UK to Nepal/India via Astrakhan, Russia

Hi, I went through your website. It has a lot of good info on it.

Me and a friend of mine are British Citizens traveling from UK to Nepal and India in a car. For us this is a once in a lifetime sort of trip. We are at an age where if we do such a trip it will be now or never.

The Russian consulate in London has advised us to get a tourist visa. We need invite letter and documents to apply for a tourist visa. We will only visit Russia for about 2 days. We intend to enter Russia from Georgia Russia border at Verkhnii Lars, North Ossetia–Alania Republic, Russia, 362903. We will stay at Astrakhan, Astrakhan Oblast, Russia
and leave from the Russia-Kazakhstan border to Kotyayevka, Kazakhstan. However since we are driving all the way from UK, there may be some delays on the way so we need a bit of flexibility in dates to enter Russia and therefore leave Russia and so we are trying to get a visa for a week.

I have booked a hotel in Astrakhan through Zenhotels however they are not responding when I asked them for a invite letter. Is it safe to just go from Georgia through that part of Russia and then go to Kazakhstan - especially since we are British citizens? (originally I am from India and the other person is from Nepal originally).

I intend to secure insurance, visa letter as per your website. For currency we are thinking of carrying some cash because we intend to stay in Russia only for 2 days

Are there any other tips/pointers for us?

Thanks and Regards

@vmungale Hello,

If you’re not sure about dates then you can apply for a visa for 10-15 days or even more. You can buy invitation here: https://russiable.com/visa-support/
You should carry cash and change into roubles.
You can get local Russian car insurance at the border for Georgia.
Zenhotels allows you paying with foreign cards.
I am not aware of any security problems for UK citizens.