Russian visa - introduction

Our trip will likely pass by Russia. Since long time (5, 6, 7 years?) that I want to visit deep Russia (is how I call Russia apart from Moscow and St. Petersbourg). While my first six months in Finland, back in 2002, I managed to travel for a week in Russia, visited the two big cities. I enjoyed a lot St. Petersbourg and found strange Moscow, but maybe also because it was just the day after the end of the occupation by Tchechens of a theater in Moscow, which ended by more than 100 people dead when police trowed some sleeping gas. In any case until the end of my six months I dreamed about returning to Russia as soon as I would finish my university. I even went to Russian embassy in Lisbon to ask about the procedures. Life changes and instead of going to Russia I went back to live in Oulu, Finland and then Geneva, Switzerland.

This time it seems for real, Eva and me will go to Russia... if we manage all the bureaucracy.

In order to get a Russian visa one needs first an invitation. To get this invitation, for an independent traveler, it mostly obliges an agency. While waytorussia.net is the most complete source of information, there seems to be also several travel agencies who do the work, including some in Switzerland, like RussianConcept here in Geneva.

For the invitation we should choose two things: the duration of the visa and the beginning date. Now the big question are: how long we want to stay in Russia? When we plan to arrive to Russia?
For the first question, I believe the 90 days is a good bet, if not even 6 months. For the latter, it depends on how deep we will visit the countries on the way. We want to check-out the Baltic states and some of Poland and a bit lower Slovakia or Czech republic. Things to discuss...