A few travel tips for Russia

I have gathered a few tips here, ordered chronologically, for future travelers to Russia (March 2020).

[Please note, this page is largely obsolete due to the war between Russia and Ukraine/the West]

General, language, culture, food, civilization

In St. Petersburg you can get by quite well with English, in Moscow it can be difficult, especially when entering museums and using public transport. Otherwise you have to get by in the country without English, so a few words of Russian are absolutely necessary. Nevertheless, if you stand around in the street, at a loss, someone will definitely stop and ask in English if they can help you, they are very proud of it. You can get quite far with foreign words, everything that ends with -ion in German also exists in Russian, often with a Russian ending like -skaya. Starting with Revolution.

Russians drink much less than they used to, public drinking is even prohibited, vodka can be ordered as 'white tea', on the Transib you could drink beer and vodka in the restaurant, in the cabin we had to fill everything into soda bottles and drink it secretly.

The street scene is sparkling clean, apart from the inevitable snowmelt dirt in spring, no paper, no beggars, the occasional musician, no obvious immigrants. And the traffic is very civilized, every car stops immediately when you want to cross the road.

We felt absolutely safe throughout Russia, safer than anywhere in Europe, which was confirmed to us by the locals.

The metros are as easy to use as anywhere, and so are the buses. Season tickets are worthwhile even if you stay for two days. But you do a lot of walking or order a taxi (see below). 15 minutes in a Yandex taxi costs around 130 rubles or €2.

Once you arrive in Russia, you have to officially register at the first hotel and keep the paper in your passport.

I ate better 'on the road' in Russia than in France (not to mention the food at train stations in Germany, which always makes me feel sick). There is healthy, organic food, great cafes that are very 'in' and modern, very good coffee, not to mention tea as the national drink. The jams made from mostly wild berries that are unknown to us are extremely delicious. And blinis come in all kinds of varieties. The best restaurants are Georgian or Italian.

Travel planning

If you don't want to use a travel agency, you have to reserve hotels yourself as the basis for the travel stops for the visa, not every day has to be covered. You also need an invitation for a visa. Without a travel route with reservations, you won't get a visa.

Update: Apparently there will be a 15-day e-visa in 2021, which will be issued more quickly and at a lower cost.

Visa

A visa takes a long time, 3 weeks minimum, during which you lose your passport. Over the Christmas holidays you have to add another 14 days. And since the Russians are very fussy, you have to expect questions about documents. You should therefore apply for your visa at least 2 months before your trip.

You also need health and repatriation insurance, which is usually available from credit cards, or you have to take out one for around €50.

There are various organizations that can help you. We took the cheapest one and everything went smoothly.

Debit card

The Russians pay much more with their cards than the Germans, even small amounts, and they all have terminals. If you don't have an online bank yet, you should open an account with Revolut or N26, it's quick and costs nothing including the card and all transactions.

Revolut is especially designed for travelers, you can exchange your expenses in foreign currency for free at an unbeatable exchange rate. You can also withdraw €200 per month from the ATM free of charge. And you can share the costs if the person you are with is also with Revolut. You can also deposit euros in foreign currencies into your account with a click, which might be a good thing in the euro crisis. I loaded euros onto it and split them into CHF and $. So far the rate has only gone up.

Revolut is operated entirely via the app, there is no web interface. Another advantage is that if the card gets lost, you can block it with one click AND unblock it at no cost if you find it again. You usually get the message when paying before you have taken the card out of the terminal!

The card also provides the obligatory insurance, see visa.

Exchanging/taking money with you, travel budget

Despite having a card, you still need cash for tips and other occasions, the further out into the country you are, the more you need. Under no circumstances should you exchange money at home or at the airport. At the airport in Moscow you can buy money, but it is difficult to sell (the selling rate on return is only half the buying rate). There are exchange offices everywhere in the streets of Moscow that you can trust. The buying and selling rates are hardly different here.

But with Revolut you get a 5-6% better rate (as of March 2020 74R/€ instead of 69R/€ in the exchange offices. So if you can get by with 200€ in cash, which is quite possible, even on a longer trip, then you should withdraw everything from the ATM using the Revolut card.

The prices hardly vary in the different cities, but in the countryside everything is cheaper, about half as expensive. In Moscow you can expect half to a third of the costs in Germany. A meal with a menu and drinks comes to around 10€. With 20-30€ a day you can easily get by. I often stayed well below that because, unlike Western Europe, good food can be bought everywhere at kiosks (a Russian word by the way) and in the train station. Sandwiches are rare, there are more soups and salads.

SIM card, Internet, tunnel (VPN)

Roaming costs a lot, around 12€ per megabyte, including calls. That's why you should buy a SIM card as soon as you arrive. You can get one everywhere, in every tabac/kiosk. We used Beeline, 9€ per month for unlimited internet, 30' calls abroad (but it's free and clearer with Signal or WhatsApp). We never logged into the usually slow WiFi again, we just set our phones to hotspot and surfed with the computer. Even in the smaller towns the network works on 4G, otherwise on 3G.

Unlike the Russian press, there is no censorship on the internet, but in western countries some sites refused access because I came from a Russian IP. A VPN tunnel can be useful here.

Yandex translator app

Yandex = Russian Google

A must: install the Yandex translation app, it's 10x better than Google Translate, you can speak to it and have it speak, take photos that come back translated, etc. Helps in all situations.

Yandex Taxi App

Another app that is useful in almost all cities and works like Uber. You order a taxi, it's at your door two minutes later and you know how much it will cost to go where. So no tourist prices, no communication difficulties. You can even chat with the driver as the translation is built in, assuming you have access to the internet. A 15-minute taxi ride costs around 130 rubles or €2.

Transport

The plane remains the fastest and cheapest means of transport, but I can highly recommend a trip on the Trans-Siberian, it remains a unique experience and the best way to take in the vastness of the country. There are also trains from Germany to Moscow that don't take that long. Flying back is more justifiable. Tickets for the Trans-Siberian can be booked online, but you have to have a kind of boarding pass printed out at the station. You should definitely not book first class, meeting other passengers is just part of the experience. The trains with lower numbers go 'faster', which means they don't actually go faster, but they stop much less.

Excursions

There are many travel agencies for Lake Baikal, we had a good experience with BaikalVoyage, but they are French-oriented!

Pico version: 2.1.4