Moscow with Eltati Tours

Reader Contribution (JM)…

Important arrival/departure information!

You are expected to register with the US embassy within 24 hours of your arrival. Your hotel should help you with this or get it done for you. (We stayed with a friend so don’t have the hotel experience.) I would just make sure to speak with the hotel when you book your reservation about this. You will need the stamp from the embassy in order to leave the country. It is not complicated.

At the Airport: It is not at all like in Germany where someone just about everywhere you go, speaks English. Don’t expect anyone at the airport to speak English. When we left, we had nothing to fill out. Our plane did not depart until 12:20 p.m. and we could not check in until 10:20. But once they opened up check in, there were no issues since our visas and stamps were in order. We flew direct on German wings between Koln and Moscow.

Tour Guides:

Eltati Travel
Tanya & Igor
In our US Embassy around the corner from the CLO)
tel +7(495)728-5281
Mon and Weds 1030-1425; Tues and Thurs 1430-1630

Eltati Travel Office in Moscow:
Tel/Fax 8-499-369-6698
Email: tatiana@oss.ru

We went through this tourist agency located in the US Embassy. We had our own personal guide, Lydia who was literally a walking encyclopedia, wonderful and so knowledgeable. Very passionate about Russian history, she gave us an experience we could have never gotten on our own. Tanya is great at answering your email. This group only does tours for Americans, so they all have a great mastery of English.

I highly recommend doing a tour of the Kremlin Grounds with the Armory museum and a tour of Red Square which includes the Mausoleum. It may be difficult with small children, but you have the flexibility to cute the tour short if you need to or so slow it down as well. Our kids are older, so we maxed out our time.

Tour Sights:

Kremlin Grounds and the Armory Museum
During this tour you will be able to see the Tsar Bell and Cannon, visit the main cathedrals of the 15th century and the metropolitan chambers from the 17th century. The Armory houses the oldest Russian museum containing unique objects of jewelry, diamonds, and royal crowns created by many generations of Russian and foreign masters. Cost: 1800 rubles per adult (min 4 adults), 1100 for students under age 26

In two of the cathedrals at a couple of the tour times, you can hear singers. They are so beautiful. No words can describe it. The acoustics in the cathedrals in tandem with their voices practically moved us to tears. The detailed Frescos and the Icons dating back to the 15th centuries are equally moving. So much religious and biblical history inscribed on these walls mixed in with both a sad and fascinating Russian history.

Red Square, Lenin’s Tomb and Other Kitai Gorod Atractions (Walking tour)
This tour acquaints you with Red Square and its surroundings. The focal point of Red Square is St. Basil’s Cathedral. Some of its pretty 16th and 17th century frescoes have been restored. Cost: 450 rubles per person (min 4 adults)

Novodevichy Monastyr (New Maiden’s Convent) and Cemetery (Walking tour)
The convent is one of the examples of 16-17th Russian architecture. Behind its crenellated wall, we find ourselves i the peaceful atmosphere of the ancient convent and ten proceed to the actual cells of nuns. Beyond the convent’s south wall lies the fascinating Novodevichy cemetery where many famous writers, artists, and politicians are buried – Stalin’s wife, Andrey Gromyko, Gorbachyov’s wife Raisa, and Nikita Khrushev. Monuments on many tombs are real masterpieces. Cost: 450 rubles per person (min 4 adults) + entrance fees for the convent.

Victory Park
Highly recommended either on your own or with a tour, Victory Park is gorgeous. The Patriotic Museum is INCREDIBLE, and everything in there is in Russian and English. The dioramas of the 5 largest WWII battles involving Russia will be enjoyed by all members of the family including your children. There are huge walls covered with period photography, interesting exhibits throughout, and a very moving “wall of memory and sorrow.” There is also a moving exhibit of Russian gypsies who were included in the holocaust along with the Jewish people. Behind this museum but still at Victory Park is an Open Air Machinery and Equipment museum with exhibits of original planes, tanks, on hand from WWII both German and Russian, as well as those planes the Americans manufactured and provided Russia in the war. The kids will love this. There is a simulated war trench as well, machine gun pillboxes, lots of history and fun on a pretty day.

And finally, the Izmaylovo Market is lovely. You’ll find all the souvenirs and antiques you need including traditional and nontraditional Matryoshka dolls and Christmas ornaments. The market is open every day of the week, bu the weekend has the most vendors.

Metro: The metro in Russia is great. It operates very much like the metro in Paris. The difference is that in Paris, if you know how to read, you can easily negotiate the metro. Knowing how to read in Russian doesn’t do you a bit of good since they use the Cyrillic Alphabet. Carry a small notebook with you and write down your destinations/stops. Then if you know your colors and can count, you can pick the right line easily and get to your correct stop. Most likely you will want to utilize the metro!

Notes: It is highly recommended to carry both toilet paper and wipes with you.

Websites:

• http://www.moscow.info/

Travel to Russia: Getting a Visa

Reader Contribution…

We are a family of 5 who decided we wanted to travel to Russia at least once while on this tour in Europe. Here is the basic list of what is required in order to get your Visa for traveling to Russia. Start the process early so you are out the least money possible and allow time for corrections if necessary.

To apply for a Russian Visa see the tourist visa application pkg checklist below and include this in your application for visas.

Send it or hand-carry it to either:

• The Embassy of the Russian Federation
• Consulate General of the Russian Federation

Bonn consulate
Address: Waldstrasse, 42, 53177 Bonn
Phone: +49 228 312-085
Fax: +49 228 312-164
Telex: (41) 885615
E-mail: bonn@russische-botschaft.de,
konsulat@russische-botschaft.de
HOURS: 0900 to 1300 only Mon-Friday

You have to obtain your visa from the country in which you are a citizen; however, if you live and work in a different country (military orders), you may obtain your visa in that country. Thus we were able to obtain our visa from the Russian consulate here in Germany (Bonn-address below). Take your sofa cards as proof of residence in Germany. They don’t keep those. They will keep your passports while processing your visa applications.

In addition to your application package for your Tourist visa, the military member MUST GO to the following website and do a few additional things required for active duty personnel visiting Russia. https://www.fcg.pentagon.mil/

TOURIST VISA APPLICATION PACKAGE CHECK LIST: All of this must accompany you when you go to the consulate or must be mailed to a processing agency.

1. Completed Visa Application Form for each member of the family including children. Go to: http://www.visatorussia.com/russianvisa.nsf/consulate_form.html Look under “FOR US CITIZENS ONLY” Then click on “Click here to view or print this form.” THIS IS THE FORM WE FILLED OUT FOR ALL FIVE OF US. ANY OTHER FORM DID NOT SUFFICE. 6 millimeter margins! Either all handwritten or all typed. A combination of the two is not recommended. We filled ours out online and printed them out.
2. Passport photographs. (We had two of each family member) The guy at the consulate affixed them for us. We wrote names on the backs of the pictures.
3. The Consular fee (cash, postal order or money order only – NO CHECKS). We paid by credit card at the Bonn Consulate where we hand-carried our package. If you use a travel agent, methods vary.
4. Passports. Must be valid for minimum of 6 months after scheduled to leave Russia and must have a full two pages empty for stamping the visas in your passport.
5. Prepaid self-addressed envelope, using secure postal method (ONLY if you are using a processing agency and not hand carrying your package to the consulate).
6. OFFICIAL INVITE LETTER: invitations for the appropriate tourist visa for which you can apply online at a number of websites for a fee: http://www.russianvisas.org/ or http://www.visatorussia.com/russianvisa.nsf/index.html
7. We also brought an insurance policy to the consulate that we purchased for the time we will be in Russia (read about this online with the websites I provided). We used Seven Corners. It was about $90 total for the policy. We also brought our flight confirmation and flight info with us. If you use a processing agency, I would include these in the envelope.

NOTES ABOUT INVITE LETTERS: If you are traveling with a tourist group, Your tourist group company should handle your invite letter for you and maybe even process your visa applications once they are filled out. We were traveling privately and visiting a friend in Moscow so of course we were on our own to obtain our invite letter, and our friend who lives there provided us with our Official letter. You can also request an invite letter from the hotel in Russia where you make your reservations. Sometimes they will also provide this service. IT MUST be an official invite letter processed through Russia’s Office for issuing visas. Hotel vouchers alone do not suffice. Check with hotels when you are looking for a place to stay. Ask them if they provide official invitation letters. There are a lot of hotels in Moscow. This may be an inexpensive way to get your invite letter.

Travel agencies are great for processing your visa packages, but you will pay the travel agency, PLUS the visa processing agency they utilize, PLUS the Russian consulate who processes and issues your visa. And, even with the travel agency, you may have to obtain the invite letter on your own (in one of the aforementioned ways) prior to approaching them with your “package” if they don’t provide that service for you. The NATO travel agency on base is extremely nice and helpful.

We put all of our package together – refer to the list above required for Tourist Visas. Initially, we used the travel agency but the processing agency that the TA utilized rejected our application package. So when we corrected those mistakes (incorrect margin size on the printed application forms) we decided that rather than risk another rejection, we hand-carried our package to the Russian consulate in Bonn. We were there for ONE hour. The guy found our invite letter in the computer (remember this has to happen before you submit the package and when it is done right, it gets in the Russian System, MPF). He took our passports and other stuff and processed our applications. Make sure your application is correct and all the information is correct. We booked our flight travel ahead of time (German wings out of Cologne), so we had exact dates of travel on the visa application form.

“If Tour Group: Letter from tour company confirming itinerary and including a copy of the confirmation from authorized Russian travel company which shows the reference number and confirmation number for the visa. If Individual Travel: Confirmation of hotel arrangements from authorized Russian travel company, or directly from the Russian hotel, showing reference number and confirmation number for the visa.” Quoted from “www.visatorussia.com” We just used our flight confirm info.

The guy told us to come back a week later between 12:00 and 1:00 p.m. to pick up our passports with the visas. I returned to do so one week later as instructed. I arrived at 11:45, promptly received my passports with the visa stamps and was done by 12:00 p.m. I wouldn’t expect to email the consulate at Bonn and get an answer. Nor did I have any luck on the phone. We just drove there (no appt. required), turned in our stuff, and had NO problem. This was our experience. It was HALF the cost of what we would have paid to a travel agency/visa processing agency combo, and we were able to use our credit card at the Consulate.

Bonn consulate
Address: Waldstrasse, 42, 53177 Bonn
Phone: +49 228 312-085
Fax: +49 228 312-164
Telex: (41) 885615
E-mail: bonn@russische-botschaft.de,
konsulat@russische-botschaft.de
HOURS: 0900 to 1300 only Mon-Friday