Acquiring a visa to go to Russia can be a long and complex process, not to mention expensive. Luckily there’s an exception when visiting St. Petersburg. We have checked it out and spent a weekend in Russia’s second largest city.
Arrival
Last year we tried to apply for a visa to Russia. First we had to fill out 7 pages with information, but did not have all information like travel agency number; we only wanted to book a flight and find a hotel and take care of it ourselves. If we had managed to fill out all the required information we would still have had to show up at the embassy, only open 3 hours a day, usually with a long line. Further we would have to wait for a week to get an answer on the visa request, and then pick up the visa at the embassy again. In other words not easy, especially when you live 500 km from the embassy. There are visa services taking care of the process for you, but you still have to spend more than 120 dollars and fill in all the information.
Luckily we discovered an exception from the rules: If you travel to St. Petersburg by ship, go on a guided tour and stay in Russia for less than 72 hours, then you do not need a visa.
Getting to St. Petersburg is possible from three places: Stockholm, Helsinki og Tallinn. Sailing from Stockholm is quite far to travel by ferry, but St. Petersburg can be reached from both Helsinki and Tallinn in 13 hours (by night). We chose to depart from Helsinki, and by experience we can recommend both Helsinki and Tallinn. Remember that it’s possible to have a day or two in the departure city before you embark.
Getting into Russia is quite easy: Show up at the harbour, check in and get the required documents. Embark the ship, wait a night and disembark in St. Petersburg. Wait an hour in a uselessly slow immigration line, and bazinga, your are now visa free in Russia. (See the bottom of the page for details about rules and procedures for visa free entry to Russia).
St. Petersburg
Our very first impression of the Russian city is the St. Petersburg harbour. Rusty cranes, grey storage buildings with cyrillic letters and an old and worn down Lada is what we first lay eyes on, giving the impression that the Soviet Union is still very much in existence. However, this impression does not quite make sense, because there are large green trees and lawns making the harbour area much more ecstatically pleasing than many other places. Leaving the main harbour area we sail towards the city centre and disembark. It’s still a bit worn down and Soviet here, but where will you find a harbour that doesn’t look worn down? The shuttle bus takes us to the hotel, or to be more precise: 500 meters from the hotel, because the bus takes you to a hotel, not necessarily your hotel. After checking in we walk down to the city centre of St. Petersburg. Here we discover that it is possibly the prettiest city we’ve ever seen. Green trees and small parks are in abundance, the river bank is covered by majestic buildings from the 18th century and huge, marvellous gold domes define the skyline. One of the largest and most impressive buildings is the Winter Palace in the middle of the city. It has 1057 rooms, and after two hours of walking the step counter told us that we had walked 3 km, just inside the palace.
According to the Internet our walk was short, because if you are to see everything inside the palace it would require walking 22 km and spending 11 years to see everything properly. We could definitively have spent more time here, but 11 years seems a bit too much… Despite this the huge size is not the most impressive sight here, but rather the decorations and the work put into making something as detailed as it is, no matter where you look. Rooms filled with gold, large pillars and decorations are found in the hundreds, and even a “small” chapel inside the palace is more decorated than most other churches. In the end you start to ignore what would usually be considered impressive sights simply because there’s so much more to see that is even more impressive. In addition to being a remarkable palace, it’s also housing the Hermitage museum. Here you can of course find Russian art, but also much else from both Europe, Asia and other places. If you are in St. Petersburg, this place is a must-see.
In addition to the Winter Palace there are other impressive buildings as well. The Church of Our Saviour on Spilled Blood as it is called is one of the most iconic buildings in St. Petersburg and is interesting to see both from the inside and the outside. The St. Isaac’s Cathedral is also a remarkable building, and the most gold-covered and decorated religious building we have ever seen in our lives. The cathedral even surpasses both Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque in Istanbul and all religious building we have seen in Rome and the Vatican City.
The St. Isaac’s Cathedral is an excellent place to see the city from, where you have a 360º colonnade 300 steps above street level. It’s not expensive either, just above 2 euros for a ticket. If you have the Petersburg Card the colonnade is included in the card, so is the entrance to the cathedral itself.
Russia and St. Petersburg is a travel destination out of the ordinary as the latin alphabet is not used (at least not to a very great extent). It looks a bit weird to recognise brands such as Subway with new letters, or buying ice cream that give you a bit of a Soviet feeling.
Speaking of Subway… The metro in St. Petersburg is actually the deepest in the world when measuring average depth. The metro stop Admiralteyskaya lies 86 meters below ground level, something you quickly realise when you enter the escalator and realise that it appears never to end. The metro in St. Petersburg is easy to use and ranked as one of the best in Europe, but unfortunately there are few metro stops, causing us to go by foot far more often than we used the metro.
The metro looks new and nice, but at the same time it gives you an old vibe. One of the train sets we were in had lamps in the ceiling. Not fluorescent lamps or other modern means of light, but lamps, as the ones you have hanging in you ceiling at home…
Outside St. Petersburg is the municipal town called Peterhof, which does not really contain a lot, that is if you do not count one of the most impressive palaces we have ever seen. Gargantuan gardens, huge fountains and a plethora of gold that could compete with Ft. Knox is the first we see when disembarking from the taxi boat. If you are visiting St. Petersburg this is a must-see. It appears that St. Petersburg never stops surprising when it comes to huge buildings, insane decorations and vast green areas.
St. Petersburg has numerous bridges and canals, and at 1 AM each nigh the main bridges open at the same time. This is supposed to be a nice sight, but after walking 25 km every day for 3 days straight we did not have the energy to experience this. Oh no, looks like we have to come back later!
With all of this being said it should be mentioned that St. Petersburg is not the perfect city. We were reminded multiple times that pick pocketing is quite common and one should in particular look after camera lenses, as many have specialised in stealing this kind of equipment. There are also many unlicensed taxis that you can never truly trust. Still, this is a city that easily makes our top 10 list of favourite cities. If you have not been here already, start planning a trip now!
All about visa
As mentioned above, you can visit Russia visa free under certain conditions:
- Stay no more than 72 hours
- Entering and departing through ferry from St. Peter Line
- Guided tour must be booked
Booking
In addition to the above there are some minor rules and regulation that you have to follow. If you wish to book a trip, go to St. Peter Line’s booking page and book a ferry from Helsinki, Tallinn or Stockholm. When booking you have to add a guided tour at the price of 25 euros as of this writing. This is a ridiculous price for a bus to the hotel, but it should be looked at more as a visa fee. Last, you have to book a hotel in advance to enter Russia. This can be done either through St. Peter Line’s webpages or on your own. The benefit of booking through the ferry company is that they are the only ones you have to deal with and they guarantee that everything should be in order for you to enter Russia. If you book in your own and forget something or run into problems assistance will not be as easy. On the other hand, quite a lot of money can be saved by booking the hotel yourself. Booking through St. Peter Line is rather overpriced and to top it off the hotel we booked was not on the list of stops of the “guided” tour recommended by the company, but stopped at a hotel 500 meters away. We chose to book everything through the ferry company as our experience with Russian immigration until that point was rather negative. Remember to fill in all information such as passport number and name correctly, so you don’t have any issues when going through immigration.
Arrival
When checking in at the departure harbour you get an arrival card and a departure card for immigration. When you arrive in St. Petersburg you have to show these cards and they keep the arrival card. In addition to the stamp in the passport you get an immigration card that you have to show when departing. When arriving at the hotel they will register your stay, which costs 2-3 euros per person. It is the hotel’s responsibility to make the registration, but it could be a good idea to check if they have registered your stay to be sure. Registration must happen within 7 days of arriving in Russia, even if you travel visa free. After registration you get a registration card that must be shown if asked by police and when departing. As the visa free stay is limited to 72 hours you do not need to carry this card with you, but when leaving Russia you need to have it and may be asked to show it.
Departure
When leaving the country you have to show your documents and bazinga, on your way home from Russia.
As in many other countries you may be stopped in a random check and asked for identification. We rarely like to carry passports around due to the risk of pick pocketing. Therefore we usually take a photo of all documents and keep them on the phone. If the police asks for identification you can show them the picture, and if it’s not sufficient then you can go to the hotel to get the real documents.
Other visa free visits to Russia
St. Petersburg is not the only Russian city that can be visited visa-free. Vyborg can also be visited for up to 72 hours without a visa by booking a boat trip from Lappeenranta in Finland. Bookings can be made here. Sometime in the future we will try to make this trip and provide a detailed update on how this visa-free option works.
