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Maybe. To begin with here's my obligatory cute kitteh picture from my photos:Note: I'm typing this on a “smart" phone. Please excuse any errata. If you see errata which aren't stylistic intentionally misspelled words and can't excuse them, you're welcome to submit an edit suggestion. For anything else my rule is Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies in my thread. Fair Warning. I'm an Aspie and I tell the truth with the whole truth no matter who it annoys.This is the only truthful answer you're going to get here, and you're going to get it in the form of a shaggy dog story with lots of history because those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it.I'm sorry. Truly and deeply sorry. Yes I’m mean, but I promise you it’s worth the education because this is the story of how I bought a home for $167,000 UNDER value.As things sit right now, I owe about $80k with a valuation of over $300k and a PITI payment of under $1k. I also have over half my monthly payment going to pay down principal which means that if all goes to plan I'll be holding my very own mortgage burning party in about 8 years. Y'all will be invited. I expect a blowout that will make a proper Tennessee Hills shivaree look weak.Some of this is due to a confluence of factors and timing, but some of it is me being a Very Particular Sort of Asshole. If you can buy, then buy. With Wall Street being the rigged and theiving game of Three Card Monte Carlo that it is, owning property is the only chance we ordinary folks will ever see.Before we go on here's a bit of mood music I think fits the situationDoubt me if you will, but this video below absolutely IS, demonstrably, how the entirety of Wall Street plays the investment game. The second you start getting confident and dropping big money on the table they change the rules on you and TAKE it. For any doubters please see the ’80s S&L fraud, the ’95 Dot Com crash, and the 2006 fraud in home loans with their REIT and fraudulently rated Reverse Derivatives crap which NOT ONE BANKER EVER WENT TO PRISON FOR.In 2007 I met up with my then girlfriend who was recently divorced and living in the house which she and her ex had bought together. In 2008 the economy was tanked and I moved in with her to help cover the bills. I had work she had a hobby type business which until then had covered her bills. She was in foreclosure due to the divorce and I wasn't in a position to be able to cover her house payment, but I could cover the other bills and our living expenses.. so I did. And life was good.As an aside, I’m on the Asperger’s Spectrum and in some ways I am a bit of an asswhole who once had a Navy Drill Instructor tell me (while laughing hard) that I “Have a very nice Full Rolling Bellow.” If y'all spot this phrase in my writing that's where it came from.If you’ve ever played Dungeons and Dragons you’ll identify me as the Chaotic Good Mage and this will come into play later. I’m also a Tennessee Hill Country boy, of Norwegian extraction, and a Navy Veteran among other attributes. Suffice to say that from many folks’ perspective I’m an odd critter, slightly left of center, who doesn’t necessarily play by the rules of society. Some find that offensive; many find it entertaining. I’ll let you decide. That is to say that I am a Very Particular Type of Asshole.;}So GF and I were having ourselves a nice little life together in 2008 and long about 2009 she started getting nasty letters from the bank about the unpaid mortgage. Since I wasn’t anywhere on the paperwork I wasn’t worried but she didn’t have a way to pay the mortgage, nor any easy way for the bank to enforce against her, I wasn’t particularly worried. I was beginning to ponder buying a house at that point any way.Now I learned about buying houses from my dad and my grandfather who are both engineers of various sorts. The rules I learned were strictly Old School and since both men had held mortgage burning parties, I’m going to listen to them over anyone else… especially any banker with a vested interest in seeing me fail (I’ll get to this in a bit but it speaks directly to my experience throughout this process)Here’s those rules:Your total payment including Principal, Interest, Taxes and Insurance (PITI) should not exceed 25% of your gross income or 33% of your net income. Yea’ the bankers and mortgage brokers will tell you that you can afford more, but they AIN’T working for you or your best interests. Ever. They’re working for THEIR commission in their wallets and whether you make it long term or not woun’t chap their hide one little bit. OTOH, I have nothing to gain and am interested in seeing as many of my fellow citizens own homes sucessfully as is possible.Your minimum payment isn’t what the banks’ monthly statement says. Your minimum payment is whatever the PITI payment is PLUS $100 minimum.If there’s any way at all for you to get a V.A. Loan, a USDA loan, or a HUD loan by all means DO IT!! There are legally mandated protections in those loan programs which aren’t available in normal brokered bank loans, and they absolutely will save you endless grief. I have a VA loan. Especially if youre in a rural or semirural area the USDA loan program can be an outstanding loan. The VA loan, if you can get it, is the best of the best.The 25% of gross and 33% of net income limits should be considered hard maximums regardless of the time frame of the loan you’re considering. Here’s the problem.. When things are good 33% of Gross isn’t an issue and even 40% of Gross can work IF things are good. The problem is that life rarely stays good for the 15 or 30 years you’re going to be paying on this loan AND if you figure wrong youre screwed because default isn’t just “hand the car back” it includes destroying your credit rating while losing your home, and that means you are going to have a tough time even being able to rent an apartment. Since we no longer have any meaningful bankruptcy protection unless your completely destitute (Thanks Clinton!) you really cant afford to mess this up.. Which means you need to be very conservative in what you think you can afford. This way when (not if, WHEN) your income does tank youll at least have half a chance to make it and keep the house. If you listen to the “new” standards you won’t get that chance.Get pre-approved in full. Your pre-approval letter should state the maximimum loan size, an interest rate, and the type of loan. Know tha sellers often get all starry eyed when they’re looking at approval letters and so your approval letter shouldn’t show a number much higher than your offer price. In any case if the approval amaount is more than about $5k above the offer it goes with, I’d ask the bank loaning yu the money to rewrite the letter so it matches the offer.If you are able to get approved for one of those loans I listed above do not, under any circumstances, surrender it for a standard Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac bank loan. You may well need to fight for it as most banks would rather lose your business than deal with the restrictions written into these loans. If for no other reason than the bank wants to force you into one of their products to keep all that interest and those fees in house. Those restrictions are critical, especially in these days of the Universal Default BS so many banks are pulling.Do not ever sign any legal document without reading it over thoroughly and understanding everything including what defines a “default” and how a default can be cured. If you see ANY indication of what’s called a Universal Default Clause walk T.F. away.When you go looking for a real estate agent get what’s called a Buyer/Broker Agreement. DO NOT hire a real estate agent without one. The reason for this is that under the laws of most states the real estate agent, by default, is legally obligated to work for the SELLER of a property. Whit a Buyer/Broker Agreement that legal fiduciary duty is shifted to the BUYER. As a buyer you need this.During the life of your mortgage you NEVER, EVER, under any circumstances refinance; unless that refi will get you at least 3 percentage points better in the rate. This is because of how mortgage amortization works. In the beginning of a mortgage of every $100 in payment only 15% to 20% goes to pay down the money you borrowed. The rest goes straight into some bankers pocket to buy them a yacht or a 4th house. As th ed mortgage ages, that rate improves and at about year 15 on a 30 year loan every $100 in mortgage payment puts $40 on paying the base amount down. The banks have a vested interest in having you pay as high a percentage of each payment to interest as possible, so they always want you to refinance. It also opens you to any new shenanigans they've come up with (like the Universal Default bull crap they're using now).Onward.. So after 2 years of living the Good Life with the GF in her being foreclosed house, I was ready to buy and had found a bank owned foreclosure I wanted, and I went to get pre-approved for a loan. The bank, based upon my income, credit, and living expenses, gave me an approval for $355K. My rules above based upon PITI being 25% of gross said I should be at about $250k at the maximum. I wanted to be at half that so when these bastards blew up our economy again, I wouldn't have to care. I've been through 4 of these events now. The rate for that time was good, and it was a VA loan so I accepted and went shopping.This was an interesting process. very interesting. In case you’re wondering how we stayed in the Girl Friends’ house for 2 years without paying, recall that in 2006 the housing bubble which banks had created over the prior two decades “burst.” In reality they blew it up for fun and profit, but that’s a whole other story (which I'll address in a bit).. She did try to get help under Obama’s fake “relief” program but the law had no teeth to force banks to allow any reductions in rate or capital, and I worked with several different agencies to no avail. In fact, out of the 30 some folks I tried to get help for with this gaslit unicorn smoke “relief” program, I know of one who actually got any help at all. The rest got squat. Here’s why:The reason we got to stay is that the banks were so swamped with foreclosure paperwork that she got missed for those nearly three years as if the paperwork had dropped into a black hole.We regarded this as a Good Thing and as a bit of just come uppance.So I had my approval for my VA loan, a bit of savings, and the house I wanted to buy within my identified price range in hand. At this point the process should have been simple, right? Nope!Despite the fact that I had dotted all the I’s and crossed all the T’s, it was a bank owned repossession, in the midst of a financial fire storm created by the national banks and Wall Street for fun and profit. SMDH asshats and thieves. Here’s the explainer of this fraud they pulled:For the younger folks here’s a slightly different explainer:So I have everything in place, all my ducks are in a row, and they’re all quacking happily. It's now mid 2010 and the housing market is crashing HARD and losing about 8% per month in price. Some of the bank owned properties were losing 10% per month in value simply because there was so much on the market. My agent and I go look at several houses I’ve identified and I found the place I’m in now. The Asking price from Bank of Asshats was $269k and I offered $269K.B of A replied that they “needed” another $10K above Asking to close the deal and I replied that I had offered Asking, and that no one else had even looked at the place in the year prior.. Note: THIS is why you need a Buyer/Broker Agreement. Without that, Peter (my agent), would not have been able to legally tell me this handy little fact, and having all those handy little facts can be very useful in any negotiation. I told B of A to keep it, and didn’t tell them I’d just put in an offer at whatever the Ask was a month from now because the market was dropping like an FA-18 jet with the engine flamed out…As we say in the Navy.. All the glide path of a rock.The next month the asking price dropped to $229k and we put in another offer at (you guessed it) $229K. Band of Asshats NTSA replied that they needed an extra $20K above Ask and they needed me to fillout a loan application with them.. meaning that they didn't like my VA loan with all those protections for me because “they were hard to work with” (which they weren't). I replied that if they had a VA Compliant loan (they didn’t) I was willing to consider financing with them (I wasn’t because of prior run ins with their entrenched corporate asshattery). They replied that they didn’t have a VA Compliant loan and that I would just have to accept a straight Fannie Mae Conforming loan… which offered none of the protections of a VA Loan and required a minimum 20% down plus an extra $8k in in paperwork fees to the bank..Nope! Keep it.I continued to look a other places and found a few I didn’t like as much but dropped offers on them with similar turd stained results.. in a market losing over 8% value per month because there was a glut in the market and even institutional investors weren’t buying.This process continued through 8 or 10 different offers over 6 months, and I kept coming back to that first house I’d identified, until I found that video on the Indy Mac Boys deal I linked above. Then I got MAD. Laughing Mad.If you ever see someone who's laughing mad, kids, the best thing to do is treat them as you would an angry boar.. Load up the largest round you've got handy and back away slowly to the nearest tree.. then climb to the top of that tree just as quick as you can.The next to last offer was also at Asking, as had been all my offers, even though Peter my agent suggested offering above ask “Just to make these F-wits happy.” We were both beginning to feel a bit like we were trapped in a low grade redux of Groundhog Day because we’d put in an offer at Ask in a market dropping like the proverbial stone off a cliff, and we kept getting the same BS of “Well we just need a bit more from you!” Once I found that Indy Mac Boys video, I did a bunch of research and found out that these dirty thieving SOB bankers had not only tanked the market by putting fraudulently rated loans into these REIT investments and the fraudulently rating those as AA and AAA investments; they had also sold that fraudulently rated and designed to crash and burn crap into all of our Employee Retirement Programs.. whichis why they crashedand burned too. RICO the bastards is what SHOULD have happened. What actually happened is Obama and his banker lap dog Holder screamed a bunch of lies about how these thieves and frauds were “Too Big To Fail!”Note 2: Yes, Shrub (Bush Jr.) Started that “Too Big To Fail!” lie AND that lying, erudite, SOB Obama picked it up and ran with it to the finish line like some kind of twisted relay race.Once I’m mad, I become testy. I still wanted this house but my game plan changed and part of that change was the result of having a Buyers Broker rather than just dealing with any old Real Estate agent. Peter filled me in on the process of Sheriff’s Sales which is the final step in clearing a title on a foreclosed home in Oregon… and I pondered.. I got mad and my Aspergers kicked in so I decided to go Full Bugs Bunny in the negotiations as I felt that would serve my Chaotic Good psyche best even if I didn’t get this house.The last offer I made was at $108k.. just about $165k below my first offer 8 months prior. I reconfirmed my VA Loan 3 times in that period as well.. at a slightly lower rate each time.Blathering Asshats, NTSA Bank, of course, came back with their now standard “Well, we need to have an extra $20k” crap because they’re greedy amoral thieves and that’s just what they do. I counter offered That in light of the market dropping 8% per month the past year, I was now willing to offer $104k AND B of A pays all closing costs.. including all inspections.Peter got a call shortly there after from a very confused young negotiator gal at B of A asking if she could talk to me directly. I said I was fine with that and she was given my number.Negotiator Gal calls me up and asked if there was a typo in the new offer because apparently she thought my tactics weren’t fair to the bank.I was still laughing mad at this point. for those of you who don’t know what this means, it’s being so mad that if I can’t blatantly point and laugh at something, there’s a better than fair chance I’ll be going to prison in very short order. Folks.. remember that wolves often smile at you right before they take your arm off.I gently explained the history of my offers on this house and the $165k drop in asking prices over the months and that I was done playing here and now I’m out for blood. I think I may have mentioned boar, wolves, and big snapping turtles.Negotiator Gal turned on her charm and repeated that they needed to have an extra $20k, to which I demurred while laughing hard. She became confused and asked me whether I really wanted the house and, still giggling like an idiot, I gently explained that I had already put in offers well above the current ask and that I was now Officially fed T.F. up with their shenanigans, and didn’t really care a bit how this negotiation worked out because I has a Plan! She asked me what my plan was and I explained that this was, based on their actions, an adversarial situation, and as such I wouldn’t be showing my cards until it was time to Call the table. I then asked her if we could come to an agreement, would she be the one approving that agreement, or would she need to consult someone else for the final approval?She replied that the deal would need to go through at least three levels of approval before it could be inked and printed.Note that I’m still laughing mad at this point, but I had my answer and I had the bit firmly in my teeth now because I knew my next step if this deal fell through was that the property would be at a Sheriff’s Sale on the courthouse steps and I had the financing to close it there with just a few phone calls to initiate the wire transfer.Poor gal.. she never saw it coming.I asked her to put me through to the person who had the final approval on these deals because I was tired of playing their silly games and wanted to either close this now, or be done with them entirely. She did put me through (probably violating some B of A policy) and after a 15 minute hold got this stuffed shirt bank VP high muckey muck who promptly starts bloviating at me about “This just isn’t how WE at Blundering Asshats Bank NTSA DO things!”I replied that I was at the point where I really didn’t care how they DiD tHiNgs any longer, and that I’d tried for months to do things their way, and was now done playing nice. he spluttered himself to a stop and asked me what I meant by that, and I recounted the chain of events from that first offer at $269k to this offer at $104k with the bank paying all closing costs. He sat silent as I talked and only interupted once or twice to ask a few details.When I got done MISTER VP offered that we could go back to the $108k offer and the bank might consider paying closing, but wouldn’t be paying any inspections.My tone became that of a Navy DI explaining something very simple to a complete idiot…I answered that this was not how this was going to play out and that he really needed to listen closely if he valued his career in banking. Mister VP became upset by my tone and I told him to either shut up and listen closely of start packing his office because my next move would be a letter to each Board Member of B of A with a CC to the New York Times, The San Jose Bee, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Washington post laying out in gory detail the shenanigans I’d experienced and asking each Board Member to explain to me how it was that, during a market which was tanking at over 8% per month, they thought it was okay to walk away from the $165k I had put on the table with my original offer. As I laid this out i could hear Mr. VP’s sphincter puckering over the phone line..He tried to stop me once and I started listing off the names of the board members which seemed to shut him up quickly.I then said that I’d mention him by name in the letter and that my next offer, if this one didn’t close, would be at the court house steps for $84k and at that point I would cheerfully pay for any needed inspections. Then the knives came out as I asked MISTER VP exactly what those board members might think of him tanking a deal which could have netted the bank $165k more than my current offer and $20k more than my $84k purchase on the court house steps if this deal fell through because of his obdurate gamesmanship.Mr. VP hesitated and asked me a few questions about the details here and there, which I politely filled him in on and I said that I was calling their bluff. He asked how much time he had and I said “Wall suh, the offer in front of yall expires at 17:00 tomorrow, so I’d estimate y’all got about 24 hours to figure out how you’re gonna play this hand. I’ve got my letters written and all I need to do is print them and mail them return reciept. I closed the conversation by hanging up without so much as a GFY, and called Peter to fill him in on the new game plan.Peter was laughing, and I think he laughed all night long on that conversation because this really, in any normal circumstance, just isn’t How Things Work.The next day Peter called me up at 17:15 or so asking what I wanted to do.. as he explained it he had just gotten a fax from B of A accepting my $104k offer and agreeing to pay all closing costs and inspection fees along with a photocopy of a check for repairs of the issues they already knew about which was about $1,800 or so.I told him to “Let the bastards SWEAT a bit and then we’ll send back our agreement to the acceptance at $104k".. This was an option because the fools had let the offer expire at 17:00 before faxing over their acceptance so the ball was firmly in my court. Had it been before 17:00 I wouldn’t have had a choice.. So he let them sweat until 18:00 and then faxed back my acceptance and renewal of offer.I closed escrow in the beginning of 2011.Shameless plug.. If you happen to be in BFE Central Oregon and need a really good, and dead honest Real Estate Agent go look up Peter Hatton and tell him I said howdy. This guy is truly the best of the best and he knows ALL the games that get played. He also truly likes his clients even when they're a Very Particular Sort of Asshole like myself.

The world’s largest country has everything to offer, from history in Saint Petersburg to present day Moscow and from adventures like Trans-Siberian Railways to the destinations like Lake Baikal. It also has Altai, Kamchatka, Caucasus, Black Sea, Siberia and many more attractions-the list is endless. Russia is so vast that the 16-days visit planned by me was just like a drop in the ocean.Despite having all of these attractions, it is still a less-preferred destination for the tourists. It still has some age-old regulations to govern the foreign visitors. Although, it is a very friendly nation with India, but the rules for visa application make it very difficult to plan an independent trip to Russia. However, planning a trip with the travel agent is very easy and doesn’t involved any hassle, but their dominance over Russian visa applications make it a very costly affair.Russian visa application process in India involves three steps:1. An original invitation from Russia2. Filling the application form3. Applying for Visa at a Visa CenterStep 1: An Original Visa Invitation from Russia-It is an original letter from a tourist agency in Russia and contains details like applicant’s name, passport number, date of birth, cities to be visited, hotel names etc. The inviting agency must be registered with the Russian Ministry of External Affairs. The invitation letter must be in original, duly signed and stamped by the Director of inviting agency and must be sent by post/courier. Fax or e-mail copy is not accepted at all(Although on the website of Russian Embassy, it is mentioned that a clear copy of visa invitation is required, but w.r.t. an Indian citizen, it only means a clear original copy). This is the thing for which you need to do a lot of research to get the best price.*How to get the original invitation? Best way to get this invitation by contacting an agency on the Internet. There are mainly two types of inviting agencies*1. No courier, only invitation: Nationals of many countries do not require original copy of the invitation letter. A clear e-mail or fax copy is good enough for them. So, these agencies charge for issuing the invitation letter and e-mail them to their clients. Charges may vary from 400 Rubles to 2500 Rubles. A newly opened web-based agency even issue these invitations without any cost. Some agencies charge additional fee to fax the invitation copy. Since, Indian citizens need an original copy of the invitation letter, these type of agencies are no use for us.2. Invitation with Courier copy: These agencies issue the invitation letter (again 400 Rubles to 2500 Rubles). Their courier charges also vary from agency to agency ( From Saint Petersburg to New Delhi, it varies from 1500 Rubles to 3500 Rubles). After getting online payment for invitation as well as courier charges, they first send a scan copy to check for any discrepancies. After getting the confirmation from the customer, they send the original copy by a reputed international courier.Now, there are again two type of agencies in this category. One is simply an inviting agency, which do a plain job of issuing the invitation and sending that to you.Second can be the hotels/hostels. They also issue the letter of invitation on a lower prices, if you book your accommodation at their properties and send that invitation to you. But the duration of invitation may be only during your stay at that property. Some may issue an invitation beyond that.It all can be very confusing, and that’s why needs a lot of research. Therefore, to avoid all confusion, there are certain things you should know about your visa invitation and inviting agency. Just decide them on these parameters and your visa invitation should be perfectly fine.Things you should know regarding visa invitation and inviting agencies:1. It should be in original, duly signed and stamped by the director of inviting agency. So, check if your inviting agency can send it to you by courier.2. Before asking for visa invitation, you need the complete itinerary with the name of hotels/hostels for each night of your trip.3. That itinerary is not the final wordings. You can change it entirely after getting the visa and you can also cancel all your hotel bookings.4. Always book your hotels/hostels on the booking engines offering last days cancelation policy. Many booking engines do not charge the credit card until one day prior to your arrival date and you can also cancel your bookings without any charge.5. You may not get some hostel listings on the big booking engines. In that case, try to search them on hostelbookers or hostelworld. Both websites only charge 12% of booking amount initially and rest of all should be paid to the property directly. In most of the cases, they do not charge for cancelation one day prior to the date of arrival. So, you will only lose INR 100-200 for your booking in case of cancelation.6. Getting visa doesn’t mean that you have to visit only those cities that are mentioned in your invitation. Except some restricted areas (Popularly known as closed cities, none among the popular tourist places these days), you are free to visit entire Russia.7. Ideally visa invitation charges should be 400-500 Rubles, if you are getting it through your hotels/hostels. If you get it from any agency without booking their hotels, it shouldn’t be more than 1000 rubles. Courier charges shouldn’t be more than 1500-1800 Rubles. If anybody quoting higher prices than these, negotiate well or checked with another one.8. Mostly they send it through a reputed international courier, but also insist from your side to send it by a good courier company and at least get a tracking number.9. Before dispatching the original copy, they send a scanned copy for your confirmation, but if they don’t, you must ask for that to avoid any discrepancies in the original copy.10. Some invitation letters also mentioned the list of paid services. It is written like “All accommodation and tourist services are paid.” However, it is not necessary to mention this on the invitation letter.I arranged my invitation through an agency (www.russian-visas.net, e-mail:[email protected]) in Saint Petersburg. They charged me 1000 Rubles for invitation and 1600 Rubles for courier charges. They run a big chain of nice hostels (Friends Hostel) in Saint Petersburg, and offered me 400 Rubles price for visa invitation, after booking one of their hostels. But, during my trip their hostels were not vacant, so I paid 1000 Rubles for the invitation. They sent the original copy through Pony Express ( a reputable courier company in Russia) and it is delivered in New Delhi by UPS (their India partner). I also got a tracking number, but even till the time of delivery on 8th day after pick up, that number only indicated that shipment was picked from Saint Petersburg and bound for New Delhi.An Update from September 2015: I got an information that this agency doesn’t serve Indian customers now. You may search around on the web, there are plenty of other agencies providing the same services.Step 2: Filling the application formThe link to fill this application form is: www.visa.kdmid.ruBefore filling this form, you are required to register on the website. After registration, you can log-in to your account and fill a form of about 5 pages. It requires simple information like your personal details, occupation, address etc and details of your trip like cities to be visited and medical insurance valid in Russia. All the information should be matched with your visa invitation letter. At last, it asks about the center of your application. Choose the relevant IFS visa application center.Medical/Travel insurance is not compulsory to get the Russian visa and you can simply write NO in that column. However, personally, I always travel abroad with a good travel insurance policy.After filling the application form, it converts in a single page form. Take a clear print out of that single page form, properly sign it and paste one photograph. This application form will be in their database for 30 days from the date of filing, so you can edit it anytime and take the print out within 30 days.Photo Specifications:1. 35 mm x 45 mm with the head centered in the frame.2. Full face (without sunglasses and normally without other head covering, unless the applicant wear such item because of their religious belief or ethnic background).3.The photo must have been taken within the last six months (Really, who verifies? )After getting the visa invitation and filling the application form, you are all set to apply for Russian visa.Step 3: Applying at a Visa Center:You can not apply directly to Russian Embassy/consulate in India. They have outsourced their visa application process to two agencies in India. The old one is Salvia Visa Facilitation Center and recently added agency is Indra Visa Facilitation Center. You are free to chose any of them, but each has its own pros and cons. Both agencies also mention different type of documents requirements (although, fundamentally same documents) and have different charges for visa applications.Agency 1, The older agency, Salvia Visa Facilitation Services, SVFS (also, Salvia Travels): They are the older and well known agency for Russian visa in India. Required documents for Russian Visa are:1. Original Passport with not less than 6 months validity from the date of entry.2. Duly filled online application form with attached photograph3. Original invitation from a travel company in Russia4. An official visiting card of the applicant.5. Copy of Return Air TicketOne person, who applied for Russian visa at Salvia VFS, Mumbai, also mentioned that a leave approval letter from the employer is mandatory, however, it was not required in my case at IFS, New Delhi.Visa Charges:Single Entry Visa: INR 2790 (Visa Fee) plus INR 1125 (Service Charges) plus Taxes, Total: INR 4600Double Entry Visa: INR 5580 (Visa Fee) plus INR 1125 (Service Charges) plus Taxes, Total: INR 7400Multiple Entry Visa: INR 7192 (Visa Fee) plus INR 1125 (Service Charges) plus Taxes, Total: INR 9000Transit Visa: INR 2790 (Visa Fee) plus INR 1125 (Service Charges) plus Taxes , Total: INR 4600Time Required for Visa: 03-04 working days from the date of application.Note: 1. If visa is required urgently (within 24 hours), fee for urgent visa issuance of INR 2790 will be charged.2. No fee is charged in case of diplomatic and official visas.3. For diplomatic and official passport holders visa is not required if the duration of stay does not exceed 90 days.Timings for Visa Application at Salvia VFS:Submission: Monday to Friday (Except Holidays), 0900 AM to 1200 PMUrgent Visa, 0900 AM to 1000 AMCollection: Monday to Friday (Except Holidays), 0300 PM to 0500 PMValidity: They also mentioned at their website that tourist visa is only available for 15 days stay in Russia (Although its available for 30 days). For more duration, you have to apply for a business visa, which is more costly. I did not verify this information with them, because when I call their representative for some clarification, she didn’t talk nicely, when she heard that I want to apply it independently. With multiple entry visa one can stay no longer/more than 90 days in total per period of 180 days.Advantage of Salvia VFS: Salvia Travels can also help you to arrange a visa invitation from Russia. But, they say that all the accommodation should be booked through them only and they don’t book hostels, only 3- star hotels or higher categories. So, over all it becomes very costly.Location:Salvia Visa Facilitation Services (SVFS)905-906, Prakash Deep Building7, Tolstoy Marg, Connaught Place,New Delhi – 110001Phone: (011)-43592711 / 22 / 33Fax: (011) 23730087E-mail: [email protected]: www.svfs-russia.comLuckily, last year Russian Embassy authorised one more agency for its visa application, Indra Visa Facilitation Center.Agency 2, Experience with IFS, Delhi: I applied at IFS, New Delhi and had a very good experience.Required Documents:1. Original Passport with not less than 6 months validity from the date of entry. And a copy of first and last page of the passport (However, they did not take this copy from me)2. Duly filled online application form with attached photograph (Photo specifications same as above)3. Original invitation from a travel company in Russia.4. Copy of return air ticket ( Not mentioned on their website, but it is mandatory)Appointment for Visa Application at IFS: Before applying for visa at IFS application center, you are supposed to get an online appointment at IFS website. But, since they are relatively new, very less people apply at their center and I don’t see any need for prior appointment.Also, I went their without the copy of return air ticket. They asked me to email that and took the print out. Please make sure that entry and exit dates are clearly mentioned on your air ticket. In my case, my return flight was on May 22 from Saint Petersburg and then after 15 hours connection time in Moscow, the final return flight was on May 23 from Moscow, but May 23 was not mentioned anywhere in my ticket. As per IFS representative, it could have created a problem. However, I got the visa without any problem. Russian visa is not valid for a particular duration, but for the exact dates of entry and exit. So, May 22 instead of May 23 on the visa, and your entire savings on that cheap flight is gone.Visa Charges:Single Entry Visa: INR 2790 (Visa Fee) plus INR 1125 (Service Charges), Total: INR 3915Double Entry Visa: INR 5580 (Visa Fee) plus INR 1125 (Service Charges), Total: INR 6705Transit Visa: INR 2790 (Visa Fee) plus INR 1125 (Service Charges), Total: INR 3915Surprisingly, IFS don’t have any provision for taxes like Salvia, so their charges are lower than Salvia VFS.Timings for Visa Application at IFS, New Delhi:Submission: Monday to Friday (Except Holidays), 0900 AM to 1200 PMUrgent Visa, 0900 AM to 1000 AMCollection: Monday to Friday (Except Holidays), 0300 PM to 0500 PMTime Required for Visa: 03-04 working days from the date of application.Validity: It is clearly mentioned on their website that we can apply for a tourist visa up to 30 days (16 days in my case).I was there with other supporting documents like official identity card, leave approval letter, bank statements, ITR copies (just in case) but they required nothing. They only took my original passport, original invitation and the flight ticket. Nothing else. I deposited the required amount at an adjacent counter ( only cash accepted) and walked out with a receipt. 3- business days later, I collected my passport with a stamped Russian visa. Finally, I was all set for a Russian Adventure.Location:Indra Visa Fiduciary Services Pvt Ltd809-810, 8th Floor, Ashoka Estate Building24, Barakhamba Road, New Delhi -110001Phone: (011)23322444/555E-mail: [email protected]: www.india-ifs.com (It often goes down, my personal experience )A Note on the Validity of Russian Visa: Russian visa is valid only for your duration of stay i.e. from the date of entry to the date of exit (up to 30 days in case of Single Entry Tourist Visa). It is not like other visas where validity period is mentioned in days, like 15 days, 30 days, so that you can change your plan and exit on the last day of the validity. In case of Russian visa, you can not stay more than the validity period, you can say that, even not by a single minute. You overstay it by a single minute and your life is hell. In that case, you have to arrange an exit visa that takes up to 10 days after spending hundreds of dollars and lot of hassle.Extension of Russian Visa: Except some extraordinary cases like medical emergencies, it is not possible to extend a Russian Visa.Registration of Russian Visa, when you arrive in Russia: Visa registration is also a very confusing term for all the visitors to Russia. Just to keep things simple and clear:1. You must register your visa in Russia, if you are intended to stay for more than 7 business days in one go in any city. These business days don’t count holidays. So, if there are 3 holidays immediately after your arrival in Russia, this registration should be done within 10 days of your arrival. You are suppose to register in each and every city, wherever you are going to spend more than 7 days.2. Usually reputed hostels, mid-size and large-size hotels automatically register its visitors without any charge at the time of check-in. However, they may provide registration slip or may not. If you plan to stay for more than 7 days, must ask for the slip.3. Generally, these hotels/hostels register for the duration of your stay. So, if you stay 3 days at one hotel and another 4 days in another hotel in the same city, you have to register at both the properties.4. Some small hostels also provide this facility, but they charge 400-500 Rubles fee for this. But, in any case, paying more than 500 Rubles for this is too much. Many shops and online portals also provide this service.5. If you register in a city and visiting another city for less than 7 days, there is no need to register in the second city. However, your hotel/hostel may register you.6. If total duration of stay is less than 7 business days, there is no need to register at all.7. In 16-days trip, I never stayed in any city for 7-days. But, I did this registration in Moscow, after my arrival. Because, sometimes, in the smaller cities, corrupt police officers may trouble you for this reason. And, the worse thing is that you can not explain them clearly, because many of them don’t understand English. But, if you can argue well in Russian, then there is no need for this safety net.8. From Vladivostok, Ulan Ude, Moscow to Saint Petersburg, till time of my departure from Russia, a policeman checked my documents only once in the Trans-Siberian Train and he too, did not ask for the registration slip.Therefore, this registration slip is a hype created by numerous online portals to frightened the tourists and to run their own registration business smoothly.P.s.- Thanks for bearing my lengthy write up

Before I answer, I ask that you indulge me in telling a short story, so that you can understand my perspective and why my perspective is likely to be biased--but hopefully, in a good way. If you simply cannot wait, here's the tl;dr version:"I disagree."BackgroundIn the late 1970s and early 1980s, my parents actually went through the American immigration process, and came to this country legally from Brazil. My father came on a student visa, and later graduated from an American university--first with an MBA, and later, a PhD. He was fortunate enough to get a job straight out of college, at an employer willing to sponsor him for both a work visa, and later a green card, and just a few decades later (in the late 1990s), both he and my mother became proud, naturalized U.S. citizens.My mother, however, struggled with her immigration process. During her interview at the American consulate, she let slip that part of the reason she was interested in coming to the USA, was to be with her boyfriend--i.e. my father--at which point her visa application was swiftly and promptly denied. The reason, the consular officer explained, was simple: they thought she was going to come to the US on a temporary visa, overextend it, and then disappear into the American heartland with her boyfriend, leaving Uncle Sam with yet another "illegal immigrant" on his hands. And that was that. No appeals. No mulligans. No "do-overs." In fact, if she wanted to try again at all, my mother was told she basically had to start the whole process again from scratch, and go back to the end of the line--both literally and metaphorically. But when my mother called my father--tearfully explaining that they could never be together, thanks to the whims of an American Foreign Service official and the vagaries of American immigration policy--his response was simple: "Then let's just get married."And that was that.Unfortunately, my father was still on his student visa, meaning he couldn't risk leaving the country--not even to attend his own wedding--or else he would not be able to return. And because my mother couldn't get a visa, she couldn't legally enter the United States--not even to marry her now-fiance. So instead, they got married over the phone, faxing copies of their marriage certificates back and forth for signatures, followed by mailed hard copies which had to be signed, dated, notarized, and translated into both English and Portuguese. A fairy tale romance, if ever there was one. But once they were legally married, my mother was automatically allowed to enter the United States on my father's student visa, where she enrolled in an American university, got her degree, got a job, and became a responsible and productive (and taxpaying!) member of American society. And we've been here ever since.(A few years later, both of my parents were blessed with an American-born son, who in addition to being the epitome of modesty and virtue, was their single greatest contribution to the United States of America--and now, the Quora internet community. But that's a story for another time. ^_^)Immigration ProcessThe reason why I tell this story is to highlight that, while I may not be an expert on the finer points of immigration law and policy, I do know a thing or two about the process. True, I did not get to witness my parents going through the steps to come to this country, but I do know this: the process was long. It was arduous. It was unpleasant, and expensive, and emotional, and stressful, and in no small degree, humiliating.And it's gotten SO much worse.The reason I say "worse," is that the process that my parents went through in the early '80s doesn't look anything like the process most immigrants are having to go through in 2015. Part of this is just due to good fortune, because my parents had three good things going for them that most immigrants today do not:They were immigrating to a pre-9/11 America,They were coming from one of the most stable, pro-American CIA-installed military dictatorships in South America, andThey were both educated, English-literate, and comfortably middle-class in their home countries.But even with all that going for them, immigrating to this country was anything but easy, as you've no doubt seen above. And to give you a rough idea of what the legal immigration process currently looks like, please feel free to consult the simple and straightforward flow chart below:A Roadmap to Green Card(And here's one in cartoon format, just because I can: http://reason.com/assets/db/07cf533ddb1d06350cf1ddb5942ef5ad.jpg)Even for those who are lucky enough to complete the process, life as an American immigrant is still challenging. To put it in terms that an American citizen can understand, the closest analogy that I can think of is that being an immigrant is a bit like being on parole.Every hour of every day, you have to be on your best behavior, because the list of things that can get you sent away, is much longer than the list of things keeping you where you are. And even if it isn't actually true, a lot of times it certainly feels like the rest world is just looking at you--waiting, hoping, expecting you to slip up--just so they can send you back. I don't want to give the impression that America is "hostile" to legal immigrants--because it's not, at least not in my experience. But it certainly makes sure that everyone who comes to America knows exactly where the exits are, and that the exit signs are clearly visible, and easy to get to.And perhaps that's as it should be.Problem is, if you're an immigrant, the only thing you can control is yourself--which is true enough for most people, immigrant or not--but even that might not be enough to guarantee that you can stay.For one thing, you can't control the economy or the job market--which is important, because your work visa is only valid so long as you've actually got a job to "work." And even when/if you are lucky enough to come here and get a green card, there's all sorts of constant reminders that you're still "not really an American." Sometimes it's subtle, even innocuous things that most people don't even notice--like how people are always asking about your accent, or where you're "originally" from, or where you learned to speak English. Sometimes, it's not so subtle--like the extra questions you get at routine traffic stops, or the extra paperwork you need to bring to the bank or the DMV. Or the fact that you can be deported just for failing keep your address up to date, and that your supposedly "Permanent Resident" status still has to be renewed every 10 years, like clockwork.In short, the fact that anyone would be willing to put up with all of this hassle and stress and frustration, should give you some idea of how sincerely and passionately they want to come here and stay. And while I know this wasn't actually part of your question, I just briefly want to mention the naturalization process; because even if I wasn't there when my parents went through Immigration, I was there to help my parents go through the process of becoming a citizen.NaturalizationBeing a citizen, relative to being a Permanent Resident, offers surprisingly few tangible benefits for immigrants. They still have to pay taxes, no matter what, but with citizenship you get jury duty, the right to vote--and, more importantly, protection from the ever-present threat of deportation. Curiously, one of the biggest advantages of U.S. citizenship is the right to spend an unlimited amount of time outside the U.S.--and the right to return to the US, if you do. For my parents, though, citizenship was just the next logical step. But that doesn't mean it was automatic--or that it was easy.I watched both of them spend long hours studying for their citizenship tests--going to night classes on civics and U.S. history, despite the fact that they both worked full time, in addition to raising their incredibly handsome and humble son. I listened to them lament--loudly, in both English and Portuguese--about the outrageous cost of retaining an immigration attorney, whose sole reason for being appeared to be the arduous task of mailing papers to government agencies...late. But as unpleasant and infuriating as the process was, they never once regretted it. No matter how tedious or frustrating it was, they never got discouraged, and never gave up. And not once did they never even considered doing anything else.ConclusionIn short, I do NOT think that the United States government needs to further limit legal immigration. In fact, if anything it's already far too limited as it is.When I was in undergrad, I had a lot of friends who were exactly in the same position my parents were during the '80s--international students, here student visas, finishing their degrees at American universities, and desperately trying to figure out a way to stay in the United States once they graduated and their visas expired. Unfortunately, the year we graduated also just happened to be around the time the entire global economy went to hell--and with it, the American job market. Without American employers willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars to sponsor international students for work visas, and with few other options to stay in the country legally, most of my friends from abroad were forced to take their degrees, skills, and ideas back to their home countries--where they probably flourished, using their education and advanced skills to help drive the economies of their home countries, while paying taxes on incomes and payrolls that would otherwise have been paid here in the US.I could also probably mention that a lot of my friends were from India, China, and South Korea, but I'm not entirely sure if that's relevant. ^_^