My Trans-Siberian Journal

During October & November 2007, I took a tour on the Trans-Siberian Railway. I kept a journal which I am publishing here (work is in progress at the moment), but it's a bit long winded, so i hope that doesn't deter you from having a look.

The original plan was for Kim & I to take a trip on the Trans-Siberian railway in late September/early October, but in 2007 that wasn't possible because of our vacations plans to go home for my father's birthday. I mentioned wanting to take the trip to a friend of mine, Emeli, and the next thing you know, she and her friend Matilda were planning the trip at the end of October, and then so were we.

Em & M booked their trip through Iventus, a Swedish travel agency, which in the end, no one we met that booked through them was happy with them. They hashed out our schedule, leave Moscow on the Trans-Mongolian train on Tuesday, October 30th, arrive in Ulaan Baatar (UB) on Sunday, November 4th, depart UB on Thursday, November 8th, and arrive in Beijing on Friday November 9th. We would fly to Moscow and back from Beijing. Kim and I planned to fly to Moscow on Sunday, October 28th, and return from Beijing on Monday, November 12th (which got pushed to November 13th due to flight availability). We chose to fly on SAS, but could have flown on Aeroflot for slightly less. I booked through a Danish travel agent, STA Travel, which turned out to be a nightmare. See more about my experience with STA here. The end result is that you book the tickets through your travel agent, who books them through a Russian travel agent, and they either need to be picked up in Moscow, or you will get a contact in Moscow and they will meet you at your hotel and deliver the tickets to you personally. If you get off in UB (and most likely other destinations as well), you will have another contact to get the next set of tickets. If staying in Moscow, you may be required to book your hotel through the travel agency that books your tickets. This is to ease the Russian visa process, but there are other ways to take care of this, as well.

Once our plane tickets arrived, we had less than a month to get visas for the three countries. We started with our Chinese visa, but that cost us a day, and an extra trip to the Chinese Embassy because I didn't notice that the Embassy was closed on October 1st & 2nd, and we tried on October 2nd. We returned on October 3rd, and I waited in line for about 1.5 hours (seems there were a lot of people that wanted to apply for visas that week), making me quite late for work, hurray for flex time. The visa process was a breeze since we downloaded the applications from the Internet and our visas were to be ready on October 9th. Pickup of the visa was much quicker, we only waited about 15 minutes. We paid for the visas when we picked up the passports; 200kr for Kim and 600kr for me.

Americans don't need a visa for Mongolia but most other nationalities do, so Kim took his passport and mailed it to the Mongolian Consulate (which doesn't have opening hours); 485kr + postage for Kim. We expected this to take 8 days, and it did. Kim got his passport back on October 17th.

I headed straight for the Russian Embassy in Copenhagen, which was quite an experience, but the experience didn't start there. It started with the paperwork for a Russian visa. What we needed for our Russian tourist visa was the following:

A completed visa application.
One passport picture. Face forward, light background, blah blah blah.
An invitation to Russia. This is normally provided by the hotel you are staying at, but there are companies on-line that will sell you an invitation for around $30 USD. We went this route and got our invitation from visatorussia.com, and stated on our application form both our hotel in Moscow and that we were traveling on the Trans-Mongolian. Our hotel wanted to charge us 2250 RUB per person for the invitation, and we weren't sure if we would get an invitation for the train from our travel agent, so I checked the internet to see if the site was legitimate, then opted for this cheaper and easier option, which worked.
The application fee, DKK in cash or check. Check the website or call the embassy to find this out ahead of time.

You may also need to have proof of travel insurance that is valid in Russia. We didn't need it, but through 2007 the Danish medical coverage was valid in Russia so that's why they might not have asked us for it.

At the embassy in Copenhagen, there are some unwritten rules that everyone should know (but no one does, except maybe after they've been there):

It is fastest if you get your application form off the Internet and have the appropriate paperwork ready as described above.
For visa application you stand in line outside the embassy and they only let in about 6 or 8 people at a time. If someone hasn't filled out their forms, you have to wait in line for those people to fill out the forms and then be processed.
If you are a Russian citizen, have an appointment, or are there to pick up a visa, you can skip this application queue (if the security guard isn't outside at the time, just knock on the door).
There is a simple security check where they scan you with a wand, ask to see your mobile phone and have you turn it off, check your pockets, and go through any bag you have with you. My suggestion, bring only what you need, then you don't have to empty the entire contents of your bag and/or pockets to get through the security check.
Once inside, form a line to the left of the sign that says "please wait here" if you are applying, and to the right if you are picking up, if there actually is someone else there for pick-up at the same time.
Know the date, as well as the number of business days that you need for processing, they offer 1, 3, 5, and 10 business day service. Tell them the number of business days, and they will tell you the date it will be returned.
If you don't have the money for your application, the line will wait until you got to the bank next door and return with your money. For everyone else's sake, bring your application fee rather than hold up the line.

We paid for the visas when applying; 600kr for Kim for 3 business day processing and 400kr for me for 10 business day processing. I picked up both visas on October 23rd, with almost no waiting, but since I arrived right at 9 when the consular services opened, there was actually a short line.

Five days 'til departure and we were officially ready!

All pictures from Russia | All pictures from Mongolia | All pictures from China