Russia plays a key role in our planned journey across Asia. Not only is it the starting point, but it will also turn out to be one of the longest legs on our journey. It is also the only country that we have planned to enter twice (the second time between Mongolia and Kazakstan), and finally it also our escape route. In the event that we cannot get a visa for Iran (or Turkmenistan) we will re-enter Russia from Kazakstan, travel north of the Caspian and catch a ferry from Russia‘s black sea coast to Turkey. Thus getting a useful Russian visa seemed of crucial importance; our goal was a 1 year multiple entry visa.
After some looking around we decided to use an agency called gotorussia.com