Russia: Visiting the Hero City of Leningrad by e-visa

Winter Palace, St Petersburg, December 2019

Getting a Russian visa is usually a very complicated process: you first need a hotel to issue an invitation, then spend a day going to the Russian Embassy to submit your forms and pay a substantial amount of money. However, tourists from the EU and a few Asian countries can now also visit certain parts of Russia with only a free e-visa: the Russian Far East, Kaliningrad, and St Petersburg. The latter is the most worth visiting for now, though there are currently plans to introduce an all-Russia e-visa in 2021. I'll likely visit again if and when that comes into force; I'd certainly like to at least visit Moscow, and the Trans-Siberian Railway remains on my long-term list as well. 

For now, the application for St Petersburg e-visas is free and straightforward: filling out a form online, with booked flights and accommodation. The e-visa PDF came through after just a few days. 

Luton is my least favourite London airport, but even then it's not too bad to get to with a train-and-bus combined ticket on Thameslink. 

Our flight from London Luton to St Petersburg Pulkovo Airport was with Wizz Air: the prices were inflated as it was Christmas time, but off-season ticket prices are often as low as £9. That's quite something for a 3½ hour flight. Unusually for a low-cost airline, web check-in was unavailable - all passengers had to queue in person at the check-in desks so that staff could check visas. It must have been over a decade since I last had to spend ages queuing for check-in on a low-cost flight. I don't miss it. 

Flight W6 8123, Wizz Air Airbus A320 at Luton

As a medium-haul flight on short-haul seats overnight, it was a terrible-but-good-enough night's sleep. 

The first sight on disembarking the plane was "Hero City Leningrad, St Petersburg" lit up on the airport terminal. It was already getting exciting. 

The border check was straightforward, and I was handed the usual ex-USSR landing slip to keep until I left the Russia/Belarus Union State. We took the 39 bus from Pulkovo Airport to Moskovskaya metro station for 40 roubles, where one can then take the metro into the city centre. 

Lenin and the House of Soviets, on Moskovskaya Square. 

Moskovskaya Square is worth visiting in itself, but its metro station brings the rest of the city into easy reach. It's fronted by the Stalinist neoclassical House of Soviets, completed in 1941 as part of a plan to move the centre of the city somewhere less flood-prone than the historic centre. The outbreak of the Great Patriotic War stopped this, leaving the monumental palace for scientific institutions. 

Hero City Obelisk, St Petersburg. 

The St Petersburg e-visa is available to all EU passport-holders, as well as a few Asian countries. It's completely free, and grants access to the city as well as the surrounding Leningrad Oblast all the way to the Finnish and Estonian borders. It's an excellent way of visiting the great imperial city. 

Summary:

Date: Saturday 21 December - Sunday 22 December 2019

Main experience: Arriving at Moskovskaya Square, monumental in its socialist-realism and constructivism. 

Cost: 

• London - Luton Airport train and bus combined ticket: £8.65, 
• LTN - LED flight (W6 8123, 2225 - 0450⁺¹): £99
• St Petersburg Pulkovo Airport to Moskovskaya Square 39 bus: 40 RUB (£0.44, €0.49)