Kamchatka

Currency

Everything here is expensive — it is nine time zones from Moscow and almost everything arrives by ship or plane. Bring cash for the whole trip, as foreign cards do not work anywhere in Russia, and budget for helicopter time if the Valley of the Geysers is the reason you came, because there is no other way in.

ATMs & cards

Foreign cards do not work. Change money in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky at a bank branch, take enough for the whole stay, and expect prices around a third above mainland Russia for food and fuel.

Prices run about a third above mainland Russia, and helicopter time is paid up front.

Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.

Safety

A wilderness with the hazards of one. Brown bears are common and encounters are managed with guides, noise and bear spray rather than luck. Volcanic terrain is unstable and the weather closes in fast, cancelling helicopters for days. Tsunami warnings are part of coastal life. Go with a licensed operator, tell someone your route, and accept that a lost day to weather is normal. The national caveats about travel to Russia apply.

Our own assessment, not a sourced index.

Entry & visa

Health & emergencies

Required to enter

No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.

Worth having

• Routine vaccinations up to date
• Tick-borne encephalitis if you will be in forest or countryside between spring and autumn — this is a genuine risk across Siberia and the Far East
• Hepatitis A
• Rabies for remote or long stays

Getting treated

State hospitals treat emergencies, and the standard varies enormously between Moscow and the regions. Private clinics in Moscow and St Petersburg are good and take cash. The complication is not medical: many Western insurers no longer cover travel to Russia at all, and card payment does not work, so a serious problem has to be paid for in cash or arranged from home.

Ticks in forest across Siberia and the Far East from May to July carry encephalitis, and the vaccination course takes weeks — start it early. Cold is the other one: −20°C is an ordinary winter day in Irkutsk and frostbite happens fast in wind. In Kamchatka the hazards are bears, volcanic ground and weather that strands people for days.

Orientation, not medical advice. Entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history and where you have been — check with a travel clinic or your national health service four to six weeks before you go.

Food tip

Red caviar by the spoonful, king crab in season and salmon in every form — this is one of the great seafood regions and it costs a fraction of what it does anywhere else. Eat at the fish market in Petropavlovsk. Ask about the ukha, a fish soup that arrives as a whole meal.

Getting around

• Fly in — eight to nine hours from Moscow, and there is no road connecting the peninsula to anywhere
• 6x6 trucks — the local vehicle for anything off the two paved roads, usually with the tour that brought you
• Helicopter — the only access to the Valley of the Geysers and Kuril Lake, weather-dependent and expensive
• Boat — day trips into Avacha Bay for puffins, sea lions and the Three Brothers rocks
• Getting around independently is difficult; almost everyone books a guided week, and there is a reason for that

Must-see

Things to do

• Climb Avachinsky, which is a long walk rather than a technical climb
• Fly into the Valley of the Geysers if the weather allows and the budget stretches
• Watch bears fishing at Kuril Lake in August
• Soak in a hot spring with a volcano in front of you
• Take a boat into Avacha Bay for the sea birds
• Eat crab straight off the boat

Nearby day trips

Say a few words

Russian

• HelloЗдравствуйтеZDRAST-vooy-tye
• Hi (informal)Приветpri-VYET
• Please / you’re welcomeПожалуйстаpa-ZHAL-sta
• Thank youСпасибоspa-SEE-ba
• Yes / NoДа / Нетda / nyet
• Excuse meИзвинитеiz-vi-NEE-tye
• How much?Сколько стоит?SKOL-ka STO-eet
• I don’t understandЯ не понимаюya nye pa-ni-MA-yu
• Do you speak English?Вы говорите по-английски?vy ga-va-REE-tye pa an-GLEE-ski
• CheersЗа здоровьеza zda-ROV-ye
• GoodbyeДо свиданияda svi-DA-ni-ya

Learn the Cyrillic alphabet before you go — an hour of work, and it turns most street signs, menus and metro maps into words you can half-read, because so many are borrowed. English is common among younger people in Moscow and St Petersburg and rare elsewhere. Translation apps with offline Russian are worth downloading before arrival.

Religion

Russian Orthodox

The Orthodox church is woven into the state and into national identity, and church attendance rose sharply after 1991. Visitors are welcome: women cover their heads in a church, men take hats off, everyone stands — there are no pews — and nobody minds a quiet foreigner at the back. Islam is the second religion and the majority in Tatarstan, the North Caucasus and parts of the Volga; Buryatia around Lake Baikal is Buddhist, and its datsans are working monasteries rather than museums.

Do's and don'ts

Do

• Take your shoes off in someone’s home; slippers appear immediately
• Shake hands firmly, and only after you have both come inside — a handshake across a threshold is bad luck
• Give flowers in odd numbers. Even numbers are for funerals, and the rule is taken seriously
• Carry your passport and migration card; the police can ask and occasionally do
• Dress up for the theatre and the ballet, and leave your coat in the cloakroom — wearing it inside is not done

Don't

• Do not expect small talk or smiles from strangers; a neutral face in public is normal, not hostility
• Do not photograph military sites, airports or anything a sign forbids — this is enforced
• Do not discuss the war, and understand that the laws on "discrediting the armed forces" and on "LGBT propaganda" apply to visitors, in conversation and on your phone
• Do not refuse a toast at a table without a reason; refusing the third one, to the women present, is worse
• Do not put an empty bottle back on the table, which is a superstition everyone observes without explaining