Caravanistan

Please read and post reports on the embassy of Russia in Shanghai below.

We summarize all info on the Russia visa page.

See here if you are still in need of a letter of invitation for your Russian visa.

Hi,
Here is my experience for getting a tourist visa in Shanghai (but I guess it's the same in every russian consulates/embassy of China)

First, if your Chinese visa is not valid for at least 90 consecutive days, the processing time of getting a visa will be 10 working days. The price of tourist visa is 250/500 yuans (5/3 working days) + 200 yuans fees. The paper they give you after your submission enables you to stay in hotels and to travel by train (no plane though).
There is a russian woman speaking English, just need the usual documents for Russian visa (LOI, medical insurance for some countries...). If you cross the border by train, it has to be written on the letter of invitation.
More information at http://www.rusconshanghai.org.cn/english

Does loi include the tourist voucher etc?

And did you need these (got it from shanghai consulate site):
"Tourist visa

Tourist voucher issued by an authorized Russian or foreign travel agency & its copy.
Tour confirmation letter issued by an authorized Russian travel agency & its copy.
A copy of a confirmed plane ticket (round trip)"

Tourist voucher = LOI
If not, I do not know what a tourist voucher is.

From an agency I got the voucher and also a paper detailing the program of my trip.
About plane tickets, I only had the way out. On the program of my trip it was specified "crossing Russian border by train" so I didn't need to show any ticket.

I've got my tourist voucher for Russian visa on ivisaonline.com
This is pretty easy way to get it. Russian embassy didn't asked any questions about this voucher.

We're two Germans and currently trying to obtain a Russian visa in Shanghai. We want to go by the Transsiberian Railway from Beijing to Moscow, ideally with some stops in Russia.
I'm a bit flummoxed by the visa situation. For once, German seems to be a bad nationality visa-wise.

We've been to the new Shanghai visa center today and they told us that transit visa are only possible for routes no longer than 3 days, but we could get a tourist visa (5 days/3 days processing time). I know that this should technically not work, because we're just tourists in China without residency permits.
Can I just take them up on their "offer" or could that backfire? I assume that they did not know about the rule of just some nationalities being granted tourist visa. Or did the situation change? Would appreciate any information, as I don't want to book tickets with stops in Russia for which I can't get a transit visa if the tourist visa doesn't work out.

Two travellers on German passports in November 2018. We booked fake flights Beijing - Irkutsk and Irkutsk - Moscow to have an itinerary that followed the Transsiberian train itinerary.

So this is all information we gathered from three days of trying to obtain a Russian tourist visa:

• There's a Russian visa centre now. It handles all kinds of visa applications, no other consulate business. It is in a building with visa centres of all kinds of other countries. It's always super busy on the ground floor, but on the 4th floor where the Russian centre is located, it's very quiet. You will have the place to yourself. It's open 8:30-15:30 Mon-Fri. Nice women are working there, but partially they didn't have some information (that the transit visa is 10 days if you go by train).
• We went to the Russian visa centre and were repeatedly asked to provide all kinds of other things. The picture should be 35mmx45mm and the background 100% white. They explicitly find some random "mistakes" on your visa application form so they can correct it for you for 60RMB. You're also allowed to correct it yourself, but then you have to print it again. The tourist visa costs approximately 280RMB/500RMB (5 days processing/3 days processing) + 240RMB service fee. (only sure about the service fee, the others are what we approximately remember)
  After everything, they realized that our Chinese visa are only 60+60 days and they sent us to the consulate. However, no residency requirement was mentioned.
• The Russian consulate is at a beautiful Bund location, ca. 20 minutes walk from the visa centre. You need to make an appointment online for visa applications. We went there twice, the first time they didn't let us in because we were not on the list of visitors. The second time, when we did have an appointment, they let us in without checking if we were on the list... So you may be lucky.
  The people working there are very nice. We described our situation and they said that if we could get a letter from the German consulate (approximately a LONO) they might consider our application.
• The German consulate is uncooperative. They have never done LONOs and they won't. Frustrating experience there with people saying they're sorry even though they most definitely aren't. Super frustrating.

We then wrote to the Beijing consulate who said they can issue transit visa if we drive non-stop from Beijing to Moscow. We would get the rest of the 10 days at the end of our visa in Moscow.