new visa rules?

Hello,
I live in the Netherlands, and got the Russia visa here two years ago. I now visit the website of the Russia consulate, and they seem to have changed the rules and added documents we need to hand in.

It says that I need an "invitation" from the foreign police OVIR. I think this is the invitation foreigners always needed in order to get a visa, right? You can get it fast on websites like waytorussia.com.

But then it also says that* on top of that* I need a "hotel voucher" or a reservation ticket from a hotel plus the bank statement showing that I actually already paid for the reservation. The kind of hotel I can get this voucher from must be registered with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow and have a reference number that needs to be mentionned on the ticket.

Do other countries have similar new rules? Do I really need these hotel reservations? I don't even plan on staying in hotels...

Hello

I hope this article help you get necessary documents.
Visa Support
Before applying for a Russian tourist or a business visa, you'll need to get an invitation (also calledvisa support). This can be obtained through a hotel (also some apartment agencies and hostels with a licence to provide such documents), a Russian travel agency, your local travel agent or online via various agencies (see below). Note that smaller accommodation establishments such as B&Bs - as well as some large online accommodation listing agencies such as Airbnb - often are not licensed to provide visa support documents.
For tourists, an invitation will actually consist of two separate documents - one an "Accommodation Voucher " showing that your hotel or apartment reservation has been paid for (or reserved using a credit card), the other a (Tourist) Confirmation ("on hosting a foreign tourist "). You will most likely get these via email - simply print them out for submission along with your visa application, passport, visa photo etc.
Your visa support documents will need to cover the entire date range of your stay in Russia. Each passport-holder travelling to Russia must have an individual invitation - so, for example, if you are travelling with your partner or spouse and two children, you will need to obtain four sets of visa support documents to cover the entire family.
Hotels and some apartment rental agencies typically offer visa support documents for free (although some charge a fee), however the invitations generally will only cover the dates of your stay with them - so if, for example, you're planning to stay for four nights in a hotel in St Petersburg and then five nights in a hotel in Moscow, you will need invitations from both in order to apply for your visa. Note that you will have to ask them to provide the documents that you require, they will not just send them to you automatically when you make your booking.
If you choose this method of acquiring your invitation, you will be bound by a fixed itinerary and will have to stay at that particular hotel or, at a minimum, you will have to pay the hotel anywhere from $50 to $100 US if your plans change, whether that involves a change of hotel or your trip overall, including cancellation. While it's a good option if you just want to stay a couple of days in Moscow on a business trip, it's not all that great if you're travelling around the country.
Agencies usually offer more flexible options when it comes to visa support, but you should make sure they don't tie you to any fixed itinerary. Websites such as Way to Russia, Visa House, Go To Russia, Visa to Russia, iVisaonline.com or Godzillas Hostel provide no-ties visa support online - prices vary but the standard price is around $30 US for an tourist invitation that is ready in one business day, sometimes lower - particularly if you use the agency to help you apply for your visa. You simply receive it by email or fax and then bring or send it along with other documents needed with your application to the Russian consulate.

Hi,
I took a quick look at the website for the Russian consulate to the Netherlands. They are asking for the standard "invitation" and "hotel reservation". These are the standard documents foreigners everywhere always need to get for Russian visas. Various online agencies can get them for you. If you got a Russian visa two years ago, then you presumably got both of these. But since they would have been in Russian it may not have been obvious that they included a hotel reservation!

I could NOT see anything on the website (in either the Dutch or the English versions) about requiring a "bank statement" confirming the reservation. If they wanted that, this would be a new and worrying change!

So it looks to me as though you will be OK with the standard "invitation" documents, which include a theoretical hotel reservation.

Best wishes, - Graham

I am fluent in Russian, and am absolutely positive, I never before needed a hotel Reservation.

But I actually think they changed the rules on their website during the past few days!
I copied and pasted the exact text they had on their website for a Dutch forum a few days ago, and this was it:
"Verblijfgegevens. Naast een Bevestiging van het hotel waar u gaat verblijven, of Russische reis- organisatie dient u ook een hotelvoucher of reserveringsbon van het reisbureau mee te brengen. Het hotel dient geregistreerd te zijn bij het Russische Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken in Moskou en in het bezit te zijn van een daarvoor speciaal referentienummer. Dit nummer moet op de bevestiging staan. Daarnaast dient u nog een betalingsbewijs mee te brengen voor de hele verblijfsperiode."

The part about needing to pay for the entire period is not on the website anymore!

The policy on visa document set seems to be different from country to country.

Try to book a couple of hotels online via booking.com or something. Moreover try to ask hotels or hostels to send you a written confirmation of your booking on email. Something like "We're #$#$##$ hostel and we confirm that Ivan Popov is staying with us".

It seemed to work with some of the tourists (whose russian embassy required this 'reservation').

*The thing is Russian visa policy is very recursive. To get a Shengen visa the russian passport holders have to show bank statements, all the confirmations and million other papers very strictly. They might be changing it with diplomatic stuff.
*
Denis Sobnakov