Do I need a "Travel company" to visit Russia as a tourist?

Question

I am planning to visit Moscow this winter as a solo tourist. I am a Hungarian citizen. I booked airplane tickets myself. I was informed that I will need an invitation letter, and I think I will go this way: (How can I get an 'invitation' to Russia?), but now the tourist visa application online form asks:

the options are: None, Travel company. I think I will need to select travel company because the description says:

In the case of a tourist visa select "Travel company" from the list and give the name and address of the travel company. In the case of business visa select "Organization" from the list and enter in the "Name of organization" name of the host organization, enter the address of the organization and TIN in the appropriate fields. In the case of private visa select “Individual” from the list and enter the name, birth date and home address of the host. In the case of transit, select "None" from the list. Reference number: printed on the bottom line of approval of a foreign tourist "Референс №». It is necessary to introduce whole number with leading zeros.

Confirmation number: printed on the top line of confirmation of a foreign tourist. The number can contain only numbers or numbers with letters. You should only enter the numbers.

However I do not have a travel company.

What do I do?

1. Select "None" from the drop down so that I don't have to fill in travel company(this seems to be against the description that says select travel company for tourist visa)
2. Select Travel company and the Invitation letter company will be my travel company and they will provide appropriate details? as in (How can I get an 'invitation' to Russia?)
3. Apply at some additional travel company, because there is no other way?
4. Some other option?

I didn't expect the visa application to be this complicated. I hope I get there.

Answer 1

You do indeed need a letter of invitation (also called a Tourist Voucher) to get a Russian visa. Getting it isn't too hard but will cost you a small amount of money. Many hotels will act as the travel company if you have a booking with them. However they might charge an extra fee for this, and will often revoke your letter of invitation if you cancel your hotel booking with them. I believe being invited by an individual (ie a friend or relative in Russia) is also possible, but is reportedly a bureaucratic pain and will probably ultimately cost quite a bit of time. For this reason people often use a third party company, of which many are available, to produce them their letter of invitation — there are many companies who will charge you something like 10-30 USD to produce a letter of invitation for you, automatically and quickly, through email. I used one of these companies myself and had absolutely no trouble. You still have to provide details of the hotels you intend to use but deciding not to use these hotels will NOT invalidate your visa.

Answer 2

When I travelled to Russia the last time five years ago, the Travel company I was supposed to enter was the name of the Russian company that supplied me with an invitation letter (in my case: RZD tours).

You should be able to find all the required details to complete the form in the invitation letter and/or supporting documentation.