OREANDA-NEWS. April 20, 2012. Head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov, while being in Washington with an official visit, has visited the first Russian visa center in USA  that is planning to collect documents from those wishing to come to Russia. 

As  Alexander Kovganov, the head of the visa centers in USA, said the Washington center was opened two days ago. Just recently , similar center was opened in Huston , Seattle, Saint-Francisco and New-York will follow. 

"In the nearest future we are planning to open 7 more visa centers in Chicago, Miami, LA, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland and Atlanta. In total there will be 12 offices. It is done for the convenience of people, who live far away” Mr. Kovganov said to RIA “Novosti “. According to his words – Russian embassy in USA issues more that 105 000 travel and business visas annually.

He explained that the main goal of the centers is to assist the Russian Consulates. He noted that visa centers work from  9:00 till 17:00, and Consulates accept documents from 10:00 till 12:30 only.  The Diplomat mentioned the service charge of the center is  USD 30, and USD 140 have to be paid for the visa.

According to Rosstat data , 275,2  thousand people from USA visited Russia in 2011 which is  5% more than in 2010 году. 169,7 thousand had  tourism purposes for their visits which is also a 5% increase comparing to 2010.