Black Sea sailing to Russia
Feb 14, 2017 8:47:19 GMT
Post by chuckr on Feb 14, 2017 8:47:19 GMT
This is something I sent to the cruising guide folks as they had almost no information on sailing to Russia - there are some notes in reference to page and charts as they needed updating - we used the The Black Sea from RCCF
Sailing to Russia
Unlike a lot of countries you must have a visa to visit Russia. If you just show you will be turned away.
To get a visa you must get an invitation and we used Vladimir Ivankiv of “Cruising to Russia” and lives in St Petersburg. His email is vladimir@sailrussia.spb.ru or vladimirivankiv@yahoo.com. He can arrange an invitation and is great on helping with information and tips on getting the visa and sailing Russia.
Once you have the invite you have to go on line and fill out a fairly lengthy form and submit electronically to the Russian embassy, visa.kdmid.ru, we did ours in Turkey. But one thing to remember, once submitted you must make an appointment with the embassy to formalize the visa. There is a cost on the Russian Federation website - russianembassy.org/page/general-visa-information.
You will need to provide dates of entrance and port of entry. We sailed in to Sochi.
We got a tourist visa for 29 days and 29 means 29 and it is from the start date of the visa not your arrival. We were delayed by 3 days of bad weather so we lost 3 days on the front end. And you must watch the weather as we saw a storm coming across the Black Sea and had to leave 3 days early to make Odessa before the storm hit so we lost 3 days on the back end also.
Next you will need an agent. We used Evgeniy Izhevkiy of Sochi Yachts Agency and his email is agency@sochiyachts.com. One thing that you must do is contact the agent well before you intended arrival and set a time at the pilot station. It is advised that you contact the agent early and often to keep them up on your progress across the Black Sea as they will certain paperwork from you. We spent a lot of time talking with Evgeniy so when we got there everything went smoothly. You do not need a pilot but that is the place you must be at a specific time. We set up for a 1200 time at the pilot station and arrived early. We have ssb on board and via WinLink notified Evgeniy that we would be early and got a reply that no will not be early, 1200 is 1200. As you enter you must call the Coast Guard on channel 16 but all we got back was garble but we continued to call and continued to get garble. We have heard from a couple of other people who have sailed the Baltic that they have had the same problem. It could be that the Coast Guard channel 16 frequency is off just a bit. Because we could not talk with them they sent out a boat and once close we could talk and switched to channel `17 and had very clear communications. They stayed with us until we call Sochi Harbor Control and got permission to enter the harbor and the customs dock. The customs dock is located at the back of the cruise ship terminal and is not shown on the chart on page 132. If you go to google maps and look at a satellite view you can see the harbor with the 5 pontoons that are finger piers and are floating docks with water and electricity for each berth. You must first go to the back of the cruise terminal and Evgeniy will meet the boat with Customs, Immigration and Police. It is advised that you fly the Russian flag as we flew the yellow q flag and heard about it. Once paperwork completed you must call Port Control and ask permission to move to the yacht harbor and a dingy came out to direct us where to go. Very helpfully people.
There is fuel but talk with the agent and marina before moving to the fuel dock as there is a hefty environmental fee to pump there. There is a pump out and very modern.
Evgeniy can also help identify agents on up the coast and help with entrances by explaining to other officials how to handle small boats. We had an issue with the authorities in Novorossiysk as they charge by engine size and use kw which we did not know and use hp. It finally got worked out to our satisfaction but we found out we could not check out there as the customs dock was off limits for military purposes.
We sailed on to Anapa and Evgeniy arranged for an agent there. The diagram on the chart on page 133 is pretty close and very usable. To get in from the west go north past the N marked on the chart and up to the 10m line and G and turn south staying between the 2 arrows. There are docks in front of you. The first is a big dock that is the customs dock and you want to avoid on entrance. To the starboard behind the big dock is smaller steel dock and on the inside day tripper boats dock but you want to dock on the outside of it. To check out you must move over to the customs dock as the customs, immigration and police will not come to your boat but will only visit the customs dock.
Anapa does have fuel but you must jerry can and the agent can help. Groceries are close by as is eating out in some good establishments. There is no electric or water on the dock.
On your visa you have a date specific that you must leave by and you must leave on or before that date no ifs ands or buts.
YOU CAN NOT STOP IN CRIMEA. Since the Russian/Ukrainian issue over Crimea it has been embargoed by most of the world and if you stop in Crimea and go to Ukraine you will be told to leave immediately.
Sailing to Russia
Unlike a lot of countries you must have a visa to visit Russia. If you just show you will be turned away.
To get a visa you must get an invitation and we used Vladimir Ivankiv of “Cruising to Russia” and lives in St Petersburg. His email is vladimir@sailrussia.spb.ru or vladimirivankiv@yahoo.com. He can arrange an invitation and is great on helping with information and tips on getting the visa and sailing Russia.
Once you have the invite you have to go on line and fill out a fairly lengthy form and submit electronically to the Russian embassy, visa.kdmid.ru, we did ours in Turkey. But one thing to remember, once submitted you must make an appointment with the embassy to formalize the visa. There is a cost on the Russian Federation website - russianembassy.org/page/general-visa-information.
You will need to provide dates of entrance and port of entry. We sailed in to Sochi.
We got a tourist visa for 29 days and 29 means 29 and it is from the start date of the visa not your arrival. We were delayed by 3 days of bad weather so we lost 3 days on the front end. And you must watch the weather as we saw a storm coming across the Black Sea and had to leave 3 days early to make Odessa before the storm hit so we lost 3 days on the back end also.
Next you will need an agent. We used Evgeniy Izhevkiy of Sochi Yachts Agency and his email is agency@sochiyachts.com. One thing that you must do is contact the agent well before you intended arrival and set a time at the pilot station. It is advised that you contact the agent early and often to keep them up on your progress across the Black Sea as they will certain paperwork from you. We spent a lot of time talking with Evgeniy so when we got there everything went smoothly. You do not need a pilot but that is the place you must be at a specific time. We set up for a 1200 time at the pilot station and arrived early. We have ssb on board and via WinLink notified Evgeniy that we would be early and got a reply that no will not be early, 1200 is 1200. As you enter you must call the Coast Guard on channel 16 but all we got back was garble but we continued to call and continued to get garble. We have heard from a couple of other people who have sailed the Baltic that they have had the same problem. It could be that the Coast Guard channel 16 frequency is off just a bit. Because we could not talk with them they sent out a boat and once close we could talk and switched to channel `17 and had very clear communications. They stayed with us until we call Sochi Harbor Control and got permission to enter the harbor and the customs dock. The customs dock is located at the back of the cruise ship terminal and is not shown on the chart on page 132. If you go to google maps and look at a satellite view you can see the harbor with the 5 pontoons that are finger piers and are floating docks with water and electricity for each berth. You must first go to the back of the cruise terminal and Evgeniy will meet the boat with Customs, Immigration and Police. It is advised that you fly the Russian flag as we flew the yellow q flag and heard about it. Once paperwork completed you must call Port Control and ask permission to move to the yacht harbor and a dingy came out to direct us where to go. Very helpfully people.
There is fuel but talk with the agent and marina before moving to the fuel dock as there is a hefty environmental fee to pump there. There is a pump out and very modern.
Evgeniy can also help identify agents on up the coast and help with entrances by explaining to other officials how to handle small boats. We had an issue with the authorities in Novorossiysk as they charge by engine size and use kw which we did not know and use hp. It finally got worked out to our satisfaction but we found out we could not check out there as the customs dock was off limits for military purposes.
We sailed on to Anapa and Evgeniy arranged for an agent there. The diagram on the chart on page 133 is pretty close and very usable. To get in from the west go north past the N marked on the chart and up to the 10m line and G and turn south staying between the 2 arrows. There are docks in front of you. The first is a big dock that is the customs dock and you want to avoid on entrance. To the starboard behind the big dock is smaller steel dock and on the inside day tripper boats dock but you want to dock on the outside of it. To check out you must move over to the customs dock as the customs, immigration and police will not come to your boat but will only visit the customs dock.
Anapa does have fuel but you must jerry can and the agent can help. Groceries are close by as is eating out in some good establishments. There is no electric or water on the dock.
On your visa you have a date specific that you must leave by and you must leave on or before that date no ifs ands or buts.
YOU CAN NOT STOP IN CRIMEA. Since the Russian/Ukrainian issue over Crimea it has been embargoed by most of the world and if you stop in Crimea and go to Ukraine you will be told to leave immediately.
