Originally Posted by A1Dan

I've spoken to both VisitRussia and our own wonderful ticket office this morning, and worked out the following:

• You can get a visa for £65 if you have a ticket, or confirmation of a ticket.
• Tickets only start going out on 12th, and th ticket office cannot provide any confirmation whichn is satisfactory to VisitRussia, so effectively these £65 visas do not exist, as things stand.
• The other option is to shell out £100 for the "normal procedure" for people without tickets.
• VisitRussia advised that they're snowed under and told me to get my application in via the £100 route straight away.
• Obivously, the above effectively measn there are no "special arrangements".
• However, the ticket office are still convinced something else is being worked out, but they haven't got a clue what, and just say that they will publish details "in the next couple of days".

So the long and the short of it is we have a choice...

The safe option: Take the £30 hit.
The potentially cheaper option: wait and see.