Russia Kaliningrad Visa Information

Obtaining a Visa for Kaliningrad, Russia

Reviewed 9 January 2024 ~ Russia Kaliningrad Visa Information

Airspace Closures

Russia has closed its airspace to airlines from multiple countries in direct response to airspace closures effecting its airlines, which were introduced by western governments opposing Russia’s military operation to ‘demilitarise and de-Natzify’ Ukraine. Airlines on the banned list are prohibited from landing in or flying over Russian territory. As a result, air travel disruptions are widespread. If you intend to travel in the immediate future, you should contact your airline or travel agent for further information.
Links to Airport/Airlines websites can be found at the end of this guide

Links
Kaliningrad-Gdansk-London Luton
How to get to Kaliningrad from the UK

To visit Kaliningrad, you will need to apply for and have been issued with a Russian visa. For those of you who are not sure what one of these is, it is an official document that permits you to legally enter a foreign country, in this case the Russian Federation. The visa is valid for a specific duration of time. It contains the date of entry to the country and the date of exit, as well as your name, travel document (passport) details and the purpose for which you are travelling.

There are various types of visa depending upon the nature of your visit, but, for the sake of this blog, let’s assume that you are visiting Kaliningrad as a tourist.

Russia Kaliningrad Tourist Information: Tourist Visa

A tourist visa will allow you to enter Kaliningrad, and leave, within a specified time-frame of 30 days. This means that the maximum length of stay in Kaliningrad is 30 days and no more. It is important that you leave the country before or on the date of exit.

Before a tourist visa can be issued, you will need to have confirmation of where you will be staying throughout the duration of your visit. Two documents are required, commonly referred to as visa support documents, and they consist of: (1) a Voucher; (2) a Booking Confirmation.

If you are staying in a hotel, you will need to ask the hotel to send you a hotel voucher and confirmation of tourist acceptance. Once you have received these, you should then take them to the Russian National Tourist Office. The London address is:

The Russian National Tourist Office
202 Kensington Church Street
London W8 4DP

To complete your visa application, you will need to take the following with you to the tourist office:

1. An original passport, valid for more than 6 months, containing at
least 2 blank pages for your visa and entry/exit stamps

2. An application form (obtainable from The Russian National
Tourist Office)*

3. One valid passport-type photograph

4. Payment for application

*The Russian National Tourist Office can assist you with all stages of your application, including visa support documents. You can contact them by telephone, on 0207 985 1234 and/or visit this page on their website: https://www.visitrussia.org.uk/visas/getting-a-russian-visa/

Russia Kaliningrad Visa Information: Professional visa support company

To make things easier for you there are various visa-support companies that you can contact, which will take you through the entire process. My support company of choice is Stress Free Visas, if only because if you do get stressed whilst using them you can have a good laugh at your own expense! Their website address is www.stressfreevisas.co.uk.

When using their service, you will be asked to fill an application form online. It is as well to know what to expect before you start, since when they start asking you questions, such as what is your inside leg measurement, it will be difficult to do so unless you have a tape measure already at hand. OK, it’s not that bad, not quite, but there is information that you will need that you might inconceivably not have thought of.

To this end, please see the following:

Q: Who is paying for your trip to Russia?
A: [If it is you, put ‘independently’]

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You will be asked ‘information about your financial situation’. You will need to enter your ‘overall monthly income from all sources’ and various other financial details.

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You will need to include your National Insurance number

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You will be asked to enter ‘place of birth’ and ‘date and place of birth’ of your spouse

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You will be asked to provide the following details about your parents:

Name
Date, country & place of birth
Nationality
If deceased, date & place of death

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You will be asked to provide the name of the hotel you will be staying at, plus address and telephone number

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And that, as Bruce Forsyth used to say, “is all there is to it!”

To assist you in all visa-related matters, here again is the web address for Stress Free Visas: www.stressfreevisas.co.uk

Visa advice pertaining to Russia: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/russia

Travel advice for entry to Kaliningrad, Russia
UK: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/travel-advice-novel-coronavirus

Poland: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/poland/entry-requirements

Lithuania: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/lithuania/entry-requirements

Links to Airport/Airlines websites

Airlines

Lot Airways
Web: www.lot.com

Aeroflot
Web: www.aeroflot.ru

Wizz Air
Web: www.wizzair.com

Rynair
Web: www.ryanair.com

Airports

Khrabrovo Airport Kaliningrad
Web: www.kgd.aero
Tel: +7 4012 300 300

Luton London Airport
Web: www.london-luton.co.uk

Gdansk Airport
Web: www.airport.gdansk.pl
Tel: 801 066 808 / +48 525 673 531

A warning to the Curious (apologies to Peter Vaughan)

Updated: 12 March 2022 | Published: 24 September 2020

Warning!
In response to Russia’s special operation aimed at ‘demilitarising and de-Nazifying Ukraine’, the UK media has embarked upon and is actively pursuing an intensive propaganda programme which is resulting in widespread anti-Russian sentiment and Russophobia. Aimed at cancelling Russian culture and demonising Russian citizens at every level, incidents of verbal abuse and physical aggression towards Russian nationals have been reported in various western countries, including the UK. This comes against the backdrop of reports suggesting that Facebook is greenlighting hate speech against Russians on its social media platform. You are advised to travel to the UK only for essential reasons and whilst there to exercise caution.

Part 1

An article in The Moscow Times (12 February 2016), ‘ Russian Women — They’re Just Not That Into You’, tells the disheartening tale that Russia’s “fascination with foreignness” is over and that Russian girls no longer fantasise about being “whisked away by a foreign prince in Levi’s”. (How about a foreign knave in a pair of ‘skinnies’ cut-price from Peacocks?).

As a long-time married man of a respectable senior age, I really could not tell you whether this is true or not. However, an inveterate Facebook commentator, a Facebook friend of my wife’s, who never misses an opportunity to respond negatively to my wife’s more political Russian posts, has asserted on more than one occasion that Russian’s are queuing to leave Russia and live in the UK and America. Allowing for the obvious hyperbole, an interesting question nevertheless emerges from this statement: Do Russian citizens still want to emigrate to the UK?

I use the word ‘still’ purposefully, based on my own observations that the Russia of today is considerably different from the one I encountered twenty years ago, which was reeling from the fallout of perestroika and was a time therefore when the quality-of-life divide between the East and West was at its most dramatic. Then, it was understandable that people, especially young people, were looking for a way out and that the West, with all its lauded material trappings and projected hedonism, was not simply a land of opportunity but a seductive Lady Bountiful ~ Shangri La personified.

You can imagine the banner advertisement, ‘Move to the UK ~ a better way of life awaits you!’ But life in the fast lane has a funny way of slowing down, and it could be argued, with no small degree of credibility, that since then Russia has caught up with, if not in many instances, overtaken the UK, where almost every citizen is heavily in debt, young people outpriced from the housing market, too many people and not enough jobs, and where political, social and ethnic division, moral malaise and gratuitous violence has replaced the cohesion and respect of the past.

Advice for Russians emigrating to UK part 1

Nevertheless, the answer is ‘yes’. Of course, there are Russians, predominantly younger Russians, who continue to be attracted by the lure of the West, but the allure is no longer the promise of a substantially better or more stable life. The internet has put paid to that naivety. Today, the internet offers a window on the world and however the media spins it, the other side of the so-called western democracies, like Jekyll’s Hyde, is continually surfacing.

As life on the edge and the chance to become embroiled in the left vs patriot battles are ‘No Sale’, I think we can conclude that what allure there is, is strictly financial. The old sheen may have worn off the good-times chimera with the insurgence of unserviceable credit cards and unsafe streets, but the financial remuneration from certain jobs and professions continues to pull and, you never know, there is always the chance you will beat the House no matter how fixed the wheel.

This post, therefore, and those that follow in this series, are dedicated to those of you in Russia who are considering and/or seriously contemplating emigrating to the UK. You may still be wondering, should I really do this? Or you may already have made up your mind that you are off; either way, I trust that by shedding some light on what you can expect to find in the UK economically, socially and politically, that this series of articles will serve to alleviate any delusions and misconceptions that you may have adopted. And whilst these articles are primarily intended as a guide for prospective or potential emigrees, some sections may prove useful for those amongst you who are travelling to the UK on an international secondment or for the purpose of tourism.

Advice for Russians emigrating to UK part 1

In the following posts I will consider the bureaucratic, economic and social ramifications of moving to London/moving to England, and in it I will explain why I have deliberately chosen to deal with London as a separate entity to England as a whole.