Russian visa…have someone who reads Russian check your visa. Will save you money, stress and time.

I now have something in common with William Browder (CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, the largest foreign investor in the Russian stock market and the adviser to the award-winning Hermitage Fund), Michel Jean Legrand (French Oscar-winning composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist, famous for conducting the music for Umbrellas of Cherbourg) and the Dalai Lama (Tibet’s spiritual leader). We have all been refused entry into Russia.

If you’re traveling to Russia, you will most likely need a Russian visa. Many people think that it’s super complicated but it’s not true. However, when you get your visa it is necessary to check all information….even though everything is in Russian. You can’t imagine how much money, stress and time you can save by doing just that.

I got my Russian visa in the Russian consulate in Singapore. The error they made was they indicated my nationality as “Singaporean” on my Malaysian passport though I had completed the application form correctly.

I was denied entry when I arrived at passport control in Domodedovo airport in Moscow. They brought me to the consular office where the officer cancelled my visa and re-issued me a new one for US$10. The error he made was that he issued me a single-entry visa instead of a double-entry one which I had originally paid for and obtained in Singapore. Double-whammy. Once again, everything was written in  Russian and I couldn’t understand even if I checked.

A week later, when I boarded a  train in Helsinki at 6.30pm heading to Moscow. Four hours into the journey, when we’d passed the Russian border, customs and immigration officials came on board the train and found that my visa was not valid. Being a single-entry visa, meant that my visa had been used up when I left Moscow the week before. I was asked to disembark from the train at Vyborg, a Russian town, 38 kilometers south from the Russian border with Finland at 11.45pm near midnight. There I was instructed to wait for a taxi on the roadside and leave Russia.

I got into a taxi after almost an hour’s wait and was driven to the checkpoint on the Russian-Finnish frontier. I’ve got to be honest…the movie “Hostel” did flashed through my mind at this point as we shuttled down gravely silent, dark and deserted countryside road for over 40 minutes. The Russian officials at the checkpoint stopped a passing car and instructed the lone driver to fetch me to wherever he was going. I climbed into his car and went with him to Lappeenranta – a Finnish city some 25km from the checkpoint. The driver, Vesa is a big blond Finn who drives a Mercedes Benz ASF959, has a heart of gold. He dropped me at a hotel called Cumulus at 3.00am  and offered to pick me up the next day to Helsinki if I needed a ride.

However, I managed to get a flight on Air Baltic flight BT1384 from Lappenranta to Riga, Latvia at 0745hours and then onwards to Frankfurt on Air Baltic flight BT241 at 1305hours.

Those couple of errors on my visa, resulted in denial of my entry and totally screwed up my  plans. Therefore it is helpful to have someone who reads Russian check your visa prior to your departure from your home country.

Oh by the way, there apart from the visa lesson, a few other things I learned from this adventure:

1. Never again shall I train in this Orient Express (not. More like Ordeal Express)  from Helsinki to Moscow. The food is pathetic and the sleeping cabins are fully remote control….that is I can do everything from my bed (see photo)

2. I now know that Lappeenranta’s airport is the oldest airport in Finland.

This is the true truth and I say it as it is…

Aparjods Hotel Restaurant, Sigulda…great food for reasonable price

This restaurant in Aparjods Hotel has great food for reasonable price!!! We ate outside on the patio where the temperature was perfect. Though the food was fairly simple it tasted very good and the quick service pleased us too.

The Aparjods hotel sits on the edge of town, in the natural beauty of Sigulda (only 50 km from Riga). The hotel is charming. A warm, cherry wood-lined reception, comfortable sofas, water fountains and nice grassy grounds are some of it’s initial pleasing features

Great atmosphere!!! I love this place and highly recomend it to others!!! This is the true truth because I say it as it is…

Lido Atputas Centra, Riga…Mind-blowing buffet. Worth the money and experience.

One of the best places to eat in all of Riga. They have a mind-blowing well assorted buffet filled with all the best of what Latvian cuisine has to offer. The system: a point-and-order combination of traditional local staples like solyanka soup and rye bread mixed with spaghetti, potatoes, chips, salads and meat dishes, all charged for by weight. It’s filling and there’s something for everyone’s tastes and it’s the perfect accompaniment for the home-brewed beer which is, of course, the main reason to visit.

There’s even a bar downstairs and one big log cabin with a windmill at one end. This place has the feel of a roadside inn on steroids.

LIDO combines good traditional Latvian food, some international dishes, good home-made Latvian beer, good atmosphere and lots of fun! It’s a really good place to taste Latvian food.  It’s well worth the money and experience to go there. This is the true truth and I say it as it is…

Grand Palace Hotel, Riga…superb in location and friendliness

It is located directly in the old city of Riga. Almost anything is within walking distance, ie only a couple minutes walk from the busy square, and 5 minutes walk from the city centre.

The hotel is kinda like a small luxury boutique European property – comfortable and quiet – traditional yet modern. The  money-service correlation is very good. The staff were exceptionally friendly, polite, charming and helpful. Vitor Cardoso (Front office supervisor) is a living proof of what I’d just mentioned.  Breakfast was a wonderful experience and the staff in the restaurant were attentive too. Where else in this day and age do you have beautiful cooked to order breakfast  in addition to a full buffet with plenty of variety?

A couple of minor aspects: there is no elevator from the street to the reception and the fitness centre was a joke. Apart from that, I’ll recommend to give this a try if you are passing through Riga. This is the true truth because I always say it as it is…

Vecmeita Ar Kaki, Riga…brutally awful

The name of this restaurant translates as the ‘Spinster with her cat’. This is a little restaurant tucked away in a cellar across the square from Riga Castle, on the North West of the Old Town,where it remains relatively undiscovered by tourists…come to think of it, it should never be discovered by anyone to spare them from this brutally awful place. 

I went there because it was ranked #1 on tripadvisor by 8 reviewers. I just think that these reviewers should get out more often. They are missing a lot of other eateries.

This is the true truth and that’s because I say it as it is…