Registering yourself in Almaty, Kazakhstan

[Griffdowg]

The OVIR office is here:

N 43 15.036
E076 55.529

Open most of the time but closed for lunch.

Go through the main door and go to window 3. Fill out the blank form (in Cyrillic) with your name, passport details, duration of stay and address. Just put down any address from the Lonely Planet. We used the Almaty Hostel on Khan Tengry which was enough for them! Registration card returned in your passport 1 hour later. Free.

G

[still.southern]

Very helpful info! Watch out for that lunch...can't remember the hours exactly, but it was something like 2 or 3 hours long!

Another helpful registration thing...if your American or some of the other nationalities that they say they register at customs, check your card and make sure it has two stamps...we were told we were registered, then late afternoon on the fifth day (the deadline for registering) we realized the two stamp issue and found out we weren't registered. They went ahead and registered us without any questions, but it was a close call on a $100+ penalty. Basically we went in and handed them our documents without comment or explanation...they didn't ask and didn't fine us.