't recall now) ..only we'd hired an apartment and didn't have a hotel ... no problem the letting agency put us in touch with someone in St Peterburg who registered us as being residents of some random hotel in St Peterberg .. so far so good , until we got stopped by 3 policemen coming out of a bar at 5 am somewhat worse for ware and they asked us where we were staying and none of us could remember the name of our "hotel" in our passport visa thankfully they didn't seem to care or check and surprisingly didn't ask us to part with any of our money either so we were on our merry way , but you do hear of some horror stories of tourists and corrupt Police in that area so act with caution of course this may have all changed now Did a bit more googling and it was a bit confusing but here's my answer: Based on the above listed information, from 10 December 2014 all applicants who wish to apply for a Russian visa should do so in person at the Russian Visa Application Centres in London and Edinburgh, otherwise applications cannot be accepted. In the event of refusal to undergo biometric procedure, the applicant will not be issued a visa. So i have to go in to get my fingerprint taken. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 i went September 2013, so i didnt have my finger print taken, did have what tony is saying about the hotel though, also experienced a lot of questions at passport control about where id the documents from and i didnt know the answers because the gf had sorted it, i had a copper come and flank me, took me about 10 minutes to get through its a good city, definitely worth a visit, mind blowingly expensive (i thought it was more expensive than london for say a sandwich and a tea from a chain place, £4-5 for the tea...) best city for attractive women ive ever been to, the palaces and the history is brilliant, couldnt tell you if its any good for a couple of lads did see some darker skinned people get interrogated on a couple of occasions but they never bothered me, i actually think in terms of the police (although maybe not everyone else) you might be ok if you were black, from what i saw its people from id guess Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan that they go after, they're the borders they cant monitor, saw like what they used to sometimes do in this country with cars, like every 3rd car in the lay by so they can check your tax etc they were doing it with people and passports on the main highstreet i think while i was there i saw couple of asians, couple of black blokes, couple of lesbians, not a single bloke in 4 days that i would describe as camp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 Ah, Leningrad They say you can see Helsinki from there on a really clear day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts