Unfortunately I have not been as lucky as you. On my first trip to Russia I had a three month registration in Tomsk. Then when we went to Sochi for a 10 day vacation the "local" hotel ($15 a night) didn't know how to register foreigners. They wanted me to go somewhere in the center of the city and register at an OVIR which I knew would be impossible because my "sponsor" which was then my fiance's mother was not on vacation with us! So I didn't go. And despite having a registration good through 3 months, I was forced to pay a 100 ruble fine at the airport for not having a 10 day registration in Sochi!
So be careful with this trick. Although it will definitely work when you are leaving Russia. But since I was boarding a plane to another town in Russia it was obvious I was not leaving Russia. Similarly lying that I was in Sochi for less than 72 hours would probably have failed and got me a bigger fine. I did make the argument that it was the hotel that refused to register. The officer said fine, you'll miss your flight, we'll go to court, bring the hotel agent in, and if what you say is true, you won't have to pay the fine. In other words I paid the fine

That's a pretty stiff fine!

He started much higher perhaps around 500 rubles when he saw my US passport, but after I started talking in Russian and explaining the situation and how I as a poor student came to Russia to help their economy, I almost got away with no fine

I know I was very nervous upon entry, the rest of the trip was cake though! I stayed in a hotel the whole trip and they registered me with no charges.

I did get my visa through www.russia-visa.com, also. They were quite nice to work with and I had no problems with them (they got it corrected for me) when I discovered a MAJOR error on my visa (My visa said I was born in 1906, I wasn't!)!

The only hassle I had was entering on the tourist visa when the officer learned Olga was going to show me around. She said I should have gotten a guest visa, but as I was staying in a hotel I thought the tourist visa was the visa I NEEDED! Next time I go, I will definately get Olga to get the invitation letter and hope the hotel will register me! That is, of course if there IS a next time, I WILL take another trip next February if our case is still pending.=/

I would love to go more often but as mentioned the prices for hotels are quite steep, I think I paid $130/night!

I never paid any fines of had any interaction with the militsa.

Marc, were you in Vlad? What hotel did you stay at, airport transfers, what did you do... etc?

There is a wealth of info on here for trips to Moscow and St. Pete, but not too much for the Far East. I think besides Turbo Guy, you may be the only one to have been in the Far East.

(And Laura K on here somewhere!..... LAURA... WHERE ARE YOU???)

Guess you learned a lesson about keeping your mouth shut. You know what happens when you give out too much information.....

Believe me a tourist visa is MUCH easier than a guest visa. I have done it both ways. If you are planning to stay at a hotel you MUST have a tourist visa. I don't think they will or can register a "guest" or homestay visa.

I wasn't in Vladivostok, just the closet airport to my hotel in Nakhodka.

Olga and her parents met me at the airport and drove me to my hotel then we went to their house for my first Russian supper. I felt awful being so tired but they were very understanding!

We did go to Vladivostok for a day and I really wanted to see the US consulate building and some of the historic buildings in Vladivostok, not enough time though.

We did go to a museum to the Primore region, an aquarium, dolphinarium, saw the "White House" and a nice monument to the Revolution. (I will try to resize the photos so I can fit them all in my photo album tonight after work or tomorrow)

I never found much on the Russian Far East except an article on the city of Nakhodka and a "walking" tour of Vladivostok. Most of the "travel Russia" sites always mention Moscow or St. P., one book (Lonely Planet's Belarus and Russia) actually mentioned Nakhodka being a nice place to visit to see some cliffs, I don't think I saw these cliffs as when I asked Olga about them she said "if I was there she would show me but it is a little far". Considering we usually just took the bus or walked, we did take a Такси at night, as it was quite cold. I did not mind walking except for all the stairs... everywhere there were stairs! The movie theater we went to had probably 100 steps to it...this is not including the 1,000 steps to get to the theater!

It was nice though we saw a movie that we both wish we had not seen the first time. I had not seen it before and didn't remember much of the previews I had seen of it before my trip, the movie... Brace yourselves!

хостeл (Hostel, Dubbed in Russian)

For those who do not know, this movie is 1) not for the weak (It's a very graphic hack and slash) and 2) REALLY not for Americans traveling overseas! Even with my then limited (still limited, though growing every day!), I knew what was going on! Olga picked it!

The next day we saw a cute Russian cartoon/movie and all was better!

I also scored a Russian version of Windows XP (SP2!) for a very decent price. I had been wanting XP for sometime and I don't mind my little пуск button. Certainly not for the price I paid for it!

This is not true. I had my private visa registered at a Moscow hostel. But like I mentioned before, my private visa was not registered in Sochi, because the hotel did not know how to register foreigners at all! That's what I get for going like a local.

Russians are masters at pirating software. I got my copy absolutely free. I simply asked one of my fiance's friends and he burned me a copy. Also depending on your version, the langauge change is really just an add on. You can change the language back to English by going to Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options.

I'm wondering if a trip to the Russian Far East would be something worth spending money on or not. I'm sure I'll eventually go there to visit with Elena's mother and grandmother, but I think for the money that we'd have to spend to get there, we may as well go to Bora Bora or something like that. (Plus, there would be no "exit issues!")

I know this has been debated a million times on this site... Visit Russia, or go somewhere more exotic? Maybe it's time for a new poll!

I was very glad that I got to go see Olga's hometown and to meet her family! I will tell you that it was very expensive coming from Tucson ($1700 airfare, $170 Russian tourist visa (could have ONLY been $100 but I was nervous so I paid extra to have it done for me!), $1000 7 nights stay in the пирамида (Pyramid hotel), $1300 (32,600р) spending cash which was far more then I NEEDED but we did spend much more then we probably needed to. I actually took Roubles when I left the USA, I felt it would be easiest that way, no waiting to change my USD.

Note: I left 6,000р with Olga for document translation and other assorted expenses involving the visa process.

now that I think about there is 1 thing I wish I had of purchased, one of those nice Russian fur hats! I did buy some nice fur lined boots there as I ran out of time here before the trip to buy them!

As a side note I tried to find a nice warm winter jacket in TUCSON, ARIZONA in February! I couldn't but I could buy a swimsuit!