Visas for visiting Russia

Am looking to go in late July ... who out there has been? How hard was it to get a visa and how long did it take? Also, if any fellow Americans have been -- do we really need the special health insurance in order to get the visa?

Thanks for all your help in advance.

I went to St. Petersberg last year, and you MUST have an invitation to get a visa, you MUST also have special health insurance. It took 6 weeks for mine.

Depending who you are visiting/why you are going, you can usually get the hotel to organise your invitation for you, I actually went to a Russian travel Agents near Frauenhoferstrasse, and they wrote me my invitation and organised my visa for me. But it did cost.

Been twice- 1984 and 1996- need visas- but worth it!!! Get an invite or have set travel plans...

been to the former Soviet countries 3 times.
with an invite it is much easier.
very interesting place and culture. very mixed and a lot to learn.

Check out the Hash House Harriers in St. Petes or Moscow- they can possibly give an invite...

I am looking for Russian communities/clubs in Munich, in fact, throughout Germany ... anyone know of any?

Kalinka , KunstPark ... bring your bling.

Bling??? But where are the Russians?? Other than Bonn & Berlin, what German cities have a high % of Russians?

The towns bordering the Czech border in the Bayerische Wald

If you count the "Russlanddeutsche" (Russian Germans) as Russian, which for all practical purposes they are, they are basically all over. In Bavaria, the city with the highest percentage is probably Straubing in Lower Bavaria (it attracted lots of Russian Jews in the nineties, because it has one of the few Jewish communities remaining after the war). But there should be tens of thousands of Russian Germans in the Munich area as well.

Try the Russian or Ukrainian churches, I have been, and met alot of Ukrainians there, and a good home cooked meal to.

There are also some Russian Stores, one by Stiglmaierpl and one by Kolumbuspl, they have pamphlets and such of stuff going on in the area in Russian and russian culture.

If u r ever going to Russia, dont fly to Moscow the airport there just makes u want to take the next flight back home. I had a stop over in moscow once for 36 hours...the people i thought were cold and uncouth...
But the alchohol is cheap and i made the best of it.

Not going to work Debbie, not on TT, "don't fly to Moscow", "the alcohol is cheap" in one post. You working for Intourist ?

We've got our invitation from our business partner in Russia. Now we are looking at organizing the Visas. Has anbody done this before and did you find it difficult? One complication is that we haven't been able to confirm the exact travel dates yet. Reading the Russian Embassy website it appears that we must have confirmation of our flights before we can get a visa. Is this correct?

When I applied in person at the Embassy in March this year it was very straightforward - I hadn't booked flights but had written proof of my exact dates and hotel booking (never stay at the Cosmos, Moscow!) confirmed through the travel company.

I had to get mine within a day which was expensive as I needed my passport the following day for UK travel. I believe its much cheaper if you hand it in and retrieve after a few days. They give you a paying-in slip for a local bank and only when you come back with it paid do they start processing.

Google Russian Embassy Munich on the Net for opening times and other helpful things. Edit: seen you've done this already!

Enjoy the trip.