Is it possible to camp in Russia on a tourist visa?

1/13/2012 1:46:36 PM

My company Russian Connections specializes in travel to Russia for people from the United States. I looked over all of the responses and have some extra information for you. Rules with Russian change all the time.

REGISTRATION: Currently you only need to register yourself only if you plan to stay more than 7 working days in Russia. I agree with the other that hostel and hotel registration is the best solution. If they are nice, they may register you for your whole stay in Russia. If you plan to move around a lot and will stay in Russia more than 7 working days, I recommend that you register at least in one city in Russia. That way if you run into any problems you can show that you did register at one city and then moved a round the country.

based on information on the russian consulate web site

CITIES: The cities that you list on your application are entered into a computer system and Russian officials can check that list. I recommend you list the 5-6 cities that you plan to stay more than 48-72 hours in. Better to list more than less.

If you have more question, I will do my best to answer them.

12/16/2011 11:56:43 AM

As @Mark said, you must get an invitation to enter Russia. This is a legacy of the USSR, and though our politicians are trying to change it, it’s very hard to do because of safety problems with immigrants from former USSR republics. But if you are going for a weekend, you don’t have to register in Murmansk at arrival – the invitation with visa will be enough (as it is less than 3 days).

As for the camping – yes, @Mark is right – you can camp everywhere you can go on your own. You can even camp near lakes, rivers, roads and forests. You must only be careful with nature (don’t leave your stuff behind, don’t make a big fire, and so on).

Restricted areas are properly marked, so you wouldn’t have any problems with that.

Update:
You must register in every city or village, if you are staying there for more than 3 days (without weekends and national holidays).
Proof link (In Russian)

12/15/2011 4:17:14 AM

There’s good news and bad news.

The good news – you CAN camp anywhere, except the church land, private gardens and near water reservoirs. We researched this in 2008 and found many, many resources online saying it’s perfectly fine to camp even on the side of the road. We even checked this with locals in Novosibirsk when we got there. However, they suggested that while it’s cool and all, it’s safer to camp in a campsite as there’s security. And we could register with the campsite owner.

The bad news – the campsite owners didn’t do registration. However on subsequent trips to Russia, I’ve found a lot of places claim to not do registration, or will come up with all sorts of excuses why they can’t do it (weekend, only staying a day, etc etc).

The way around this is to find a travel agent, as it’s possible to register there. Or find a hostel and ask them to register you there for a week. That’s what most who were willing would do for me, as it made no difference to them, and would increase the odds of me staying there if I was already registered.

And this helpful page on Russian visa registration also points out it’s possible to go and register at a Russian police station. Personally though, I’d exhaust the travel agency / hostel tricks first before approaching the police about an ‘unusual’ situation (see past experiences).

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About me

Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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