Embassy report: Russian visa in Almaty

[bluescruiser]

We are a couple from The Netherlands travelling with our own camper.
In Almaty we got a Russian transit visa for 5 day's with help from Real Service Travel tel +7 7017840317 Yelena [email protected].
Cost 9000 T pp.
One day in advance you go to the office to fill in the applicationform.
Yelena is at the Russian consulate every week to help people with visa's, so she can give some pressure when neccessary.
We applied on Tuesday morning and got the visa on Friday afternoon. This is urgent and cost 27.300 T pp.
To drive to the bordercrossing to Samara in Russia we took the M32. A very good road with some bad stretches.
It took us 4 day's.

[YarisonFord]

Almaty Russian Tourist Visa - August/September 2016

Just to give our report of getting Russian visas in Almaty as UK citizens.

We applied for TOURIST, 30-day, double-entry visas, express and received successfully with British passports.

Having read the previous reports detailed here, we will add and confirm what we found.

The consulate visa section is open 9:30 - 12:30 Tuesday (collection only before 10:30), 15:00 - 17:00 Friday. Window 3 is your man. Generally pretty helpful and polite.

We took (one each) - just take as the others above listed basically:

• Passport (British)
  LOI, from the Visa Machine
  Photocopy of passport page, colour
  Completed embassy form (fill in every single box)
  A colour passport photo glued to above form
  Print out of insurance (not sure if actually requires but taken anyway)
  139,000 tenge for both visas, express service (Tuesday handover, Friday collection)

Having got our LOI from the Visa Machine they were sceptical we would be able to do our tourist visas in Almaty at all and that you also needed original LOIs (as suggested above too). We decided to chance it, armed with our infallible British charm... and MasterCards...

Following the above recommendations, there is a print shop down the road in a small shopping mall. We got ours printed on thick semi-gloss paper to make it seem more legit, obviously this paper could never be properly stamped so definitely didn't look like an original but not a lot of choice. It was accepted fine without question. Also got our embassy form, photocopy of passport, colour, and insurance details on standard paper. All pretty cheap, just popped on a USB stick.

By this point we were running late and actually missed the 12:30 closing time by about 5 minutes as we'd struggled to get cash out nearby with a MasterCard. (Some machines have limits, some take only Visa, we found KozKom to be consistently good for MasterCard). Thankfully one of the Kazak security guards was very friendly with us, spoke a bit of English and pretty fluent German. While he couldn't pull weight with the Consulate lunch break, we were able to get the Russian security guard to meet us who was an absolute star and said to come back at 3 when it re-opened.

Arriving later in the afternoon, the Kazak guard led us in and the Russian security guard got the visa processing man (a rather large bespectacled man) to have a look at our applications. He said we'd have to come back Friday, at this point he'd already checked through them so it seemed an easy push to get them submitted today. Some gentle pleading and begging, he accepted them and asked when we wanted them. Friday we said, that's express and costs double he responded, all good with us as that was inline with what we'd heard here. Submitted, thanked the man, paid about 139,000 tenge for the two at the cashier and set about our wait until Friday. Grabbed a beer next door to celebrate.

Returned for collection on Friday afternoon about 4, pretty quiet in the building and he passed them over.

Suspense... we had new Russian visas, exactly as we'd ordered them!

It is worth noting however, we are doing the Mongol Rally and had already got exactly the same visas in London for a similarish price, but with earlier dates. After a two-week breakdown we wouldn't be able to get in and out of Russia before they expired, hence this faff. Whether already having a visa helped, we're not sure, as in London we needed to have our fingerprints scanned, didn't appear to be any visible facilities for this in Almaty. We also saw another French team on the rally turn up around 3 on the Tuesday when we came back, they were turned around, if it weren't for befriending the security guard earlier we would've been on the same journey to Astana as them or a wait until Friday afternoon.

TL;dr
Two British passports with 30-day, double-entry visas, gained successfully express for about 70,000 tenge each in Almaty.

Worth noting we already had Russian visas which were about to expire, new visa started after the expiration date as you can't have two active visas, the other got cancelled on submission. Be nice, play a bit of dumb tourist and bring everything you think you might need - make it easy for them.

[onemoreadventure]

Two British passport holders got single entry transit visas for Russia. 42,000 Tenge for the two of us with 7 day turnaround (drop-off and collection on Tuesday morning).

We are travelling by train from Almaty to Moscow, we have 12 hours in Moscow then an overnight train to St Petersburg, where we spend around 36 hours before taking a ferry to Stockholm. We showed a print out of our hotel booking in St Petersburg but this was not needed (he gave us back the print out).

We were told we only need single entry visas for the train from Almaty to Moscow.

We followed the advice posted earlier in the forum which was very helpful, thanks for that.

[sakara]

Update about visas in Almaty. We are to swiss people and tried to get a russian business visa today. Unfortunately not possible anymore without a residence/work permit. The only type of visa that swiss nationals without those can get are transit and humanitarian. The guy at window 3 was very sorry for it, but explained us that they got new orders few weeks ago and cant issue the visas anymore. He confirmed that it was possible some weeks ago. The rest of our documents would have been ok.
The thing is, it doesnt apply to all Schengen states - as some Schengen states do issue visas to russians outside their country of residence. They have a list at the embassy - best thing is to call. Apparently french people e.g. could get visas, but it would take at least 2 weeks (because thats what french do to russians). He was pretty sure that the situation in Astana is the same.
There was a Kazakh travel agent with some foreigners there. She also confirmed what the embassy guy said, saying that since february she also cant get visas for some nationalities including Switzerland. She thought that as a reaction to the visa free entry to Kazakhstan the russians have renewed their guidelines about issueing visas in Kazakhstan.

[Mleen Circumbendibus]

We also want to apply for a Russian Tourist visa of 30 days in Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan. After a lot of research it seemed we needed a 90 day visa for Kyrgyzstan or Kazakhstan as a requirement to apply for the Russian visa. But this morning I got a message from the Consul of the Russian embassy in Astana which stated the following:

"For residents of the Netherlands it's possible to apply for the Russian visa in Kazakhstan without permition to stay here more than 90 days."

Sounds very promising! Hopefully it is possible to apply in Almaty as well. You can reach him through: [email protected]
We will try next month, so we will let you know how it went.

[olmo]

Probably the same list of countries that is published by their Embassy in Mongolia?
http://www.mongolia.mid.ru/en/cons_visa.html

To apply for any category of visas except transit, one must have a long-term registration in Mongolia (“Alien registration card” valid for 1 year).

No long term registration is needed for citizens of the following states and territories, who can get any categories of visas during 4-7 working days at regular price or during 1-2 working days with extra fees paid: Argentina, Belize, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, Chili, Columbia, Congo (Brazzaville), Congo (Kinshasa), Costa Rica, Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Ecuador ,El Salvador, Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana , Honduras, Indonesia, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nicaragua, Panama, Philippines, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Maldives, Republic of Seychelles, Romania, San-Tome And Principe, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Sudan, Surinam, Swaziland, Sweden, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Uganda, Uruguay, Yemen, Zimbabwe.

Citizens of these states can get any category of visas at regular price, but the waiting period may vary from 10 up to 14 working days: Australia, France, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Turkmenistan, the USA.

If citizens of the states and territories that are not mentioned above, do not have a long term registration in Mongolia, according to the principle of reciprocity they can apply for any category of visas except transit, ONLY in the their country of origin.

[jans.]

Got this email earlier today from the embassy in Astana


If You have a Dutch passport it is possible to get a tourist visa
without being a resident as long as Your Kazakh visa is valid for
return journey. That is, You should have proof that after Your journey
to Russia You will return to Kazakhstan. Provided that Dutch nationals
may enter Kazakhstan without a visa for 30 days, You should only have
confirmed return tickets from Russia to Kazakhstan.

[Clement.makes.movies]

Hey everyone.

We are 2 french in Almaty and despite arriving early, we had to wait until 15:50 to go in.
We didn't have any train ticket to go to moscow, only a plane booked from Moscow to Kiev and some random hotels in Saratov and then Moscow.
The big guy told us to go to the print shop when we booked our train tickets but when we came back, BEFORE 5 pm, he was gone. F****ING BUREAUCRATES.

We have to wait until tuesday now. Does anybody have any information about Uralsk russian federation consulate ? Because I called them, they told me they were not delivering information about visas on the phone, better write an email. I wrote, no answer.
And how would you book your train ? I don't wanna pay for a train I won't take.

All the best,

clement

[olmo]

Does anybody have any information about Uralsk russian federation consulate ? Because I called them, they told me they were not delivering information about visas on the phone, better write an email. I wrote, no answer.
And how would you book your train ? I don't wanna pay for a train I won't take.

Could you update how it went please?

Just for reference:

Train tickets booked online on rzd.ru were fine. These tickets can indeed be cancelled online for about RUR 200/ticket - this may be of interest for those places where only a transit visa is possible in order to get some extra days or in case u plan to hitchhike / bus / cycle ...

Our train from Petropavlovsk to Moskow gave an e-ticket, so if you intend to actually use it that will also work. Seemed to be the cheapest option, too - less than going via Uralsk albeit longer, if I remember correctly ...

[TomasS]

Great experience, i came at 9:15 on tuesday, maybe 50 people waiting, most of them because other issues, i got inside before 10:00. Fat man in the window number three is kind, helpful, can speak english. He had to check some list with the countries, for Slovakia no problem to apply, he checked reference number from copy of my LOI on internet. He just asked how will i travel in Russia, then asked for train ticket from Kazakhstan to Russia, but i can bring it on friday and in that day i should get my visas.