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Where to go

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View from St Isaac's Cathedral, St Petersburg

Choosing where to spend your year in Russia can be one of the most difficult and important decisions you make, and this page should give you some idea of the options open to you. St Petersburg and Moscow are the great cultural centres; they are many times bigger than any other Russian city, have some Western shops and are geared towards tourists. However, there is a Russian saying to the effect that St Petersburg is not quite Russia, while Moscow is not Russia at all. If you want to know what 'real' Russian life is like, then you'll have to go to a smaller city or town, or a country village. It is always possible to visit these places if you don't want to spend a whole year there.

Try to travel around Russia a bit while you're there; long-distance train journeys are very cheap and an experience worth having! Internal flights have a notoriously bad safety record; it's up to you whether you want to take the risk. See the useful links page for sites dealing with travel and some tourist information.

Pskov Kremlin

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Getting there

Getting to Russia in the first place can cause as many problems as anything you do when you're there. No matter how many potential problems you think of, there always seem to be more which you could never have predicted. On a brighter note, if you are sensible and fairly organised you can avoid most of the obvious ones. Here are a few guidelines:

Visas

The visa regulations for Russia are constantly changing, so check what the latest ones are before you send your passport and money anywhere. The best way to do this is to call the Edinburgh consulate; their website is generally up-to-date but this is never guaranteed. Their address is: 58 Melville Street, Edinburgh EH3 7HF, Telephone: 0131 225 7098 and Fax: 0131 225 9587. They are open Mon-Fri from 09.00 to 12.30 and from 14.00 to 18.00. The Edinburgh office is much more efficient than the London one, they actually answer the 'phone too.

Make sure you send them everything they ask for; if you get it wrong they will keep your money and send the rest back to you. If you're going to be there more than three months you will probably need to send them proof of a negative HIV test; find out about this and have the test in good time as the results take a couple of weeks to come through.

When you are in Russia you will need to register your passport at the local OVIR office; the company which gave you the visa will probably do this for you. Make sure you know when your visa expires; there have been cases of students having to bribe the airport officials to let them leave after the visa expiry date.

If your passport or visa is stolen, report it to the police and to the British consulate to find out what to do next. You may have to return to Britain to get a new one. This is a very good reason to only carry a photocopy of your passport and visa around with you and leave the original documents in a safe place.

Some advice from students:

'When I went out to Mosocw I got my visa through Andrew's Consulting (based in London. Notting Hill). Although it was quite expensive (about 70 pounds altogether I think) it was worth it as I didn't have to wait for an invitation from Russia and also I could go on a tourist visa without having to spend a night in a hotel. Registration through them was also incredibly easy as they have a branch in Kitai Gorod and they register you there and then - no scary OVIR stuff!'
Anna Hart

'Do all your visa stuff with the consulate in Edinburgh. They're friendly, cooperative and reasonably efficient, and they answer their phone. SO MUCH BETTER than the London embassy.'
Nathan Lechler

'...a visa issued in Moscow but stolen in St P meant that it took me six weeks to get a visa even to leave the country. It was very expensive, and the moral is, that it is better to be stopped by the police and fined for only having a copy of your passport than to lose your passport.'
Isobel Walsh

• Make sure your suitcase is lockable.
• Take out travel insurance; check that it covers you for cash as well as your other possessions.
• If you're going to St Petersburg look into flying to Helsinki and getting the train; this can save you money if you get a good deal since the direct flights can be very expensive. Look at websites like www.go-fly.com, www.easyjet.com and www.buzzaway.com for good deals. Sometimes it helps to have an ISIC card; you can get this from travel agents.
• Make sure you know where you're staying when you get to Russia so that if your plane is delayed, or the person who is supposed to be meeting you doesn't turn up, you know where to go.
• Make sure you have a contact 'phone number for the person who is meeting you.
• If you have excess baggage when you leave, get to the airport early and they'll often just ignore it, especially if the flight is not full. If they do try to charge you it will probably be a fairly extortionate amount (about $12 per kilo); arguing with them (and even bribing them if you're confident it will work - sometimes they suggest it) sometimes helps to reduce that, especially if you explain that you've been there for a year. Don't be afraid to try, as it will probably work and could save you a lot of money. To find out what to pack and what to leave at home, click here.

Many students decide to spend their year abroad in St Petersburg (or 'Piter' as the locals call it); it is a beautiful city and there's lots to do. The main street is Nevsky Prospekt which has The Admiralty at one end; the golden spire is visible along most of its length. Nevsky Prospekt crosses some of the city's many canals including The Moika, on which you'll find 'The Idiot' cafe (in a basement, cosy and entirely vegetarian) and St Isaac's Cathedral. This has a colonnade; the view is amazing. The famous Bronze Horseman stands nearby.

The next canal along is the Griboedov, where you'll find the Church of the Saviour on the Blood, so called because the altar was build on the exact place where Aleksander II was fatally wounded. From here you can easily walk to Palace Square where you'll find the Hermitage; legend has it that if you were to glance at each of the exhibits on display you'd be in there for nine years, and only about a quarter of the Hermitage collection is displayed at any one time. In Palace Square there are usually a few artists who offer to paint your portrait; there are also horses and a tame bear who will pose for your photographs. On the other side of the river Neva you can see The Peter and Paul Fortress.

A lot of the Western-style shops are on Nevsky, there are also cinemas showing Russian, European and American films. The metro is the best way to get around; it runs until midnight and starts again at about 6am. Except for a brief time in winter, the bridges over the Neva rise to allow ships through for a few hours in the early hours of the morning, be aware of this when you're planning to go home and check local newspapers to find out when each bridge rises.

St Petersburg is a very polluted city and it's best not to think about what you're breathing in every day. Don't drink water straight from the tap as it contains bacteria and heavy metals; you can kill the bacteria by boiling the water (so it's safe in tea), and if you're only there for a year you won't be too much in danger from the metals. Cleaning your teeth with tap water is okay so long as you don't drink any of it. It is not advisable to swim in the river, although you will see people who think it is.

The climate is very damp, which makes it feel extra cold in winter despite the fact that it only goes down to -25-30. This never lasts very long; the temperature changes dramatically very quickly and most of the time it seems to be thawing - until the next cold snap. In December you only get about 6 hours of daylight, but in May and June the sun never really sets and you have the White Nights.

You'll never be bored in St Petersburg, whether you want museums, art galleries and concerts or bars and clubs. You can also travel to some interesting places; the royal palaces at Pushkin, Peterhof and Pavlovsk are well worth a visit, as is Repino on the Gulf of Finland and Vyborg on the Finnish border. You can get to all of these by elektrichka (suburban train), although having done it I wouldn't recommend going to Vyborg this way if you don't want three hours on a hard wooden seat. The train to Helsinki goes this way so you can take that; if you want to go on to Helsinki you have to get a visa to get out of Russia but this isn't too difficult. It's also worth travelling to the Baltic states; Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius are not too far by train or coach. The town of Pskov is close to the Estonian border; it's a small town with lots of pretty churches, and the Pechory Monastery is not far away. This is worth visiting; it's built in a hollow and as you walk down the hill all you can hear is church bells. Beware of old babushkas who try to convert you forcibly to Orthodoxy!
Joanne Chapter

See the useful links page for guides to the city and some general information.

Nizhnii is not exactly brimming with life in the evenings. There's an opera house, a drama theatre, and a concert hall, all of which concentrate on the classics, so if you've never seen Evgenii Onegin, you won't be short of opportunities. Popular culture is not so vibrant - there are no really famous bands or DJs from Nizhnii, and many of the nightclubs are tacky strip bars for people with more Jeeps than sense. Cindies is stylish and exclusive by comparison. There are some nice bars and cafes though, and Russian, Tatar and Georgian restaurants are all to be found if you look hard enough - and they are nnnnnnice. Recently, huge, state-of-the-art cinemas have been popping up around town which show all the latest Hollywood blockbusters and little else, and there is a cinema on Pokrovka that shows more independent stuff and new Russian stuff and British and European stuff, dubbed into Russian by a maximum of two voices. There is also a scandalously run-down little cinema that shows Russian classics and is wonderful. There is allegedly a refrigerated shed somewhere that shows films in English on a tiny screen, but no two people have ever directed me to the same place when I ask where it is. I believe it to be mythical.
Nathan Lechler

Spending time in Samara, will undoubtedly give you an insight into life in Russia beyond her two main cities, arguably a sense of the 'real' heart of Russia, and will bring home the vastness of Russia's spacious expanses.
Alyson Tapp

Sochi is a great place to go; it's a mixture of beautiful scenery and tourist tack. Shopping at the many markets and department stores (where you feel everything has been there for the last 20 years) is fun, and there are lots of good Georgian restaurants. Our favourite was Cafe Lino on the sea front, but avoid the one next door with plastic seats (can't remember what it's called, but it's recommended in Lonely Planet) as the waiter conned us and the food was terrible. You can go walking in the hills nearby, and the snowy peaks of the Caucasus mountains provide an impressive backdrop to the town. The botanical garden is also worth visiting; you take the cablecar to the top of the cliff and walk down, it's a beautiful park and the views are amazing.

We did have some unpleasant experiences with cars following us at night and screeching to a halt next to us; once some men got out and this was the only time in Russia that I was really scared. Try not to travel as a group of girls. However, Sochi is a great place for a holiday, especially if you need some sun after the long winter in St Petersburg or Moscow.
Joanne Chapter