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SRAS Travel Services See Your Russia Your Way Specifically for students and educators planning tours and research trips in Russia, we have launched the following travel resource. We hope that it will become a comprehensive self-service shop for Russian visas, domestic train tickets, local tour operators and more. It will be designed to minimize expenses and provide information designed to help avoid costly travel and bureaucratic inconveniences. We will list service providers who, based on our own experience, provide a balance of savings and customer service. We expect these pages to evolve quite a bit over the coming months. We hope you find them useful and strongly encourage you to contact us regarding your experience with any of these service providers or ideas to help this resource grow. Visa Services If you are traveling to Russia you need to first obtain an appropriate visa. This full process entails first getting an invitation from an inviting agency, applying for the visa, and registering the visa after your arrival in Russia. Click here for more information and to order visa services. Note for SRAS students: those traveling on SRAS programs will have this entire process coordinated by SRAS and the cost of the visa is included in their program; do not purchase visas separately through these pages. More information for students is available in Guide to Russia. If you do not already have a passport: We recommend starting the application process as soon as possible as the US passport agencies have slowed considerably with new 9/11 regulations. You can order your passport online for a small fee (but one that will save you some considerable time) from AmericanPassport.com. Transportation Also time sensitive are questions of transportation - both to/from and within Russia/NIS. Train tickets. One of the most popular tourist activities in Russia is travel on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Even if you do not have time for such an extensive voyage, you may still want to try to fit in a train ride between Moscow and St. Petersburg. SRAS students interested in traveling via train while in Russia are encouraged to contact SRAS about arranging tickets through thier educational program. For more information on train travel in Russia, click here. Airport transfers. Upon arrival to nearly any Russian city, you will be faced by a small army of taxi drivers hovering outside of customs. This option is without question more expensive than booking a transfer ahead of time from a service. The same happens on the return as unless you are savvy enough to flag down a taxi or private car on the street near your hotel, you will have no choice but to use the special taxis lined up waiting there for tourists. To book transfers or hire a driver for trips inside or outside the Moscow or Saint Petersburg, click here. Airline tickets. If you are US-based, we recommend contacting Vega Travel for good rates on both trans-atlantic flight to Russia and for airline tickets within Russia and the FSU. To request a quote from Vega Travel, click here. Accommodations As it is fairly easy to book with the major hotel chains either directly or via online services, we will focus here on other options. Hotels. Click here to book hotels in cities across Russia and the CIS. Short-term Apartments. Book centrally located apartments in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Ekaterinburg. Hostels and Other Discount Options. Hostels are really starting to take off in Moscow and St. Petersburg especially. Other resources for finding longer-term options such as rooms and apartments are also available. Tours Local Travel Service Providers are listed by their base city and can offer services to individuals as well as groups. Agencies regularly offering group tours to Russia offer you the possibility to join more elaborate tours than would be possible for an individual budget. Language Classes Students coming to Russia to learn the language will be best served by SRAS's Russian as a Second Language or on of its Feature Study Abroad Programs. However, for those students who are looking for short-term educational tourism, or for tourists hoping to make their trip more educational - or even for businessmen recently assigned to Moscow and who want to get started on learning the language, we offer flexible, short-term courses. Useful Links SRAS Guide to Russia More on health and safety, how airports and train stations work, RF laws, etc. Guides to Russian and FSU Cities Specific information for extended stays abroad in various FSU cities. Travel Destinations More information and history for various FSU cities. More info from the gov'ts! State Dept. on Travel Abroad Counselor Info for Russia State Dept. - Eurasian Affairs Center for Disease Control and Prevention US Embassy in Russia Russian Embassy in the US  More Useful Sites Yandex Maps for FSU Cities Zip Codes in Russia An E. Europe Travel Blog     15.05.2008 - Hotels, Hostels, and other Accommodation in Russia 20.11.2007 - Short Term Language Courses 30.03.2007 - Visa Processing in the USA 01.03.2007 - Local Travel Service Providers 27.02.2007 - Group tours to Russia and the NIS 15.02.2007 - Visa Registration 15.02.2007 - Russian Visas print this page email this page