St.Tikhon's Orthodox University

Russian visa

If you need a visa to enter the Russian Federation, the University will provide you with the official letter of invitation. There are two types of visa that can be issued for our guests by the Russian Consulates:

1. A study visa is normally requested for 90 days.

If you are enrolled for a longer period, your visa will be prolonged after your arrival in Moscow.

The invitation for a study visa is prepared by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. The university will apply for the invitation on your behalf 45 days prior to your arrival date. Please, submit all necessary documents in advance.

Note: It takes about two weeks to prepare the official invitation at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. As a consequence, there will be not enough time to send you the inviation via ordinary mail. We recommend you to check with the Russian Consulate in your country whether a fax copy of the invitation is sufficient to get
the visa. If the original is required, please, inform the International Relations Department about the situaton. In this case we will send the document with an express mail service (DHL, or another). You are expected to pay for the express mail service yourself.

2. A short-term guest visa (up to 30 days).

If you are a EU-citizen (except the United Kingdom and Denmark), the Russian Consulate will accept a letter of invitation from the University, according to the Agreement between the Russian Federation and the European Community on the facilitation of the issuance of visas. Please, check with the Russian Consulate in your country whether a fax copy of the letter of invitation is sufficient. If the original is required, the universtity will send it to you via ordinary mail. Estimated time - two or three weeks. We ask you to send the application form (see below) as early as possible.

If you are not a EU-citizen, the official invitation for a short-term visa is issued by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs only. Please, contact the International Relations Department for further information.