Possibly you already know that if you fly somewhere from Minsk via Moscow or any other Russian city you need to have transit Russian visa (even if you fly from the same airport). You can fly from Minsk to Moscow without visa and nobody will check it, just because there is no border control between the countries. But nobody will allowed you to take next plane or to pass Russian border in other country. Also if police catch you, you'll have big problems as fine and deportation. So if you want to fly from Minsk via Russia you need to have transit or touristic Russian visa. I'll tell more about both of them.
Transit Russian visa in MinskThere is Russian Embassy in Minsk where there is a consulate department.
Address: Novovilenskaya str.1A, tel.:+375-17-233-35-90, e-mail: rusemb-minsk@yandex.ru,
working time: Monday-Friday 10:00-12.00, and additionally Monday, Thursday 14.00-16.00.
Usually they don't answer the telephone or even if answer - say to come in the embassy for more information. But possibly you’ll be lucky) Generally, it's pretty easy to make transit Russian visa if you'll have all documents.
Documents for Russian transit visa:- insurance for the quantity of transit days. We made cover 70 thousand USD and it was ok. Two days cost 1$. (we made 2 insurance for 2 entries in Russia)
- passport + copy (you'll take your passport back)
- copy of Belarussian visa or how you stay in Belarus.
- tickets for all you route to and from Moscow + copies. If you go by car you need to present documents for the car + copy (we took original for safety, but nobody asked). And if you go by train or bus you need to have tickets to and from Russia.
- photo 3x4
- application for Russian visa filled only online (here: visa.kdmid.ru)
- Belarussian money in cash (only!)
That's all. For citizens of different countries - different price. For Greek one-two enters visa cost 35 EUR.
Some other notes:
- you can get transit visa for one day, but depends on you route it can be prolonged up to 3 days or to 10 day if you go by ground.
- if you make double entrance transit visa, the “corridor” between the days of you entrances cannot be more than one month. If it is more, transit visa for back way you’ll need to make in the country where are you going to stay. So for example, in Minsk you can't make transit Russian visa if your flights: Greece-Moscow-Minsk.
- Fast visa cost 70 EUR and they can make it really fast like 1-2 dyas.
Touristic Russian visa in MinskThis is more complicated. You can get it only if you'll have invitation or voucher from Russian touristic agency, which you can get only in Russia! Booking of the hotel or flights is totally not enough.
So lately we have few agencies which prepare for you all documents for the touristic visa (all means only voucher coz all the other docs are yours). So double entrance touristic Russian visa for one month will cost you 1.560.000 (~75$) plus the cost of the visa in the embassy. But documents in the embassy you need to bring yourself.
Here you can see the agencies.
Also touristic or even business visa for one year in Russia you can make in some agencies in Vilnius, that is 3 hours far from Minsk by train.
