Vladivostok

Currency

Cash, as everywhere in Russia — foreign Visa and Mastercard do not work. Vladivostok is the one city where Chinese UnionPay is worth trying, because of the volume of trade with China, but do not build a trip on it. Change euros or dollars at a bank branch in the centre.

ATMs & cards

No foreign card works. Bring notes and change them at Sberbank or VTB. Prices are closer to Moscow than to the rest of the Far East, and seafood is the exception — it is cheap here and extraordinary.

The city trades heavily with China, so UnionPay works more often than elsewhere in Russia — but not reliably enough to plan around.

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

An ordinary port city: fine in the centre, less so around the station and the docks late at night, and the hills are icy from November to March. The sea fog in June and July is thick enough to cancel views for days. The national caveats about travel to Russia apply here as everywhere, and the region has military installations where photography is a genuine problem — do not point a camera at the naval base.

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

The best seafood in Russia and some of the best Korean and Chinese food too — this is a port city that has always eaten across the water. Scallops, king crab, sea urchin in season, and pyanse, the steamed Korean bun sold from kiosks that is the local street food.

Getting around

• Walking — the centre is compact, steep and best done on foot; the hills are the view
• Funicular — thirty seconds up to the Eagle’s Nest lookout, and the classic photograph of the bridges
• Bus and taxi — cheap, and Yandex Go works, though paying it needs cash without a Russian card
• Ferry — across the bay and out to Russky Island and the smaller islands in summer
• The Trans-Siberian ends here: 9,289 kilometres and seven days from Moscow, and the station marks the post

Must-see

Things to do

• Take the funicular to the Eagle’s Nest for the bridges and the bay
• Walk out onto Russky Island and the coastal batteries
• Go through the S-56 submarine on the waterfront
• Buy crab and scallops at the Sportivnaya market
• Stand at the end of the Trans-Siberian and read the kilometre post
• Swim off the islands in August, when the sea is warmer than you expect

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