Christopher Rowe

Our Russian experience has been incredible and happily concern free. Upon preparing for this trip, we did what many before us had done, we read numerous Travel blog entries of peoples experienced in Russia, visited the Trip Advisor website for the dos and don’ts and for the most part they all painted a similar picture, that Russia wasn’t going to be easy.

Various blogs warned of trouble with corrupt policemen, requesting bribes and falsifying reports. Our research also emphasized that non-Russian speaking people will struggle and that Moscow was very expensive to live in. Although up until our last day we were wary of the police and kept a separate stash of bribe money on us at all times, not once were we or anyone else around us stopped to have their credentials checked. For the most part, even in Moscow we felt quite safe. Though in neither place did we temp fate by lurking about on our own at night.

The Russian people we found were very polite and most spoke some level of English, easily enough to get by.

We were prepared, entering the former USSR with packets of Lays chips, printed translated phrases specifically if we got detained by law enforcement; we even brought into the country a 6 pack of toilet paper – all of which were never used.

Choose your time of year carefully
My advice for anyone wishing to travel to Russia; carefully consider what it is you want to see. We arrived in Russia for two weeks in early October, by then the general tourist rush was almost over which was fantastic, we had Russia to ourselves. On the down side, since the tourism at this time has generally started to wind down and winter not too far off a few of the popular monuments and park areas had begun to close for renovations. On the other hand though October is usually when the first snow is expected, and we were very lucky to experience St Petersburg in its white glory for a day.

Shopping in Moscow and St Petersburg
In addition, we both went to Russia under the impression that Moscow would be a lot more expensive than St Petersburg, and although this is true to an extent it doesn’t necessarily extend to souvenir shopping. In fact we discovered that general souvenir items, especially Soviet marked ones were a good couple of hundred Rubles cheaper in Moscow. Although a few hundred doesn’t seem like much, it does add up after a while and could be better spent on evening drinks!

Dive in and try the local foods and drinks
Although popular western foods like McDonalds and Pizza hut do exist in Russia and at pretty reasonable prices, don’t be afraid to try some of the local cuisine. After all you’re in another country, you may as well give everything a shot… including the Vodka, which I must say is of much higher quality than anywhere else I have drunk it.

Borche Soup, a popular local soup, from memory consisting of beetroot and cabbage is very delicious, and fantastic for the cold days you can expect in October. Don’t assume soft drinks are cheaper – it wasn’t uncommon to find a pint (500ml) of Russian beer to be cheaper than a 300ml bottle of Pepsi. If you eat like a local, food will be very cheap for you in both St Petersburg and Moscow.

Public Rest Rooms
Public rest rooms vary greatly; we always tried to go to ones either in shopping centers which may cost you 20 Rubles entry, or those of more international standards such as the likes of McDonalds. If you can afford to be picky when looking for a WC, look for the golden arches! A lot of the general public toilets don’t encourage flushing of used toilet paper, as a result the bins that the paper gets thrown into stinks out the facilities pretty quickly.

Be sure you also carry a small packet of tissues and a small 100ml bottle of hand wash gel as not all public toilets will have ample supplies of toilet paper or soap dispensers.

Public Transport
Public transport in Russia, specifically trains is rather cheap. We only went on the Metro in St Petersburg once doing about 5 stops on 20 Rubles. Moscow on the other hand, we lived on the metro since it was a necessary means of transport between our hotel and the city center. You can purchase 10, 20 and 50 pass tickets for the metro. Unlike other city systems like London and New York, Moscow does not have a concept of Zones, so for all intensive purposes, the entire metro system is Zone 1. Simply swipe on to enter the metro station and that is it. We found the 20 pass cards very useful, costing around 320 Rubles. The metro itself, although all stops are written in Cyrillic, the system is exceptionally well colour coded. I found it easier to use the Moscow Metro than I did using the London Underground!