Best (safest) order of travel for Russia and the USA (short research trip)

Question

I’m a European academic researcher in the humanities (philosophy, philology) and I’m thinking of planning two short research trips (< 1 week) to consult rare manuscripts in the near future (maybe 2025).

One trip is to the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg (Russia), the other to libraries in NYC and Philadelphia (USA). (So far I don't have an institution backing my book project, so I think I'd be travelling privately.)

Do you have suggestions about the best order in which I should visit the US and Russia? The order is up to me and my priority would be to travel safe. In tense times, I worry that visiting the US could make it more difficult to enter Russia shortly after, or vice versa – drawing the wrong kind of attention from border authorities.

(I’ve never entered either country before, nor had a visa refused.)

If entry stamps on the passport play a role, then my current passport (from a EU country) is stamp-free. (Though I might use soon it for a trip to the UK.) As a dual national of (another EU country), I could also request another passport from my other home, despite the non-trivial costs.

Please forgive me if the question is naive! I’m only used to travelling under Schengen rules.

Answer 1

Go to the USA first. Assuming you qualify for ESTA/VWP, the US no longer stamps passports, so there will be zero evidence in your passport that you've been there. In contrast, Russian visas are paper stickers and entry/exit are stamped, so your visit will be obvious and may lead to questions at the US border.

That said, I don't think you have much to worry about either way.

• As a bona fide academic studying rare manuscripts, you have an excellent reason to visit both.
• Russia is not on the official US shit list of countries that disqualify you for VWP.
• I don't think Russia really cares about travel to the US, which is good since you may be asked about travel history in your visa application.

Answer 2

It doesn't matter

Russia doesn't care about you visiting the US. I know several people who are dual US-Russian citizens and still visit Russia from time to time. Never once did this cause them any problems. Likewise Americans can still get a Russian visa and visit the country. This was the case even at the peak of the Cold War, as tourism to Russia was possible since 1955.

Likewise the US doesn't care about visits to Russia. Visas are still being issued to Russian citizens, although they have to travel abroad to get one as American consulates in Russia are no longer able to issue visas due to the ongoing diplomatic war.

Who does the US care about? As per the VWP program page it's Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen. It's been two years since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, so I think its somewhat safe to conclude that Russia won't be added to that list in the near future.

Answer 3

One important thing to consider is that due to the ongoing war and heavy sanctions on Russia from Western countries, there have been a number of recent incidents where foreign nationals traveling to Russia have been harassed, attacked, abused, arrested and even imprisoned, ostensibly for espionage. They do this so they can use them as bargaining chips for prisoner exchanges with the West.

In that light, it might be best to avoid visiting Russia AT ALL. I do not know what manuscripts are so important, but in my personal opinion it is unlikely that any manuscripts in St. Petersburg are worth the potential risk of spending months if not years languishing in uncertainty in a Russian prison.

Answer 4

You might want to check with your foreign affairs department and the US embassy rather than people on the internet. My country has a "do not travel" to Russia, which is the strongest possible warning

Answer 5

It absolutely matters

USA maintains a State Sponsors of Terrorism list. One of the major implications is that people who have travelled to a country included on the list are forever ineligible for visa-free entry into the United States.

This penalty is retroactive - USA introduced the ban in 2015, banning people who had entered certain countries after March 1, 2011 - 4 years before.

The decision to include a country can come out of the blue, as happened with Cuba in 2021.

These two nasty properties can make or break your trip.

Inclusion of Russia is being actively discussed and the obvious cutoff date is February 24th, 2022.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Sponsors_of_Terrorism_(U.S._list)#Russia

Safest bet is to enter U.S. first.