Nevi - I agree with you entirely regarding obtaining your own visa (if you need one, which is not likely if you're on the ship's tour) rather than use a service like Zierer. I was quite unimpressed by that service, since they charge twice what the visa costs and also keep your passport for an absurdly long period of time. When we got our private visas for St. Petersburg last year, we got them directly from the Russian Consulate in Seattle, for $80. each, and they only needed our passports for one week, as opposed to the six weeks quoted by Zierer. Since I was traveling a lot on business, I could not let Zierer have my passport for that long. Thus, if someone needs a private visa, you can get the sponsor letter from Radisson (I think it came from their Russian travel service and was very easy to obtain via email) and use the nearest Russian consulate, either in person or by mail (actually, FedEx or some other overnight courier service which tracks delivery). Cheers, Fred