The Russian visa from Pakistan, and why the e-visa is not an option

Russia is the destination where the visa deserves the most thought before you book anything, and where the internet will most reliably mislead you.

Search for a Russian visa and you will find the unified electronic visa: quick, online, inexpensive. Then you will find agencies quietly implying that it applies to you.

It does not.

The e-visa is not open to Pakistani nationals

The unified e-visa portal is run by the Consular Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and it states that only citizens of a listed set of countries, approved by the Government of the Russian Federation, are eligible. Pakistan is not on that list.

This matters because the e-visa is what most of the cheap, fast, reassuring content online is describing. If a page tells you a Russian visa is a simple online form and a small fee, it is either not written for a Pakistani passport or it is not written carefully.

You are on the full consular route. Plan for that from the beginning rather than discovering it after you have paid a deposit somewhere.

What the tourist visa actually involves

The Russian Embassy in Islamabad states that a tourist visa is issued as single entry or double entry, and for no longer than thirty days.

Every tourist visa applicant travelling after 1 April 2016 must be personally interviewed. Not a courier drop, not an agent handing in a file for you. You attend, in person, and at the interview you give complete information about the purpose and the details of your trip.

That is a real constraint on planning. It has to fit around your work, and it has to happen far enough ahead of the departure to leave room for the decision.

They will not tell you why you were refused

This is the part that people find hardest, and the Embassy states it plainly in advance rather than leaving it to be discovered.

Permission to enter the Russian Federation is described as a courtesy of the State. A visa can be denied if the Consular Department has serious reasons to believe an applicant's visit is not desirable. And the disclosure of the reason for a denial can be withheld.

So there is no appeal built on an explanation, because there is no explanation. A refusal is final in the practical sense, and reapplying is a fresh application rather than a correction of a stated fault.

We would rather you knew that before you decided, not after.

What a refusal costs

The consular fee is not returned. For Russia it is also the largest single visa fee on any destination we sell, which makes it the one where a refusal hurts most in cash terms as well as in disappointment.

We do not print the figure here. It sits on a published fee scale that is endorsed on a date and revised over time, and a number typed into an article has no way of telling you it has aged. The amount we hold, the date we read it and the source it came from are on the Russia page in the visa section, and we re-check rather than let it sit.

If you want today's figure, ask us and we will put it in writing with where it came from.

So who should book Russia

Somebody who wants Russia specifically, and who is comfortable with an application that requires their presence and that can end without a reason.

It is a wonderful trip. Two cities that argue with each other, joined by a train fast enough to make them a single journey. Nothing here is an argument against going.

It is an argument against going into it casually, because Russia is the one destination on our board where the visa is the largest risk in the plan rather than a formality attached to it.

What we do

We prepare and submit the file, we tell you exactly what the interview will ask, and we tell you honestly what your position looks like before you commit money to it. What we cannot do is promise an outcome that the Embassy itself declines to explain.

The trip is on the Russia page, with the departure, the days and what the price carries. What happens to your money if a visa is refused, across every destination we run, is set out on our visa support page.