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I haven't found any clear information on this topic when I applied for such e-visa, and now I'm paying the price for a mistake I made. The e-visa for Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast is still experimental, so there isn't lot of information available to it. So I hope this will help future travellers.

So, what do I have to take care of or watch out for when applying for the new e-visa for Leningrad Oblast?

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  • Would you please shorten the question body? There is a lot of unneeded and distracting information.
    – Neusser
    Commented Jan 19, 2020 at 19:43
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    @Neusser: eh? did you post your comment on the wrong question?
    – Martha
    Commented Jan 21, 2020 at 16:02

2 Answers 2

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First of all, I recommend: apply for a normal visa if you're not sure what you're doing.

Basically, this e-visa is very comfortable to apply for and a really nice option if you're planning to stay only for a few days. So, what can be the problems with this visa?

  1. You are only allowed to enter and leave at certain points, which are listed at the official website. This also means that you're not allowed to use a flight that has a stop anywhere in the Russian Federation (e.g. Moscow).
  2. You are only allowed to stay a maximum of 192 hours, beginning at 0:00 AM the day you're arriving. Not from the moment you enter the Russian Federation.
  3. It is not possible to extend an e-visa.
  4. You can't leave and reenter the country with an e-visa. Once you leave, the validity of the visa ends.
  5. This means that you absolutly have to exit before 23:59 seven days after your arrival. If you reach the border checkpoint only seconds after midnight, you won't be allowed to leave.
  6. If you can't leave Leningrad Oblast on these terms, no matter the reason (delay at the border, cancelled flight, illness, delay of the flight/bus/etc..., personal miscalculation, etc...), you will not be allowed to leave the country on your own terms.

If you fail to leave on time, a five year ban from entering the Russian Federation is very likely.
I will answer how to deal with this situation in a separate question. Please add if I forgot to mention anything.

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    What part is wrong that eventually led to your next question and answer? travel.stackexchange.com/questions/152418/…
    – Bernhard Döbler
    Commented Jan 18, 2020 at 23:19
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    In the other question: "my flight would've had stop in Moscow", so I guess they didn't know #1 at the time the flights were booked.
    – stanri
    Commented Jan 19, 2020 at 8:35
  • Yes, I misinterpreted the information on border checkpoints, because I rarely travel. I though that it's already international area as soon I'm entering the terminal, and thought that a stop in a Moscow airport would be no problem, as I couldn't have left the terminal there anyway. However, I was wrong, and people who travel more often would probably know that. But I didn't.
    – miep
    Commented Jan 21, 2020 at 19:24
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  • It does not work when entering by rail (Jan 2020). Thus, make sure you are not planning to enter or exit by rail.
  • Make extra sure that the exact Latin name spelling in your visa applications matches the spelling in the machine readable section of your passport. Especially if you have any diacritics in your name. They will absolutely refuse your entry over a single incorrect glyph - a lot of complaints about that.

Sample passport

When in any doubt, make sure it matches the Latin spelling in the white bottom block with a lot of <'s.

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  • Interesting... my MRZ doesn't include a hyphen because they can only express letters, although my last name does include one. I wonder if the Russian authorities would have a problem with that.
    – Matthew FitzGerald-Chamberlain
    Commented Jan 18, 2020 at 23:10
  • Unfortunately it's hard to say, I'd pay some care to this issue, maybe get a written (email) answer from Russian embassy.
    – alamar
    Commented Jan 19, 2020 at 9:41
  • (you can also try to make them repeat their answer in Russian to show on border to be extra sure)
    – alamar
    Commented Jan 19, 2020 at 15:15
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    @alamar The embassy will have no say about how it's handled at the border. Email the border control administration (in Russian, using Google Translate if needed) at [email protected] and [email protected]
    – Crazydre
    Commented Jan 20, 2020 at 12:37
  • @MatthewFitzGerald-Chamberlain That said, the relevant application form doesn't accept diacritics AFAIK, in which case the MRZ is indeed what you go by
    – Crazydre
    Commented Jan 20, 2020 at 12:39

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