Holders of passports issued by the following nations are not required to obtain a Russian visa prior to travel:

• Argentina
• Armenia
• Azerbaijan
• Belarus
• Brazil
• Bosnia and Herzegovina (with appropriate documents proving purpose of visit)
• Cuba
• Israel
• Kazakhstan
• Kyrgyzstan
• Macedonia
• Moldova
• Montenegro
• Nicaragua
• Serbia (for those who possess biometric passports issued after 9th April 2008)
• Thailand
• Ukraine
• Uzbekistan
• Venezuela

Please visit the website of the Russian Embassy in your country for more information. Even though citizens of certain countries are not required to obtain a Russian visa before travel to Russia, they may still be required upon entry to present the documents confirming the purpose of their visit.

Contact details of Russian Embassies can be found here: http://www.mid.ru/zu_r.nsf/strawebeng.

Visa support

For those participants who need visa to come to Russia we can provide visa support. You have two options as regards an invitation (which is required for a visa):

1) We can arrange an invitation for a student visa for you.

For the citizens of the countries within the Schengen zone student visas are usually issued free of charge. Since it's a time-consuming process, the deadline for visa assistance requests is November 7. You will need to e-mail us a copy of your passport (the page with your photo and personal data), the address of the Russian embassy or consulate where you are going to apply for visa, and the dates of your planned stay in Russia. It's a good idea to have a visa for a couple of days more than the period you are going to spend here.

It will take approximately 5-10 days to arrange an invitation for you. The invitation is then sent directly to the Russian embassy at which you plan to apply for visa. When it's ready we will let you know and you will be able to apply for visa at the embassy you have indicated.

After you have applied for visa at the embassy it usually takes a week for the visa to be issued. However, these terms may vary from country to country. It's always a good idea to contact Russian Embassy in your home country first.

If you need visa support, please indicate it in the registration form.

2) Our previous experience in organizing such tournaments tells us that sometimes this method is too time-consuming. Therefore we recommend that if you are short of time (less than 2 weeks) you arrange a tourist visa by yourselves (that can be easily done at the embassy). Normally it’s the easiest and fastest way to get visa.

In the countries within the Schengen zone the tourist visa usually costs 35 EUR, in other countries – 60 EUR. Prices may vary from country to country. We recommend that you visit the web-site of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (www.mid.ru) to find out the prices for your country.