Nonrev to Moscow on Crew Visa???
 

Looks like I'll be nonreving to SVO in a couple of weeks (short notice trip) and need to decide if I'm going to have to pay for a tourist visa or if I can just enter on my crew visa. Anybody here ever gone to Moscow on vacation and traveled on their crew visa? I'll be flying into SVO and then a domestic flight to St Pete. Thanks.

You need a tourist VISA if you are not working.

Or marrying a russian babe......;)

I agree, do not travel on a work visa. You MUST get a Tourist visa, and on short notice it will not be cheap. Same goes for China.

Agree. I think I read somewhere that you are NOT to use a crew visa for personal travel.

Russian and Chinese immigration authorities are not known for their light touch.

Nu

You wont even make it out of customs on a crew visa. They collect the crews passports at the aircraft and the are very closely checked with the crew list. They then take the passports downstairs to look at further. The crew waits until they return them. This can be 15 minutes or 2 hours later. Same process reversed for going out. You turn them in and they bring your passport to the aircraft. The slightest technical problem and they will deny entry even to a crewmember. Last year they were refusing entry because of worn or soiled passports.

I can attest to that one. Got stuck in Moscow a few months ago when clueless Aeroflot agents couldn't make heads nor tails of our ZED passes until after our flight to Hanoi left. No Russian visas, so we'll just hang out in the airport till tomorrow night's flight, right? Wrong. Max of 24 hours in the airport without a visa. Not 26. They threatened to deport us back to Amsterdam! Aeroflot wouldn't accept our ZED pass for any routing but SVO-HAN, fortunately DL had seats open to JFK the next day. Never made it to Vietnam but at least I didn't get deported by the Ruskies! :eek:

Jungle,
Much less hassle to Vietnam through Narita. Also, I recommend Danang vice Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh city if you are looking for vacation, much nicer, less crowded and less expensive.

Sweet baby Jesus, don't attempt this. Their reputation for being inhospitable when they want to be is very earned, and they can make your life miserable on a whole new level. This site - Russian Visa Requirements - Visa Home - is as complete as I've seen short of the Russian Government site. Just beware of scam jobs when seeking out the invitation letter (prereq' to the actual visa).

Yeah really, what fullofluv said. A million options on the other side, from NRT, HKG, BKK, SIN, the list goes on.