Getting Russian VISA

School participants are advised to check if they require a Russian Visa with the Russian embassy or consulate in the region in which they live. Actually, a number of nationals are allowed to travel to Russia without Visa for touristic purposes and limited time. You can check if you belong to one of them here, but it is strongly advised to double check this information with the Russian consulate in your country.

If necessary, the organizers are able to provide official invitation letters for already registered conference participants. The time needed for issuing such letters and their type varies for three categories of participants:

• For EU citizens issuing such letters depends on the organizers only and may take up to 1-2 weeks from the time of request (not counting the time of sending it by post, if necessary). In this case, participants need to apply for "Humanitarian Visa with scientific-technical purpose" at the Russian Consulate in the country of their residence.

• For US citizens issuing such letters depends on the organizers only and may take up to 3 days from the time of request (not counting the time of sending it by post, if necessary). In this case, participants need to apply for "Humanitarian Visa with scientific-technical purpose" visa at the Russian Consulate in the country of their residence (US in this case).

• For non-EU/non-US citizens the issued invitation letters need to be registered with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs by the organizers and that may take from 2 to 4 weeks from the time of request (not counting the time of sending it by post, if necessary). In this case, participants need to apply for "Humanitarian Visa with scientific-technical purpose" at the Russian Consulate in the country of their residence.

In order to request an official invitation letter, please, email the school organizers.

Please, note that organizers in general recommend to apply for touristic visas, especially for non-US and non-EU citizens, which do not require our official invitation letters, what simplifies the application in many cases. In order to apply for Tourist visa, each participant just needs to ask the hotel, where his/her accommodation is booked, to issue him/her a special touristic voucher (also sometimes called "Visa Support"), which is not the usual booking confirmation. Please, note that you must explicitly request such a voucher from the hotel and it will not be given to you by default.

To avoid uncertainty, participants are advised to apply for a visa as early as possible. In general, it is recommended that they apply for a Russian visa at least 6 weeks in advance.

Embassies of the Russian Federation (selected):

Brazil - http://www.brazil.mid.ru/
Finland - http://www.rusembassy.fi
France - http://www.france.mid.ru/
Lithuania - http://www.lithuania.mid.ru/
Netherlands - http://www.netherlands.mid.ru/
Spain - http://www.rusmad.mid.ru/