So you want to go to Russia eh? TPOL has been planning this trip for years. I managed to keep the same Park Hyatt DSU confirmation for three years. It was only after this year’s new Hyatt policy that I had to give up the suite in Moscow and use another one in its place.
In preparation for the trip I’ve been doing daily Russian Skype lessons. Now I can say нет to the scandalous taxi driver and здравствуйте to my new Russian friends.
Of course, before doing any of that, I still need to get my visa approved. As readers know, I’m not the greatest at this part of travel planning. I left nothing to chance this time by paying a servicing agency, VisaHQ.com, to deal with it. The requirements are more tedious than the India visa. They include the following:
- Two blank passport pages which cannot be the last two pages. (I’ll never get the purpose of those pages.)
- An invitation letter. I paid the agency for this as the Park Hyatt only can write one for single entry.
- The electric application.
- A beautiful photo.
- The last two employers.
- The countries traveled over the last ten years with dates or the last ten countries visited. I had to go back to my Trip Directory list for this, a benefit of travel blogging.
- $357 for expedited processing and overnight shipping to and fro. Ouch. (Still cheaper than Shanghai deportation)
If I do get approved the visa is valid for three years. The next visa I will apply for is China’s ten year visa and India’s ten year visa.
Hopefully I’ll be blogging from Russia soon,
саша
