Moscow

Currency

Bring cash, in euros or dollars, in clean notes, and enough for the whole trip. Foreign Visa and Mastercard have not worked in Russia since 2022 — not in shops, not online, not in ATMs — and foreign-issued UnionPay now fails more often than it works. Change money at a bank branch with your passport; the rate is fair and the street offers are not.

ATMs & cards

Your card will not work in any of them. Plan the trip around cash: bring more than you expect to spend, keep it in two places, and change it in stages at Sberbank, VTB or Alfa-Bank branches. Some visitors open a local Mir card, which takes a Russian phone number, a tax number and time — worth it for a long stay, not for a week.

Foreign-issued UnionPay now fails more often than it works. Budget the whole trip in cash before you fly.

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

Street crime is low and the centre is safe to walk late. The risks are of a different kind and need saying plainly: most Western governments currently advise against all travel to Russia, warn of arbitrary detention of foreign nationals, and their embassies can offer very limited help; travel insurance generally follows that advice and will not cover you against it. Airports in the west of the country close at short notice. Laws on "LGBT propaganda" and on discrediting the armed forces are enforced, and apply to visitors and to what is on your phone.

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

Better and cheaper than its reputation: the Georgian restaurants are the ones to seek out — khachapuri and khinkali — and the canteen chains do a full lunch for the price of a coffee at home. Try the Danilovsky or Usachevsky markets, where the produce halls have turned into good food courts.

Getting around

• Metro — flat fare, trains every 90 seconds, and half the stations are worth a visit in their own right; buy a Troika card with cash
• Yandex Go — the local ride app, cheap, but paying in it needs a Russian card, so agree cash with the driver
• Walking — the centre is grand and enormous, and the distances between metro stations are longer than they look
• Aeroexpress — the train from all three airports to the centre, roughly 45 minutes
• Getting in: no direct flights from the EU, the UK or the US; the usual routes are via Istanbul, Dubai or Belgrade

Must-see

Things to do

• Ride the metro ring line and get out at Komsomolskaya, Mayakovskaya and Novoslobodskaya
• Stand on Red Square early, before the tour groups
• See the Rublev icons at the Tretyakov
• Walk the Zaryadye park and its bridge over the river
• Eat Georgian, properly, at least twice
• Go to the ballet — the tickets cost a fraction of what they do in the West

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