Krasnoyarsk

Currency budget Russia

Cash, as everywhere in Russia: foreign Visa and Mastercard do not work, in shops, online or in machines. Bring euros or dollars in clean notes, enough for the whole trip, and change them at a Sberbank or VTB branch in the centre with your passport.

ATMs & cards

No foreign card works in any machine. Change cash at bank branches in the centre before a day on Stolby or out at the dam, and carry small notes for the buses and the chairlift.

Change before a day out at Stolby or Divnogorsk, where there is little to change it with.

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 all of Russia

The city is fine on foot. Three things deserve attention. Ticks on Stolby and in all the taiga around the city carry encephalitis from spring into high summer; the region is one where vaccination is recommended, and the reserve itself warns about them. The pillars are climbed without ropes by local tradition, and people fall — admire it rather than join in. And in still winter weather the city declares smog days, when an inversion traps the smoke over the valley. The Yenisei stays unfrozen below the dam and is very cold all year. The national caveats about travel to Russia apply here as everywhere.

Our own assessment, not a sourced index.

Entry & visa Russia visa rules

Health & emergencies all of Russia

Required to enter

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

Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.

Food tip

Siberian, and the river is the point of it: Yenisei and northern fish, smoked or served as stroganina, frozen and shaved thin; venison from the north; pine nuts and wild berries in season. The Uzbek and Caucasian places are the reliable everyday choice, and the canteens do a full lunch for very little.

Getting around

• Airport: Yemelyanovo, north-west of the city, with flights from Moscow in a little over four hours
• Trans-Siberian — about two and a half days from Moscow, and around eighteen hours on to Irkutsk and Lake Baikal
• Bus — the city buses run to the Stolby entrance and to the Bobrovy Log chairlift, cheap and cash
• Yandex Go — works, and the only thing to do is agree cash with the driver
• Boat — summer river trips on the Yenisei and on the reservoir above the dam
• On foot — the centre along Prospekt Mira and the embankment is walkable; the Stolby trail is a seven-kilometre climb from the entrance to the first pillars

eSIM

A data eSIM for Russia, installed before you fly and working the moment you land: Not hereWorks hereRevolut No local plan

Must-see

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

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