Anyone applied for a Russian tourist visa in the last few years?

I can do my own internet research, of course, just wondering if anyone has personal experience they can share.

Sorry, no. Mine was a business visa. My benevolent employer outsources that and a woman (in the U.S.) called me to run through the questions. The only one I couldn't give a straight answer on was whether I had ever had a Russian visa before. Yes and no. My last one was in 1981. She said, in that case, the answer is "no"... that was issued by the USSR, not the RF.

All I can say is: be prepared for a glacially-slow process and for your name to be spelled in Cyrillic in a way you never imagined.

Where are you going?

Just St Petersburg for a few days, unless we decide it’s more trouble than it’s worth. But I’ll probably slog through the process.

Jon keep us posted on how it goes. I've always wanted to go there, though I'm mainly interested in kamchatka, not cities.

Thanks, jon.

I've wanted to go there since my middle school Russian classes, but I transferred to Florida for 9th grade, so no dice.