russian visa and trans-mongolian ticket

Hello there. I am residing in Beijing and trying to plan a trans-Mongolian trip with stops in Ulan Bator, Irkutsk, and finally Moscow. The Beijing-Irkutsk ticket can be purchased here, but I still need a company or person through which to purchase the Russian tickets and to help me get a visa.
Does anyone know of a trusty company?
www.rusrailtravel.ru offers a good price and seem willing to send the tickets to the Russian train stations. Does anyone have any experience with this company???

thanks for your advice,
Becky

I used 'Way to Russia' (http://www.waytorussia.net) for my visa support documents with no problems.

I also need help with buying Russian tickets from Irkutsk, so if you get anymore info it would be great if you could post it.

Also, could you give me the info you have about the Beijing to Ulan Bataar (1) and to Irkutsk (2) tickets?

(1)
How far ahead are they released?
What day(s) does the Trans-mongolian go? (I've heard it's recently been changed)
Should I buy from the train station or through an agency?

(2)
Can you buy U-B to Irkutsk tickets from Beijing? If so, where from?

Thanks.

Do you have a residence permit for China? If so, then you should be able to use visatorussia.com for your visa support. This is actually the company that provides the visa support for waytorussia.net which is an information service that provides nothing but information.

I don't know rusrail but you can buy tickets online on the rzd.ru website which is the Russian Railways website. Tickets can be purchased 45 days in advance of travel with a credit card and can be picked up by presenting your credit card, a print out of the bar code receipt and your passport at any Russian train station window with the @ symbol. If you can't read Russian, try the website translate.ru to translate entire pages.

I don't generally recommend that people book tickets unless they are traveling nonstop from Irkutsk to Moscow. Generally speaking if you plan to make stops, it is better to be flexible and book tickets when you arrive for travel to the next point.

saint - Tickets for travel in Russia are released 45 days before departure but travel agents seem to be able to reserve them earlier than that.

The transmongolian train can only be taken from Beijing to some point in Russia past Irkutsk. If you plan to stop in Ulan Bator, you must take the local train K23/24 from Beijing to UB and then a different train from UB to Irkutsk.

The tickets from Beijing to UB can NOT be purchased at the train station. They must be purchased through CITS or a travel agency. Try contacting CITS, www.cits.net or Richard Tian of Ocean Travel, whose email is oceantravelcn@yahoo.com.cn or richards@public3.bta.net.cn. Reportedly these companies are quite reliable about obtaining the tickets at a fair price and delivering them during the day to your hostel or hotel in Beijing. Be sure to add them to your address book so that your spam filter does not "Eat" their responses.

The train schedule for Beijng to Moscow train #3 through Mongolia has departed Beijing on the same day, Wednesday, for many years. Generally speaking the schedule changes are made in May. OTOH the #23 which operates from Beijing to UB has changed several times in the past few years and regularly changes from once a week to twice a week in mid June and then back to once a week in September.

I think Ocean Travel (see above) has an agent in UB from whom you can buy the tickets. Otherwise there are lots of Mongolian based travel agencies, Legend Tour, Passport, and many of the guest houses will assist with this purchase as well.

For tickets from Irkutsk to Moscow, Elena, of Helen's Homestay sometimes helps people who stay with her to obtain tickets.

Ruth

Hi,

Can someone tell me whether it is necessary to bring a credit card when collecting your rzd-booked tickets in Moscow? I want to book the tickets with a Russian friend. However, I do not have a credit card, and was thinking about using a friend's creditcard. But I cannot take that creditcard along to Russia. I read that it is not officially demanded to show the credit card when collecting the tickets, but I also read that they ask for it sometimes. Could it be a problem?

Hope someone knows more..

Cheers,
Ilse

Yes, it could be a probelm if they ask to see the card and you can't produce it.

Did you know that you can get preloaded cards from VISA or MasterCard that you can use for this sort of thing? Talk to your bank.

Also note that the card must be verified which means that you must obtain an additional password or code.

Ruth