A Moscow Survival Guide 2008

for students and short term residents

Created by ANO Pericles, Moscow

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This Survival Guide was most recently edited March 2008. Please be aware that political, economic and bureaucratic changes in Russia occur frequently. Although ANO Pericles strives to keep its information up to date, we do not warrant the accuracy of any information contained herein. None of the advice herein is intended to be legal advice, nor to be relied upon in lieu of contacting legal counsel. None of the firms mentioned or recommended herein are affiliated with ANO Pericles, and we do not warrant the quality or availability of their service on any particular matter.

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Table of Contents

Introduction to a Successful Visit ...... 3 Preparing for Your Trip...... 5 Visas...... 5 Visa Agencies ...... 7 Arranging Hotels...... 9 Things to Bring...... 11 Things NOT to Bring ...... 14 Money ...... 15 –CURRENCY EXCHANGES...... 17 –CASH MACHINES...... 17 –TRAVELERS’ CHECKS (Don’t Bother)...... 19 –BANKS & WIRE TRANSFERS ...... 19 Arrival Formalities...... 21 Passport Control ...... 21 Clearing Customs ...... 22 Sheremetyevo II Airport...... 24 Domodedovo Airport ...... 27 Checking into a Hotel...... 28 Visa Registration...... 29 Your Visit Itself ...... 31 Identification...... 31 Water--–Hot and Cold and Sometimes Drinkable...... 32 Apartment Hunting...... 34 Getting Around the City...... 37 Getting Outside the City...... 40 Finding Things...... 41 English Language Reading Materials ...... 42 Keeping in Touch ...... 43 -MAIL ...... 43 –E-MAIL/WEB...... 44 –LONG DISTANCE...... 45 –LOCAL CALLS ...... 46 --CELL PHONES...... 47 Food ...... 49 Bars...... 55 Health Clubs & Fitness Centers...... 58 Religion...... 59 Shopping...... 61 Dry Cleaning...... 63 Weather...... 63 Dispelling Some Common Mythology ...... 65 Crime and Safety...... 65 Disease and Medicine...... 66 Departure Formalities...... 67 Conclusion...... 68

Introduction to a Successful Visit

The first thing to learn about Russia is that there are no bears walking down the streets of Moscow. Whether or not there are bears in the Kremlin is beyond the scope of this guide. That being said, not a whole lot else about Russia is ever certain. Visiting Russia for the first time can be both exhilarating and frustrating. By the time you are ready to board the plane you will have probably been told stories about visits to the country from half of your friends and relatives, probably relayed from half their friends and relatives. You will find that some of these stories are as crazy as finding bears walking down the Moscow streets, while others have a grain of truth.

Hardly any Westerner is neutral about Russia. Some are convinced that Russians are warm, giving people, willing to welcome Americans into their homes with food, drink and deep conversation. Others are sure that all the Russian women wear high heels and too much lipstick and are waiting to lure in men with foreign passports, while all the men are modern Mafiosi. Although you may realize that both pictures are a little slanted, the Western media still isn’t very interested in showing current events in Russia in the kindest light. So in short, you probably don’t know what to expect.

The truth is that the opinion you come away with depends on you, your expectations, and the people you meet. Whether you find Russian people to be oil-barron capitalists, Pushkin-loving poets, scoffing nationalists, bureaucratic communists, or folks who watch The Sopranos for business tips, depends on with whom you choose to associate. If you try, you can find all those types of people here, but, more often, you will find people who don’t fit any of these stereotypes. On the main streets of downtown Moscow you can shop at Escada, or you can go to the suburbs and visit a big shopping mall, while 10 minutes away people can still buy their staples from street traders in makeshift kiosks.

Some Westerners find it easy to adjust to Russia’s complexities, and others throw up their hands in frustration at dealing with a cultural, political and economic system that only native Russians can truly seem to manage.

So how do you become one of those with a successful visit and happy remembrances? First, don’t take as gospel everything you have heard about Russia from casual visitors to the country. What was true when they visited yesterday is not necessarily true today. So instead be ready to experience the country on its own terms. Second, don’t try to export your cultural attitudes from home, and be prepared to accept—with patience and a sense of humor— the inevitably foreign, Russian way of doing things. Third, don’t insulate

3 yourself in the glass bubble of Americans abroad (“I didn’t like it when I first got there but I was OK once I found McDonalds.”). Instead, try to experience Russia for what it is.

Russia has experienced tremendous change in the last 20 years. Older Russians saw the system they worked in for seventy years fall apart without even a war to blame. With it fell jobs, economic stability and all the icons and beliefs of the Soviet regime; while at the same time it became fashionable to bad mouth everything about the government and the country. Next came the wild ride of gangster capitalism. Then, just as the economy was beginning to restabilize after several years of 1000% inflation, the currency was devalued, the banks failed, and everyone had to start again. Add a few Chechen terrorists to the equation. Finally the President threw in the towel, installed a successor, and themes like democracy, free press and international harmony took a back seat to an eight year “dictatorship of law” as the country worked its way back to being an economic power. Now, with a new sense of possibly overblown national pride, Russia is stepping into a new era, with a new president, or perhaps more of the same. You figure it out.

Things have normalized a lot here now. We haven’t had a banking crisis or a coup in ages. And Russian citizens feel sorry for Americans suffering through economic downturn (really, Russia empathizes!). But, before you sigh in frustration at an administrative muddle, look askance at a run down apartment building entrance, let slip an unkind remark about a surly pedestrian, or complain that your Russian friend is too pessimistic and cynical, be sure to think of America’s own experience. Remember how long it took the South to recover, physically and emotionally, from the Civil War? Given what the Russian people have been through in the past decade and a half, would we have done as well in their position?

Russia, and especially Moscow, is an exciting, dynamic place. If you keep an open mind—and a healthy level of patience—you are sure to return from your trip not only with fond memories, but with a desire to come back soon.

4 Preparing for Your Trip

Whenever you are spending a month or more abroad, careful preparation is important. When you are spending a month abroad in a country as different from the US as Russia, careful preparation is essential. With this in mind, we will try to tweak your thought processes on a few of those essentials.

Visas

Obtaining visas for Russia should be planned well in advance. First, you need to know what kind of visa to get. There are special regimes of resident versus non-resident status just as there are in the U.S., but assuming you are not planning on Russian residency any time soon, you need the temporary kind.

Russia offers several main types of visas for temporary visitors: transit, tourist, private, student, work, humanitarian, and business. We recommend going for “business.” Transit visas are good for about three days. Tourist visas generally require you to book a tour or a hotel and are good for only 30 days. Private visitor visas can be issued by Russian citizens who want you to stay in their home, but they require your Russian host to spend some time dealing with the bureaucracy. Student visas are reserved for long term (semester or more) students in Russian state-run educational institutions. Work visas require an employer and a special permit from the Ministry of Labor. And humanitarian visas require specially designated inviting organizations. So in general, most visitors for more than a month who do not intend to be employed for pay in Russia should get a “business visa.” This is the catch-all category for short term students and anyone else not neatly fitting into the other categories mentioned above.

The tourist visa is of course an option if you don’t need to stay more than 30 days, and even if you do it is possible to get two tourist visas at the same time (valid for different dates of course) and then leave the country for a couple of days mid-trip and return on the new visa. Tourist visas can be obtained by reserving and getting a confirmation from a hotel or travel agent, and then taking this, with your application, to the nearest Russian consulate. (Agencies that will take it to the consulate for you are listed on page 8.)

Since most of the people reading this guide are students coming to Russia for a whole summer (who need visas for 2-3 months), for the rest of this section we will just discuss business visas. Remember though, you cannot legally work for pay on a business visa.

5 To get a business visa you first need to check the Russian consulate website in the country of your citizenship and the country where you plan to apply. Check www.russianembassy.org for a list of Russian consulates in the US. and check http://www.rusembassy.org for a list of Russian embassies around the world. Due to reciprocal arrangements between countries, special restrictions and privileges apply depending on your citizenship.

Please note that as of October 2007, many Russian consulates started only processing visas for citizens of the country in which they are located, or implementing substantial delays for non-nationals. (For example, the Russian Consulate in Amsterdam will not process visas for non-Shengen nationals, and an American tourist obtaining a visa at the Russian Consulate in London now has to wait ten days, while a UK resident can get the visa the same day.) The rules differ from consulate to consulate, so be sure to check. Additionally, there are plans underway for the various Russian Consulates in the U.S. to start processing only applications from US citizens who permanently reside in the region of the country in which the Consulate is located. As of the time of this writing, this plan was not yet implemented.

Next, you must get an invitation, which must be obtained from the Russian Federal Migration Service by a Russian company. If you don’t have a Russian inviting company, there are some agencies that can get you an invite for a fee. These will be discussed further on.

Once you get your invitation, or get word that your invitation has been sent directly to the appropriate Russian consulate, you must fill out a visa application form for the consulate. Nowadays, most major Russian consulates have web sites with copies of the form, but be aware that the form can differ slightly from consulate to consulate. Most Russian consulates now require American citizens to fill out special forms that are longer than those for, say, Canadian or EU citizens. They also expect Americans to pay more. Blame the American government: they required longer forms and more money for Russians and other citizens of so called “terrorist-friendly” countries, so the Russians, in true cold-war fashion, simply reciprocated.

The application form is rather vague about the amount of information required, but generally very little information is just fine. For example, in the blank that asks the purpose of your visit, you need not explain “researching a book on the culinary habits of the Romanov dynasty and photographing appropriate historical sights.” Simply write whatever is written in your invitation for the type of visa: “Business,” “Tourism,” et cetera. In fact, always answer this way on any form asking for the “purpose of your visit.” Where the

6 application asks for the people or organizations to be visited, you should always simply list the name of the Russian company that issued you the visa invitation. Where the application requests your itinerary, they are not concerned with the complete agenda of your round the world cruise. The cities that you plan to visit in Russia are sufficient. Where asked about your relatives in Russia, only list those directly related to you in a “nuclear” fashion: mother, father, sister, et cetera. You need not mention that long lost second cousin who disappeared sometime around the Stalin era. For place of work or study, they mean your place of work or study in your home country, not where you will be working or studying in Russia.

Next, you take or send your visa application (and invitation if it was sent to you directly), to the nearest Russian consulate, along with one to three passport quality photographs (depending on the consulate), your passport and a certified check or money order for the appropriate amount of money (consulates in the U.S. do not take cash, but some European ones will). Prices vary depending on the length of the visa, the number of times you intend to leave and reenter the country, the speed at which you want your visa processed and the consulate from which you get your visa. Check the consulate’s website, and call them to verify what you’ve read. If you want to keep the cost and bureaucracy down, limit the visa to one or two entries, keep the visa length as short as possible, and allow the consulate at least three weeks for processing. If you plan a weekend hop to the Baltic States midway into your visit, be sure that you have at least a double-entry visa if you plan to get back into Russia.

Visa Agencies

If all the above visa formalities seem a bit daunting, you can hire a visa agency to handle the headache for you. Before checking a visa agency, you should be aware that there are basically three services that these agencies do. You can ask an agency to:

a) Obtain you a business invite from the Federal Migration Service; b) Walk your application (with an invite you obtained elsewhere) through a consulate in your country and deliver the visa to your door; or c) All of the above—do the whole thing—invite and visa delivery.

Obviously, the more you ask the visa processing agency to do, the more it costs.

7 The following agencies will do either the invite alone or the whole process for you, and have been used and recommended by some of our professors and students in the past: www.russia-travel.com (connected with the Russian National Tourist Office); www.visatorussia.com; www.gotorussia.com; and http://www.passportsplus.com.

The following does only the invitation: www.visahouse.ru.

The following, based in the UK, does only the complete service of visa and invitation: www.russiadirect.net

The following do only the visa processing and not the invitations. Unlike the agencies that obtain the invites, these groups tend to deal with all different travel destinations rather than specializing in Russia. Because their job is mainly to courier documents to a consulate and to smile nicely at the clerk who is snarling and yelling at them, you should be sure the one you hire is located near the consulate where you have told your inviting company that you are going to get your visa. Try: American Visa (Washington, D.C.) [email protected]; Travel Document Systems (NY & SF) www.traveldocs.com, www.passportsplus.com (Houston) and in the UK , The Visa & Transport Service, 0171-229-1262 (£50 for same day service within London).

A few additional visa notes:

Make sure you get the visa invitation for, and fill out the visa application for, the full time you are staying, plus, if possible, a few days before and after to account for unforeseen delays. It is much more difficult to extend your visa than it would have been to get a longer visa in the first place.

If you are planning to stay in Russia for more than three months without leaving, Russian law will not let you use a business visa. You will need to have a special work visa or apply for permanent residence. And if you plan to get a multiple entry business visa to let you enter and leave the country several times for a year, Russian law requires the results of an AIDS test before issuing you a visa. This law, however, is not applied in every country where you might get a visa, so you should check with the consulate where you plan to apply for your visa before rushing to your doctor and getting a needle stuck in your arm. (At the time of this writing AIDS tests are not required for one-year multiple entry visas obtained in London or Washington, D.C.)

Russian law now requires visitors to demonstrate that they have health insurance valid in Russia, but as of the time of this writing this rule is only

8 enforced for visitors from Shengen countries (if you don’t know what a Shengen country is, then you aren’t from one). Note, however, that many student or work-sponsored policies will cover you while abroad. If yours does, be sure to note on your visa application that you have health insurance valid in Russia. If yours doesn’t, you might want to get a traveler’s health policy whether or not they require it for your visa. Many Russian consulates contain recommendations for travelers’ health insurance companies on their web sites, and tour agencies in your area may be able to recommend companies.

Arranging Hotels

If you intend to stay in an apartment rather than in a hotel, we still recommend checking into a hotel or short term flat for the first night or two and looking at your planned home-sweet-home in person before signing the lease. The quality of apartments varies in the extreme and you really should see what you are getting first.

It’s relatively easy these days to arrange hotels and apartments by web in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Most hotels and flat-by-the-night agencies are beginning to respond to a market economy and accept web/email correspondence for reservations. However, pay-pal doesn’t work in Russia and many of the cheaper hotels don’t accept credit cards. So in some cases you may have to book in advance by sending a letter or fax, or having your travel agent do so. If so, usually the fax must state that you guarantee payment, and the reservations must be made at least 48 hours in advance.

However, despite the ease of booking accommodations now, you definitely SHOULD NOT arrive in any Russian city without a reservation. There is still a shortage of reasonably priced places, especially in summer, and if you fail to book in advance you may find yourself spending $400 plus a night at an elite hotel until you can find yourself something cheaper.

Also, if going outside Moscow and St. Petersburg, don’t wait until the last minute to call your travel agent and book a hotel. Few accommodations can be booked via web outside the major tourist cities, and most U.S. travel agents do not have the connections to book most Russian hotels. Thus, your agent may need time to contact a second agent who specializes in Russia. Moreover, although the number of hotels with good service and reasonable prices is increasing, outside Moscow and St. Pete there is often only one non-roach motel per city. Only specialized travel agents can help you find it. Try www.intourist.com. This old Soviet travel agency is still the expert for off-the- beaten-path Russia.

9 Some web sites through which you can book a hotel in Russia are www.all-hotels.ru; www.allrussiahotels.com; http://english.moskow-mini- hotels.ru (most of which are large, not mini) and www.waytoRussia.net, plus of course you can go to the websites of the major chains like Holiday Inn, Novotel, or Marriott. The handy web site http://www.2russia.com/ is well reputed for bookings in St. Pete.

Mini-hotels or B & Bs are just beginning to catch on in Moscow. The main thing you need to watch out for is the location, which can be far from the center of town. A few centrally located ones we know of are www.topfloormoscow.com, www.kitainn.com and www.flamingobed.com all near metro Mayakovskaya; and www.suharevkahotel.ru near metro Sukharevskaya. Mini-hotels are much more common in St. Petersburg and can be found all over the city easily.

If you are on a budget, a couple of the more central youth hostels might also be an affordable option to begin your stay while you search for longer term accommodations, especially if you can rent with a group and thus get a whole room among you and your friends. In Moscow, try www.sweetmoscow.com, on the Old Arbat street near the Smolyenskaya metro station. 7-910-420-3446; www.godzillashostel.com at Tsvetnoy Blvd. near Pushkinskaya metro; and www.comradehostel.com and www.napoleonhostel.com, both near Kitay Gorod metro. One former student also recommended Top Floor Hostel, on Bolshaia Sadovaya 3, Apt 135, phone 495-650-0314, and another recommended Yellow Blue Bus Hostel and Moscow Home Hostel (sorry no contact info but findable on various web hostel booking services). You can also check the Youth Hostels Association of Russia, http://www.russia-hostelling.ru/hostels.php, which lists a number of different places in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Finally you can try services apartments that are rented by the night or by the week, and usually provide all dishes, linens etc., with the upscale ones including maid service and sometimes airport transportation, visa service and tour guides. Flatlink www.flatlink.ru and Evans www.evans.ru are two reliable agencies that provide serviced apartments as well as longer term accommodations. An agency that specializes in serviced apartments only, but in the higher budget range is www.likehome.ru. A web-only service, www.moscow-comfort.com specializes in apartments on Tverskaya street. Serviced apartments from agents like these are usually safe to rent via internet, sight unseen, although you should avoid renting things like homestays or long term flats until arriving in Moscow and seeing the places and neighborhoods for yourself.

If you really want to minimize your time in short term accommodations, before you leave home, you can always line up a few apartments to see upon arrival. One of the best ways to do this is to post a notice on www.expat.ru

10 Especially at the beginning of the summer, you will find English-speaking people interested in sub-letting furnished apartments for the vacation season. Plus, agencies offering short term furnished apartments are often a handy, although more expensive, option. For more information on finding a flat, see the dedicated section on apartment hunting, which has a list of realty agencies at page 36, infra.

Things to Bring

Replacing lost documents can be a nightmare in Russia. BE SURE TO BRING A PHOTOCOPY OF YOUR PLANE TICKET, VISA, AND THE PHOTO PAGE OF YOUR PASSPORT! We hope it goes without saying that you will keep them somewhere other than where you keep the originals of these documents.

Bring luggage tags addressed with your destination in Russia—or at least be sure to fill out the little tags available at airport check-in. Time spent doing this could save you lots of time in lost luggage hassles.

Russia uses European style 220 volt electricity and at 50 hertz rather than 60 in the U.S. The hertz difference makes clocks run wacky, so bring only wind up or battery-operated alarm clocks unless you want to wake up at 4am. Also if you plan to bring any other electrical appliances from the U.S. make sure you bring a transformer. Russian plugs have two thin, circular prongs, and are usually compatible with the prongs on your transformer without the need to add additional devices to convert the plug shape; however the plugs are often set into the wall, therefore the transformer might not fit and you might need an extension. Transformers can be hard to find in Russia, but plug extensions can be bought in many street kiosks.

By all means bring your portable computer, but make sure it can be used on both 110 and 220 volts (check on the power cord box). Operating an expensive laptop on a voltage transformer is a risk we wouldn’t recommend. If you want to use a modem, bring the phone cord. Most modern apartment phones have American standard jacks; but if not you can buy an inexpensive phone plug adapter here.

Bring a small bottle of hand sanitizer and bring (or buy here) tissues in pocket size packs. Carry them around wherever you go—Russian public toilets don’t always provide toilet paper or a sink with running water, and they don’t win any awards for cleanliness. You can, of course, buy tissue packs and toilet paper here, (we no longer have shortages that dire).

11 If you have room in your suitcase, bring a towel. Russian hotel towels resemble dish towels rather than bath towels, so you might miss your big fluffy towel from home. If you have no suitcase space you can buy one here—but it won’t be cheap.

Consider bringing a small canvas bag or book-size backpack. Although, most Russian shops give you plastic bags these days, a canvas bag or backpack is not only more durable but it can double as carry-on luggage to take home those excess souvenirs.

Bring a money belt or other handy safe place to stash your cash on your person. People tend to carry more cash in Russia than in the West, as many businesses still don’t take credit. And, as in many major cities, tourists are tempting targets for pickpockets.

English language tourist guides to Russia are largely unavailable within Russia—except at 50% markup in one or two specialized bookshops and the fancy Western hotels. If you want one, get it from Amazon or your local bookstore before you come.

Bring any medicines you regularly use, and any you think you might need. (Like hayfever medicine if you are so prone.) Medical supplies are much better in Moscow than they once were, but you may still have trouble finding medicine with English language labels and (more importantly) directions. When you are sick is the last time you want to struggle with wondering whether the pictures on the marvelous looking Russian language concoction on the shelf means it cures sore throats or tooth aches. (Hint: If you do end up with Russian- labeled medicine, try transliterating the name into a Google search—you might find the English equivalent. Or try asking the pharmacist for the Latin/generic name of the medicine and typing that into Google to find the US brand name equivalents and how to use them.) Imodium, aspirin, ibuprofen, Western vitamins, feminine hygiene supplies, condoms and contact lens solution are all available. Harder to find are Tums equivalents and American cold and cough remedies, although European ones can be found.

Some prescription drugs can be difficult to find here, while others, such as many antibiotics and pain killers, are available without even a doctor’s blessing. But as you may not know which is which, and as a Russian pharmacist may look askance at an English language prescription, you should be sure you pack a big enough supply for your trip, and a few extra days’ supply for emergencies.

Remember to bring along copies of the prescriptions for any drugs you take. This is not so much for finding a pharmacist who can read English, but to

12 help you avoid any uncomfortable interviews at customs checkpoints or with the police.

Also, if you do purchase Russian medications on the advice of a friend or colleague, it’s usually best to leave them here when you depart—an OTC drug in a Russian pharmacy may be a “controlled substance” to an American airport narc.

Bring mosquito repellent if you are coming in the summer. While the bugs aren’t too bad in the cities of Moscow and St. Pete these days, you will need it if you get outside the city centers. Those beautiful palaces in the woods around the cities don’t look so attractive if you are swatting and scratching every two seconds.

Food shopping in Moscow and St. Pete is now on a par with any big city in Europe, so you probably need not bring foodstuffs unless you just can’t live without your particular American brand name product. If you search a bit, you can probably find that jar of peanut butter you are craving; but if you really prefer Skippy over Jiff, you should pack a jar. Apart from that type of problem, grocery stores abound.

Diabetics and people with special diets are the exception to the suggestion not to bother bringing food. The traditional Russian diet is heavily meat and fish based; so if you prefer your protein from vegetables, you may have to pack some dried ones, at least for a day or so until you can find a grocery with a good vegetarian section.

Enough on food–now for clothing. First and foremost, bring several changes of underwear. Cheaper apartments may not have washing machines and coin op laundries are practically non-existent. So you either spend more on rent, spend every night at the wash basin, or bring lots of undies. Dry cleaners are fairly easy to find--but are an expensive alternative for cleaning your underwear.

On the other hand, take the other clothing you were planning to bring and cut the list in half. In Russia, as in much of Europe, it is no sin to wear the same outfit a couple of days in a row (as long as you remembered your deodorant).

If you are attending occasional business or professional meetings, then at least a shirt and tie and nice slacks are appropriate for men, and blouse and skirt or slacks are appropriate for women. Offices of average businesses, non-profits, embassies, government buildings, and courts are all more casual than in the US, so this attire will do fine for most businesses and most meetings. This is also appropriate for all private business outside of Moscow.

The international business sector in Moscow is a different fashion matter entirely. Formal business attire is common. With a few limited exceptions, multinational businesses, professional law, accounting, investment or consulting firms, banks, and energy sector companies, tend to dress up. And style is one place where the Russian firms have fully incorporated the Western dress for success idea. In many of the growing number of Russian firms that deal with international business clients, it’s an image thing to show that their professionals can afford tailored suits with designer labels. So if you are planning to work in the office of a professional company or law firm, you should bring working clothes just as formal as you would expect in New York.

Russian weather is as unpredictable as Russian politics (well, let’s say as Russian politics before Putin). Do what the fashion mags say and “layer.” In the summer, make sure your wardrobe is appropriate for hot humid weather but also contains a sweater, rain jacket and some cooler weather clothes. In the winter you can pretty much be assured of cold, but cold too varies, so bringing layers is still a good idea. Of course, in much of Russia, “Summer” is a relative term. In Moscow, Summer usually kicks in the first or second week of June, while up till then the weather can still make your teeth chatter. (For more information on the weather and “pookh”, see the dedicated section on page 63.)

Bring comfortable walking shoes—Moscow is a city of subways, busses, and walks in between the two. St. Petersburg is the same, but more walking and less subways. Both can be muddy and dusty on the same day, so we suggest closed toed shoes even at the height of the summer. In winter, of course, winter boots with good rubber tread are a must. For working women, low heel dress flats are practically essential for commuting, while high heels are still in style for the office; the D.C. trend of commuting in sneakers with your suit will get you odd stares.

Bring an umbrella, for the obvious reason.

Finally, bring a few cheap souvenirs of your home town. These are especially needed if you go outside the big cities. Provincial Russians (as we Muscovites snobbishly call them) are big on exchanging little gifts after meetings. It’s also common politeness to bring hostess gifts if you are invited to someone’s home for dinner, and souvenirs go over well for this purpose too.

Things NOT to Bring

The smartest thing you can do is leave all your expensive jewelry at home. A tourist in jewels. Hmmm. Why be a target?

As we stated in the last subsection, don’t bring too many clothes. Especially don’t plan on bringing multiple pairs of shorts to wear in the city all summer--it just isn’t done, especially in a business or college setting. These should be saved for weekends at the dacha. Minis are OK for casual or business wear. . . uh, if you’re female.

Computer buffs, while packing your laptop, leave your surge protector behind and instead bring $40 to buy a 220 volt surge protector in Russia. Using a 110 volt surge protector plugged into a transformer is more likely to cause your computer to blow up than using no surge protector at all.

No matter what you may have heard from that cousin who visited Russia in 1988, don’t bring old blue jeans expecting to sell or trade for valuable souvenirs. Those days are long gone, and the modern Russians will look at you with disdain as they brush past you to the Versace store across the street.

For customs reasons, don’t bring in narcotics, any prescription drugs not accompanied by a prescription, any pornography (although it is now routinely sold in the country you still can’t freely import it) or more than two liters of alcohol or two boxes of cigarettes. (Bringing vodka to Russia is as silly as bringing tea to China, but bringing your favorite bottle of scotch or tequila is not so silly though—with the 100% customs duty on commercially imported alcohol it can cost you a Russian’s weekly salary.)

Money

Thanks to a certain president’s budget deficit, the little hic-up in the sub- prime mortgage market and the climbing price of oil, the ruble has been gaining rapidly against the dollar. As of now, April 2008, the ruble has been floating at around 23.5--down 30% over the last three years, and down 10% in this year alone.

This means that Moscow costs a lot! Expect to spend $30 or more on a casual dinner out, if you eat light and don’t order drinks. A loaf of bread is around $2- 4. Two pounds of oranges--$8. In other words, be warned, Moscow is no longer the cheap traveler’s paradise. St. Petersburg is about 20% cheaper than Moscow, but still no bargain. We are told that the low dollar makes US goods cheaper abroad, and indeed Colgate is only about $2 for a medium size tube, but it’s more than made up for by everything else you try to buy. So here are our hints on how to deal with your money to handle all those bills.

15 First, bring enough cash to cover a couple of days of expenses. Sometimes American visitors discover that one or two of their credit or ATM cards don’t work in Russia. So you should take a deep breath, ignore every American Express commercial you have ever seen, and stuff a money belt with emergency cash—at least a few new, crispy $50 and $100 bills or Euros. Keep that money belt full enough to tide you through two or three days ($300-400 in Moscow). Carrying cash is risky yes, but less risky than not having any cash on hand when your travelers’ check is oddly stared at, your electronic card demagnetizes itself, and the teller laughs at your cash advance request.

Russian currency exchanges can be picky about the U.S. dollars they accept. Avoid bills lower than $50, as they are hard to exchange in Moscow, and avoid really old bills. In 1988, the U.S. started putting a little vertical stripe inside dollars to prevent forgery. Russian banks believe that without this stripe the note is certainly forged. So make sure all your bills are 1988 or later and have this stripe. Next, look to make sure there are not too many marker pen markings on the bills. There are now forgery detecting pens on the international market for merchants to use to check dollar bills. These pens leave invisible marks if the bill is real, and show up if the bill is fake. If your bills have lots of ink marks on them, therefore, many Russian tellers will assume they are fake and refuse to take them. The same goes for rumpled and torn bills–if they are too decrepit to check their authenticity in a machine, Russian tellers won’t accept them. So in sum, we like dollars new, clean and crispy here—ask for them that way at your local bank.

Also, try to bring in the new design of $50 and $100 dollar bills, not the old ones. In the Yeltsin era, whenever Russia had a currency change it recalled all the old large ruble notes and made people replace them with new ones within a week! You can imagine the chaos it caused. Some older Russians, most notably the landlord who wants dollars for rent, are scared that the U.S. will do the same thing and call in all the old bills on short notice. The banks know better, but the average Russian grandpa doesn’t. Thus, they don’t like the old design of bills.

Trivia fact for you—did you know that Russia is the largest user of U.S. hundred dollar bills outside the U.S.?

If you are passing through Europe, feel free to bring Euros rather than dollars. With the falling dollar, Uncle Sam has been losing ground to the Euro in the hearts and minds of the Russian people.

-CURRENCY EXCHANGES

Don’t exchange all your money at one time or you may end up losing out if you have to change back what you don’t spend. We usually recommend exchanging only the amount that you plan to use for about a week at a time. Exchange even less at one time if you haven’t used that particular exchange booth before and they don’t look trustworthy. A short warning: we think some exchange clerks trained with Houdini and seem to be able to make money disappear between the time they count it and hand it to you across the counter. Never leave an exchange booth without counting it yourself in front of the teller.

But while the risk may be less to exchange less at a new exchange booth, watch out for bait and switch exchange rates. The small print under that great exchange rate you see advertised might mean that the rate is only available for exchanges of $1000 or more. Ask before handing over your money because the unadvertised non-big-spender-rate might be a lot less attractive. Sometimes they try to fool the math challenged client by just punching a bunch of numbers into a calculator and showing you how much you will get for your odd amount of dollars while hiding what the actual rate is. If you can’t do quick enough mental arithmetic to figure out something like $70 x 23.3 in a few seconds, take a calculator and run the numbers yourself before accepting the figure they quote.

Currency exchange booths are freely available in the Moscow and St. Petersburg city centers. They are less readily available in the suburbs and in other towns. So change money before leaving Moscow or St. Pete. for another town.

-CASH MACHINES

Of course, to change currency you need currency in the first place, so let’s talk about getting cash.

First, think plastic! Bring all your available automatic teller machine cards, your Master Cards, your AmEx cards, and your Visas. (Of course copy the card numbers and place your list somewhere safe in case of theft.) Why so many? The thing is that, although ATM machines and cash advance programs are available in most banks, outside the city centers only soothsayers can tell you which cards and machines will be working at which times. Today you might go to AlfaBank and get money from your Visa debit card just fine, but tomorrow that card will be refused and you can only get money from American Express. Don’t blame the Russians for this. U.S. banks have the annoying habit of temporarily turning off your cards if they see numerous debits from

17 “suspicious” cash points and can’t reach you on the phone to ask you about it. It might be a good idea to call your credit card company in advance and tell them you will be traveling in Russia.

Be sensible with your cash and plastic. Don’t carry large amounts of cash to the local nightclub. Carry some cards with you and leave others in your room. Don’t flash all your money at the currency exchange window when you only want to change $20. Don’t go to a currency exchange booth that has a bunch of tough looking guys in leather jackets hanging around outside.

Above all, don’t put your ATM card in a cash machine that you don’t recall being there when you passed by the day before! Every summer there are a few fake ATM machines literally running around Moscow and St. Pete. These brilliant machines show up on the street, beg you to stick your card in, copy your ATM card information, silently record the pin number you punch in, and then spit your card back telling you they are out of cash. Meanwhile, they are cleaning out your account from Israel or Helsinki! To avoid this:

1. Try, as much as you can, to just use the same bank or ATM for all your transactions. This will make it easier for you to track down any fraud if something does happen.

2. Before you come, talk to your bank to get an internet banking password and check your account regularly.

3. Also before you come, ask your bank to disable overdraft protection on any ATM card associated with your checking and savings account. If ATM fraud cleans out your checking you don’t want them to get your savings too.

4. If your bank has a high limit on the amount of money you can take out of an ATM machine in one day, you might want to ask them to change that to a lower amount.

5. Finally, bring the NON-1-800 phone number of your bank so that you can notify them immediately of any problems. If your bank refuses to give you a non 1-800 number, then remind them that we are in the 21st Century and that the world is bigger than just America. Your personal liability is limited to $50 if you notify the bank right away, but the 1-800 numbers on the back of your ATM cards don’t usually work internationally. The safest bet is to call your bank before coming to Russia to get a non-toll-free number that you can contact, or get a bank that allows you to notify them of fraud over the internet.

18 -TRAVELERS’ CHECKS—DON’T BOTHER

All these plastic card warnings might leave you thinking about bringing travelers’ checks. But plastic cards really are the best option. Travelers’ checks can be problematic. There are a few places in Moscow and St. Pete where you can cash them, but practically no places in other cities. Moreover, many of the places that do cash them charge a fee for the privilege.

-BANK AND WIRE TRANSFERS

If all else fails, or if you have a generous daddy back home, you can get money wired in. The RF banking system actually jumped a couple of decades ahead of the US when it formed at the beginning of the 1990s, and almost any branch of any bank can handle an incoming wire transfer. In fact, wire transfers are much more common than checks or travelers’ checks, although not all banks will send or accept wires for non-account holders. At the time this is being written, the following banks are the pretty reliable, will receive and pay out wires for non-customers, and are the most savvy at dealing with Americans:

Alfa Bank Non-account holders can send or receive a Western Union money order through Alfa Bank locations, although, depending on the transferred amount, the commission can be up to 10%. Alfa Bank also regularly gives dollar or ruble cash advances on your credit cards. Alfa Bank is one of the few that survived the 1998 financial crisis and it was held up as a model of good banking practices all through the late 1990s. In 2004 a negative newspaper article caused a sudden run on Alfa Bank and there were rumors of its imminent failure. To its credit, however, Alfa Group, the bank’s owner, announced that it would stand behind the bank and pay off all depositors who wanted to withdraw money, whether or not the bank itself had the liquid assets to do so. Then Alfa sued the newspaper for libel and won the largest judgment in Russian court history. We don’t know whether we would want to invest our life’s savings in Alfa (or in any other Russian bank for that matter), but it seems to be as safe as any for short term deposits or wiring money in or out of the country. Mikhail Friedman, Alfa Group’s CEO (translated Chief Executive Oligarch), made Forbes list of top billionaires for the last four years in a row, so we guess the group has a few assets. Although that might, of course, put it next on the Russian government’s hit list. Alfa also offers safety deposit boxes that can be rented by the week or by the month, which make a good alternative to the hotel mattress for storing documents and other valuables.

Alfa Bank locations are all over Moscow, and can be found at (http://www.alfabank.com/russia/)

AmEx / GE Money Bank American Express will give you cash on your AmEx card or cash your AmEx travelers checks through its next-door neighbor, GE Money Bank. If you have an AmEx card you can sign up, separately, for AmEx express cash wire services. You can monitor your card usage by internet to make sure that no one but you is using your card. Plus, not only can you take money out here but you can pay your AmEx bill in cash here as well. If you change too much money into rubles, paying off your AmEx bill is a good way to avoid carrying home the cash.

In Moscow, American Express is located at Usacheva Street 33, Bldg. 1, tel: 933- 8400. (Metro Sportivnaya). Although there are other GE Money Bank offices around the city, only the one next to AmEx will provide AmEx card services. GE Money Bank staff doesn’t speak English, but the folks at AmEx do, and can give you the forms and instruct you on exactly what to do at the next door bank.

Citibank Citibank, the ubiquitous American purveyors of credit cards and other retail banking services, has opened offices in several central Moscow locations. Beware—Citibank Russia isn’t a branch in the legal sense but is a subsidiary of the Citibank you know in America. Due to Russian restrictions on branch banking, Citibank Russia does not have the full financial backing of the international chain.

Citibank will let you receive and send wire transfers and will give you cash advances on credit cards; but you can’t make cash payments on Citibank cards here unless the cards are issued through the Russian Citibank branches. Also, Citibank Russia cannot replace lost, stolen or confiscated U.S. Citibank cards— another reason to bring the contact info of your bank back home.

Note a nasty little addition: Citibank changed the terms of its U.S issued credit cards to charge a 3% fee for all charges made in foreign currencies. So don’t plan to use your Citibank cards here extensively unless you get a local Citibank card.

Citibank has a few locations around the city. Check www.citibank.ru.

As mentioned above, these banks are listed here because they are some of the most reliable and they provide the most useful services for people visiting the country for a couple of months. Banking stability is a relative term though; almost all Russian banks crashed in the 1998 financial crisis, and Russia has no equivalent of the FDIC.

Arrival Formalities

Your experience with Russian entry formalities will vary depending on how you enter the country. We will first describe general passport and customs rules, then, as the great majority of foreigners come by plane to Moscow, the procedure at Moscow’s infamous main international airport, Sheremetyevo II and the other international airport, Domodedovo. Note that there is also a nearby Sheremetyevo I where flights from Eastern Europe often arrive. And there is also Vnukovo airport, which mainly has internal flights. IF YOU ARE SERIOUSLY EXPECTING SOMEONE TO MEET YOU AT THE AIRPORT, BE SURE TO ACCURATELY NOTE WHICH ONE!

Passport Control

Passport control in Russia is much the same as in any other country of the world—in other words a pain in the rear that involves waiting in separate lines for foreigners and locals, getting suspicious looks from officious bureaucrats, and a general jangling of the nerves that is much appreciated while you stand there with jet lag after 15+ hours of traveling. Apart from that, as long as your documents are in order you should be in good shape.

Please note that passport inspectors at the airport are not entitled to ask you for a fee for any reason. In past years there have been occasional cases of passport officials asking for payments from gullible visitors. This is illegal, and if an inspector does this you should ask to see a supervisor. If the supervisor also insists, pay the fee but ask for a receipt.

An additional bit of passport control bureaucracy is that you will need to present a migration card to the passport officials (in addition to your passport of course). You need to get this card on the plane, and should ask about it if they

21 don’t give it to you. If it wasn’t given to you on the plane, keep your eye out in the arrivals lounge. The migration cards are bilingual Russian/English. Make sure to fill out both sides—yes, it’s writing the same information twice, but that’s just another little way of the bureaucrats saying “Welcome to Russia!” Hand the entire card to the passport officer with your passport, and he’ll tear off half of it. You keep the other part of the form (keep it in your passport!) and return it to the passport control when you leave.

Unfortunately, the part they tear off and keep is the part that has the instructions on it that tell you about the legal requirement to notify authorities of your place of residence within three days of arrival. So please read the back before handing it to passport control, and in case you don’t have a photographic memory, read the section on visa notification, infra.

Handily, if you enter Russia by train, passport & customs control formalities are done right there on the train as you cross the border; not when you reach your destination. This is a fairly painless process of waiting in your cabin and chatting with your cabin mates as the immigration officials go from wagon to wagon checking documents and looking for visa-less Chechen terrorists hidden under your seat. Then the customs people come by and search for the same terrorists hidden in your luggage. All in all, the wait takes about an hour. The only warning is that you should not leave your cabin during this time, so be sure to go to the toilet or restaurant car before the train is scheduled to cross the border.

Clearing Customs

Clearing customs is usually pretty easy these days, but you will need to complete a customs declaration form if you have anything to declare. If you need one you should search for it in the baggage claim area. They are usually available in English. It’s a good idea to fill out one of these forms if you are carrying anything really valuable, even if it isn’t listed as a declarable item on the form.

What needs to be declared? Well, on the form it looks like pretty much everything: all money, jewelry, furs, electronic recording media, printed editions and a host of other things that hark back to a chillier era, plus the modern items of health concern like narcotics, farm produce and live plants and animals. Really, apart from the health restricted imports, customs is only concerned with valuable items, or items in bulk. If you fail to declare that single DVD you brought to show Mom’s home movies to your roommate, no one is going to care. And “printed editions” means valuable books, not your paperback spy novels, and not (although your professors might disagree) your textbooks.

22 Money needs only be declared if you are carrying over a certain amount. At the time of this printing you could bring in $10,000 without a declaration and unlimited amounts with a declaration, but you should be sure to check the signs at the airport to make sure this hasn’t changed.

In most cases you are safe enough if you go through the short green “nothing to declare” line at customs. However, as mentioned, you should declare everything valuable that you bring in if you intend to take it out again. Russia has an export customs check as well as an import customs check. So if you fail to declare your $30000 sable coat on the way in, they may assume you purchased it here and you may find yourself unable to take it out of the country without paying customs duties. We suggest that you declare, or at least attempt to declare, high end personal computers (say over $5000 in value), professional quality video cameras, musical instruments, quality art work, antiques and other such items, even if they are not listed on the form. No duties are charged on these items unless you bring in more than one of each. If you are carrying two expensive new laptops, the customs officials naturally think you are planning to sell one and charge you duty accordingly.

If you go through the red line, provided you don’t look like a drug dealer or terrorist, the customs officer will usually just circle the declarations on your customs form, stamp the form, and return it to you. Seldom do they search your luggage further than a cursory x-ray. If you go through the green line, sometimes you will be checked but at most times you will not.

Even if it isn’t stamped, it’s a good idea to keep your customs declaration form if you wrote anything on it, so that you can prove to export customs that you at least tried to declare your goods on the way in. If it is stamped and returned to you, however, you should always keep the declaration form. You are supposed to return it to the customs officials when you leave the country.

Warning: Due to budget cuts in the last decade and a corresponding drop in the care taken for customs procedures, Moscow began to be known as a favorite stopover point for drug and weapons smugglers. But agreements reached a few years ago when Bush looked into Putin’s eyes and purportedly saw his soul have caused Russia to tighten its checks for illegal narcotics and weapons. If you are suspected of smuggling you may be subject to careful searches. If they find something suspicious the searches get more invasive, and you do not have American constitutional rights to protect you. And if they actually find drugs or weapons you may find yourself awaiting trial in a run down jail without a fully functioning bail procedure. So simply do not bring illegal drugs or weapons to Russia. If you are taking prescription drugs, have a copy of the prescription handy for the customs officials. Otherwise you may find yourself studying Russian law more intensively than you expected.

Sheremetyevo II Airport

Depending on your luck, your flight, and the time and day that you arrive, negotiating your way out of Sheremetyevo II can take 15 minutes to 2 hours. Hint: the airport is usually quicker and less crowded for morning arrivals.

As you exit your plane at Sheremetyevo II, the first thing you will see is an officer directing you which way to turn as you enter the airport. Very often this is the opposite direction of the sign that says “exit.” Don’t worry, just follow the crowd.

Next you will see a down staircase, followed by the “lines” (read “crowds”) for passport control. The length of these lines vary depending on the size of the plane. Experienced Moscow visitors dash off the planes as soon as they land. The trick is to get as near to the front of the line as a tourist class passenger can reasonably get.

Welcome to your first experience with Russian crowds! The first thing you will probably notice is that people tend to bunch a lot closer together in Russia than in the U.S., and there is not the cavernous space and high ceilings that adorn Kennedy International. They sometimes use those little rope dividers between lines now, but they are often ignored. The lines are likely to be waiting in all available corners of a small entrance hall, and even up the steps that lead from the gates. People do not stand arms length from each other, but tend to bump and jostle a bit. Believe it or not, Sheremetyevo arrivals has been revamped and is much better than it used to be. But nonetheless, you are likely to feel a bit threatened and cramped.

The second thing you are likely to notice is that things are not very well marked and people do not seem to know what they are doing. Indeed, they don’t. Unless you are tall you may have trouble seeing which passport control lines are marked for Russian citizens, which are marked for foreign citizens, and which for diplomatic passports. A good bet is to head straight for the middle lines, which are usually for foreign citizens. Another good bet is to follow an American who is tall or has been to Moscow several times before. Moscow’s American expats love to guide first time arrivees around Sherymetyevo II—kind of the same syndrome that makes us recommend root-canals at the painless dentist we just found—once we have discovered how to handle an unpleasant experience first hand, it makes us feel good to help someone else through it. Whatever you do, make sure you get in the correct line at passport control, otherwise a stubborn official could send you back to line up again.

24 Finally, note that occasionally Russian firms are able to arrange for special pickup of their arrivees inside the customs area. You will see a glass partition a bit to the front and side of the foreign passport control lines. There, professional arrival hostesses stand with printed signs bearing their guests’ last names or the name of the sponsoring group. If you see your name, break out of the passport control line and go to the hostess. She will direct you to the front of one of the lines. You are expected to break into the front of the line she directs, because your host firm will have paid or pulled strings for this privilege. Although you may have to explain why they are letting you cut to the perplexed American who is suddenly standing in the line behind you; not to cut the line when asked is a sign that you don’t understand the complex concept of privilege in Russia (and it also annoys your hostess by wasting her time). If you ARE the perplexed American who is suddenly second in line, be patient and, uh, welcome to Russia.

Sheremetyevo II baggage claim is directly on the other side of the passport control booths—not hard to find.

An amazing fact about Sheremetyevo II baggage claim is that the baggage for your flight does not always come off the conveyer belt that is labeled for your flight. If you have been standing a long time without seeing your bags, and recognize people from your flight standing next to another belt, ignore the signs and do what your gut instinct tells you.

Another amazing fact about Sheremetyevo II is that sometimes the luggage doesn’t arrive at all. OK, well we guess that happens at every airport, but flights to Moscow usually require a transfer or two, and sometimes baggage doesn’t make every transfer along with you, so it seems more frequent here. If your luggage doesn’t come, don’t blindly leave the airport in tears. Instead, find a representative of your airline, who will generally speak English, and fill out a lost baggage form. Usually the baggage gets delivered to your hotel within 2-5 days.

After customs you will face one final infamous Sheremetyevo II experience—walking through a crowd of anxious people waiting for their guests outside the customs area. Despite a really fancy system that shows arrives on a video monitor in the middle of the arrivals hall, Russians just can’t seem to give up this crowding around the exit habit. Generally, arrivees push their luggage carts through the crowd, while people all around waive flowers or signs with their guest’s or company’s name. If you are meeting someone inside the airport, be sure not to blindly follow the crowd through the exit doors and out into the parking lot. The exit to the building is surprisingly close to the exit from the customs area. If you accidentally slip out of the building, you may have to go through x-ray screening lines to get back in again. Instead, look around before

25 you exit the building, you will also see the less crowd-fond people waiting around the middle of the airport near the café, TV screens or numerous round support columns that presumably hold up the airport roof.

Near the end of the crowd meeting arrivees you will find “street taxi” drivers (private car owners who make some extra cash by driving) hawking rides into the city. Our advice is to avoid them. The Sheremetyevo “Taxi Mafia” could give lessons to Tony Soprano. Sometimes, if you speak a Russian like a native, you can bargain the drivers down to 1000 rubles ($45) but one hapless traveler told us that his driver pulled out a purportedly official zone map with printed fares and convinced him that the official price was $150 to the city center. 1500 rubles ($65) is about average.

Also, albeit on rare occasions, some of these drivers have been known to rob unsuspecting passengers in more blatant ways, such as pushing them out of moving cars and taking off with the luggage. If you must bargain with these drivers (1) be sure you are traveling with a friend, (2) be sure the driver ISN’T traveling with a friend, (3) beware of drivers who want you to go off into a corner to talk or who agree to drop their prices too quickly or too low, (4) have the driver bring his car to the front of the airport to pick you up, instead of following him to the parking lot, (5) and note the license number of the car before you get in.

A safer alternative to the street taxi are the taxi and chauffeured car services provided by Hertz, Intourtrans, Intourist, and a number of other service companies that line the edge of the arrivals area. Walk straight past the Taxi Mafiosi, past the first exit door, and head for the booths along the outside wall of the center hallway that have signs that look like US taxi symbols (you know, Yellow-cab yellow, or black and white checkers). These services will cost somewhere between $40 and $60. Sporadically they have mini-vans available that will transport several passengers to the city center at a cheaper rate per passenger. Once you have reached the city center, you will find street taxis that are much safer and cheaper than those at the airport.

A final option for budget-minded people without a lot of luggage is to walk outside the airport and past the parking lot to the county bus stop. The bus will take you to the Moscow metro line for the ruble equivalent of about a dollar. The metro will then take you to the city center for approximately 60 cents. Stopping just next to the county bus stop are privately operated mini-vans called “Marshrutki” which cost about $2 in rubles. They go to the same metro station as the city busses, but they run more often and are usually faster, although you might have to wait 15 minutes inside the van until it fills up with passengers.

26 For more advice on street taxis, metros and busses, see the section on transportation, at page 37.

Domodedovo Airport

All the previous discussions were about Sheremetyevo II airport. But because Lufthansa & BA signed agreements with Domodedovo last year most of their flights are coming in there. Domodedovo is a much more modern airport, that managed to shed the Soviet “frighten them while you can” attitude for a bit of Western color and friendliness. Although passport and customs rules are the same everywhere, it just feels much more friendly as there is more space, and the layout is just like the Western airports with which you are probably familiar.

The great drawback to Domodedovo is that it is located quite a bit further from the city than is Sheremetyevo.

However, a high speed train now runs from Domodedovo to Paveletsky train station in the southern part of the city center (check at http://www.domodedovo.ru/en/main/getting/1/aero/). It costs about 150 rubles ($6). This is by far the best way to travel in, as taxis cost around $50 or more. Be sure to change dollars into rubles at the airport so that you can take the train. To find the train, turn left as you leave the arrivals area and walk to the far end of the terminal. There is a little window where you buy tickets (and a currency exchange booth nearby), and then you walk outside to the train stop. The one you need to get on is the modern, luxurious looking one—there are also local trains with hard wooden benches that pick up people at the airport, so don’t get on the wrong one. The train runs every hour on the hour (every half hour during peak periods) from about 7 am to 11 pm, and takes 40 minutes to get to town. (Don’t lose your ticket, you’ll need it to exit to the city.) At Paveletsky train-and-metro station, you can hop on a metro line that will take you practically anywhere else in the city, or you can get a city taxi for a reasonable price.

If you arrive at Domodedovo after the trains stop running, you can go to a taxi stand in the center of the hallway. It is marked by the Russian word TAKCИ. If you can’t find it, ask, as the word is the same in Russian and English and someone will surely point to the right place. The taxis into the city cost about 1200-1500 rubles ($50-65).

It is not a good idea to take taxis into the city in the daytime because of the traffic jams. It can take about 2 hours to get to your destination by taxi, as opposed to 40-50 minutes to Paveletsky on the train.

Domodedovo and the airlines that go there are the experienced Russia hands’ little secret. People in the know go to great lengths and deal with bizarre connections just to catch a plane that will arrive at the modern, efficient Domodedovo rather than the harsh, nerve-jangling Sheremetyevo II. So if you have a chance, join the in-crowd and do it. On the other hand, if you like to feel Soviet nostalgia, stick with Sheremetyevo.

Checking into a Hotel

Your arrival ordeal might not be exactly over upon leaving the airport. Checking into a Russian hotel anywhere outside Moscow and St. Pete can be an exercise in patience. If you arrive in a group, the hotel clerk likes to check in everyone’s passport and reservations before giving up access to even one room. So unless you are staying in a really Westernized hotel, get comfy in the lobby and expect to wait for a while.

Moreover, outside Moscow and St. Pete many Russian hotels will not give you a key, but a card with a room number on it. This means that there is a system where either the front desk checks for entering or departing guests, or there is a “dezhurnaya” (or “floor lady”) on your floor of the hotel, and she keeps track of keys and the arrival and departure of guests. You go up to the floor lady or desk clerk, give her your card, and she will give you the key. You are expected to leave the key with her and retake your card every time you leave the hotel. This way she knows who is in and who is not, plus there is no chance of losing your room key. Unfortunately, this nice “mom on the floor” system is fast disappearing due to rising labor costs. You still find it outside the major cities though.

Many U.S. visitors think the dezhurnaya system is a little intrusive on the privacy of your comings and goings; but we rather like it. It is safer than carrying around your key because, believe it or not, the dezhurnaya is pretty good at recognizing people. So a person who finds your lost card is unlikely to get your key. Also, the dezhurnaya knows when the room is free for cleaning, and she is there all night to help with little services like getting hot water for tea and finding you a clothes iron. Some will even offer to do your laundry for a fee.

The only real drawback is that the dezhurnaya also knows when the room isn’t free and when you have come home a little drunk and are likely to be receptive to some of the hotel’s, shall we say, more personal services. A few of these floor moms have picked up the entrepreneurial spirit and double as the

28 local madams. So don’t be surprised at the unusually good timing of phone calls from Russia’s “small-business women.”

Expect to have your passport taken when you check in to a hotel. They are making the notification with the state visa authorities, and will return it to you in no later than a day or two, and usually in just a few minutes. Don’t worry, this is standard practice and we have never heard of a passport being stolen by the hotel clerk. (Just in case, of course, you have that photocopy with you.) While the hotel has your passport, you can carry your hotel card as valid identification in case you are stopped by the police.

Keep in mind that in any hotel in Russia, as in most of Europe, you cannot get a room without a passport or a letter from your embassy or the police explaining why you don’t have a passport.

Visa Notification of Arrival (formerly “Visa Registration”)

Throughout 2007 the entire visa regime was changed drastically—and it’s still in flux. This is a government exercise in how not to implement legislation, because even the government officials can’t agree on how the rules work now, creating opportunities ripe for the minimum-wage bureaucrats applying them to employ “favorable interpretation for a personal fee.” (Hey, they have to pay for their kids’ college education too.) A lot of these new procedures were discussed earlier, but here we are discussing the new procedure referred to as “Visa Notification of Arrival” (“Uvedomlenie o Prebytii”).

The basic gist is the same as it always was—the Russian government wants to keep track of where tourists and short-term residents are staying, and want to make sure that the person or company who invited them take responsibility for them to some degree.

Previously, visitors had to be “registered” for the duration of their stay in Russia and the registration was stamped in the passport or on a little card kept with the passport. But now Russian law requires that all visitors to Russia should instead file a “Notification of Arrival.” This is a form that is filled out and mailed to the government through a special window at the post office within 3 working days of arriving in Russia. When you file it you are given a stamped receipt that you should give to your inviting organization.

Visitors are not actually required by law to carry proof of filing this notification on their person, but a few years ago police had the right to stop anyone on the street and ask for proof of registration. Old habits die hard, so if

29 you are stopped by a police officer in an ID check, you may get hassled it you don’t have your receipt for notification. Thus it’s a good idea to Xerox the notification receipt and keep it with your passport.

The onus of complying with notification requirements is placed jointly on you, the organization that issued your invitation, and any person or organization that gives you a place to stay. If you are staying in a hotel, they must do the notification for you for the period of your stay in the hotel. Otherwise, you, your landlord or your inviting organization listed in your visa must prepare the notification. To do this yourself, you go to any post office, and follow the instructions there, but you will need to speak Russian or bring a friend who does. Some inviting organizations will do this for you for a fee that varies from 3 rubles to 2000 rubles, so if you get your invitation through a Russian firm that makes its money by issuing such invitations, make sure you find out the price of Arrival Notice processing. If the price is high, make sure you have the physical address and telephone number in Russia of your Russian inviting organization, because you can’t file the paper yourself unless you know this.

The new law demands notifying the Russian Migration Service of (1) EVERY arrival and departure of a foreigner who comes to or leaves Russia (even if he returns to Russia the same day), and (2) any time a foreigner changes addresses or leaves a city for MORE THAN 3 WORKING DAYS. There is a three working days window for arrivals, and a two day window for departures. So, for example, if you are staying in a hotel and moving to an apartment, the hotel will file a notification of departure as soon as you check out, and then you or your landlord or inviting organization will have to go to the post office to file a notification of arrival at your new flat within three working days after your move.

As a more complex example, if you are staying in Moscow and you decide to take a trip to St. Petersburg, leaving on Sunday and returning on Saturday, then the Thursday or Friday before you leave you will have to go to the post office to notify the Moscow migration authorities about your departure, or you will have to notify your inviting organization so that they can send the notice by Tuesday. Then when you arrive in St. Pete, you or your landlord in that city will have to go to the post office by Wednesday to mail the notification of arrival to the St. Pete migration authorities. Then on Thursday or Friday before you leave St. Pete you will have to go back to the post office again, to file the notification that you are departing, or your host will have to file it by Tuesday. Then when you get back to Moscow you will have to file the notification of arrival with the Post office there, etc. This was all (seriously) established as part of Putin’s drive to simplify the bureaucracy.

30 Of course, before leaving Russia you will also have to go back to the post office again to notify the migration service of your departure, or your host will have to do this within two working days after you leave. The penalties for disobeying the new notification rules can be serious-thousands of dollars in fines for both you and your inviting organization, plus trouble getting visas in the future. So please don’t take these requirements lightly.

Under the Russian Civil Code, the period for notification of any legal time period starts on the day after arrival or departure. So if you arrive from abroad to Moscow on Friday morning at 00:05, then the first day of your three working day window is Monday, so you have until Wednesday when the post office closes to notify. But if you leave Moscow for St. Pete on Wednesday at 11:59pm, you were not in Moscow three working days so no notification is needed until three working days after the day of your arrival in St. Pete. However, it may be a little hard to convince non-lawyers that you are correct on this unless you are carrying sections 191 through 194 of your Civil Code.

In essence, if possible get an inviting organization that will take care of all the notifications for you, and then be absolutely sure to notify them every time you change addresses.

We know this is a rather alien system compared to how things are done in the West, but if you follow the “simple” rules, you shouldn’t have a problem.

Your Visit Itself

Identification

Although the regulation allowing police officers to stop you at any time to check your documents has been repealed, it still may happen from time to time, as you can be stopped here on much less than probable cause of committing a crime. Basically, any excuse will do. And Russian police love typecasting people on the basis of race, age and gender. Young Italian or Asian males get quickly accustomed to having documents checked, especially when out drinking or when walking with pretty Russian women. And if you look Chechen you might as well just keep your ID open in your hand at all times.

In Russia, identification by a student ID or driver’s license will not cut the mustard—“ID” means passport with valid visa, migration card, visa, and (sometimes) copy of your notification of arrival.

Some people recommend carrying around the originals of these documents. Others think you are better off leaving the originals carefully hidden in your apartment or hotel room, and carrying copies. If you decide on the copy route, have the copy of your passport and visa made here in Russia, after the entry stamp is made in your passport. For the best protection of all, have the copies notarized or stamped by your inviting organization.

An intermediate protection we recommend carrying a copy of your passport but your original migration card. Technically the migration card is a valid ID all by itself, although it contains no picture so most cops won’t take it alone. But this plus stamped or notarized copies of your passport, and an ordinary copy of your notification of arrival should get you safely past all but the most obnoxious cops.

Please don’t take this passport carriage rule lightly. One sorry Pericles director with no ID on her spent three hours cooling her heels in jail while someone went to her home to fetch her passport. (She thought about challenging the identification regulation in the Constitutional Court, but after a nice long chat with a couple of petty thieves and a prostitute, and after remembering that the Russian bail system wasn’t yet fully implemented, she decided against it.) Police have the right to detain you up to two hours to determine your identity. Any longer than that and certain procedural protections kick in. Our director felt much more comfortable knowing that.

It’s not a good idea to keep your passport and money in the same place. The police have a right to look at your ID and to look at anything that might contain a weapon or evidence of a crime. They don’t normally have a right to search the interior of your wallet.

Water: Hot and Cold, and Sometimes Drinkable

Moscow water is generally considered safe to drink for visitors, although it might look a little brownish at times because of Moscow’s rusty old piping system (woohoo—free iron supplements!). Out of caution and experience however, many foreign visitors would rather have bottled water anyway. Fortunately, bottled water is widely available, in both foreign and Russian varieties.

If you are going outside Moscow, and especially if you are going to Saint Petersburg, you should only use bottled water. Saint Petersburg is known to have a microbe in its water that is deadly to the stomachs of those not

32 accustomed to it. A few years ago a number of students got a case of Peter’s Revenge on an overnight train trip going back to Moscow. Not pleasant. In other cities the quality of the water varies.

Talking about other water besides the drinking kind, you should know that every summer your hot water is in danger of going out for a week to a month. Long ago, The Every Other Thursday Afternoon Super Secret Supreme Soviet Committee passed a regulation requiring that, in order to promote togetherness and sharing among the Soviet people, the hot water for each neighborhood in turn will be turned off for three-four weeks each summer. The phenomenon starts in May and slowly travels around the city through the end of August, resulting in the strange sight of people appearing on their friends’ doorsteps with soap and towels in hand.

Well, OK, it may not be caused by the decree of any secret committee, but nonetheless it’s true that the hot water will go out! The Russian water system heats water centrally and pipes it hot to apartment buildings. Because of the long distance that hot water travels and the lack of computerized tracking when the system was first installed, the pipes need to be inspected and repaired each summer.

Up until a few years ago, this shut-off was most often done without any notice, especially in less ritzy neighborhoods. Now, however, even the most “proletarian” apartment houses will receive notice, in the form of a white paper flyer stuck to the “podyezd” (or “entryway”) billboard. If you’re here in the summer, and see something with dates on it (e. g. “blah blah blah 03.07.07- 19.07.07 blah blah blah”) stuck on the billboard downstairs, you might want to ask your landlord about it.

President Putin announced in 2001 that the system would be modernized and city dwellers should no longer have to do without their hot baths. He’s leaving office now without managing to implement this, no matter how much the Western media talks about his iron rule of Russia. We’ll see if Medvedev does better. In the mean time, however, people deal with the water in different ways. Instead of showering with a friend, some people just boil water in pots and kettles. Many others buy private hot water heaters, which vary from large tank systems that sell for hundreds of dollars, through VCR-sized boxes that fit on the wall and heat water electrically ($50-100), down to NON-UL approved electric coils which you carefully balance in your bathwater and stand watching in rubber shoes as the water heats (about $6). The latter are about as safe as holding your curling iron in the tub.

33 Finally, the most luxurious hot water solution is the famous Russian Banya, or public bath. In these places, you and your colleagues can pay fees ranging from 300-3000 rubles ($12-$120) for the privilege of relaxing in hot water, swimming in cold water, and beating each other senseless with birch branches. A good bit of socializing and drinking can also be part of the experience. Unless you are one of those people whose bodies really should not be seen naked by unsuspecting friends, think about giving it a try. (Most places have separate men’s and women’s halls, unless your party rents a private room.)

Apartment Hunting

As mentioned supra, if you intend to stay in an apartment rather than a hotel, we recommend checking into a hotel for the first night or two and looking at your planned home-sweet-home in person before signing the lease. The quality of apartments varies in the extreme. Some places look as though they haven’t been renovated (or cleaned) since Khrushchev left office. To avoid that, listen for the realtor’s term of art “Evro-remont.” Ostensibly, this means that the apartment was completely reconstructed after the fall of communism, and European materials were used. More commonly, this means that someone lacquered the floors, slapped a coat of paint over the wallpaper, and replaced the Soviet-era kitchen cabinets and the toilet with something manufactured in Bulgaria or Turkey.

Be aware that even “Evro-remont” does not mean there is necessarily a washing machine, air conditioning, or a good quality telephone line. Nor does it mean that there is a year-round source of hot water (see the previous subsection.) Be sure to ask the realtor or potential landlord about these things if you care.

You also need to take a good look at the building for safety and cleanliness. Unlike American cities, there are few slum addresses or dangerous neighborhoods in Russian cities because widely varying socio-economic groups tend to be spread throughout every neighborhood and every building. This fact is good because it means you can live in any district you want, but it’s bad for booking apartments via internet because you can find yourself in a great location but in an awful building.

Buildings vary widely in the amount of care that the residents take to keep up the communal areas and building safety. An old Soviet expression states “communal property is nobody’s property.” So often nobody takes care of it. In the best buildings, the entrance has a friendly grandma or even a uniformed guard sitting in the lobby keeping an eye on things. It may still seem a little

34 down at heel, with a good bit of crumbling paint or worn steps, but at least it will be clean and safe. More middle-class buildings will have coded locks on the entrances. (These locks work well until some poor soul with a bad memory decides to scratch the code into the brickwork outside the door.) Watch out for buildings with no locks at all. It’s not only a bit dangerous, but the local drunks may tend to mistake the entrance way for the nearest public toilet.

Try to take a look at the building at night before you move in. Some entrance ways are unlit. In a country with very little tort law, DEZ (the district housing committee) may think it more prudent to keep down electricity costs than to worry about a couple minor suits from people who break their necks tripping in a pothole or falling down the stairs. In short, it is the rare and expensive building that will have an entrance way that wouldn’t make your mother hyperventilate; but you can at least check for basic safety and cleanliness standards. And remember, the quality of the entrance way has absolutely no connection to the quality of the apartments and the neighbors.

Take time to have a good chat with the landlord/lady. Western traditions that surround apartment rentals have not completely developed here yet. For example, many landlords do not understand that you might want them to move some of their stuff out before you move in, and a few might not even understand the importance of moving themselves out! It’s not uncommon for a landlady to stop in for a cup of tea or a shower (see section on water, supra) and have a little check on the place if she happens to be in the neighborhood. This can even happen when you aren’t home. On the other hand, this lack of landlord/tenant traditions mean that many won’t think to ask for a security deposit, won’t prohibit pets, and won’t have any restrictions on your painting the walls purple or putting a few hooks up here and there.

Apartment prices vary by size, location, proximity to public transport, and state of repair. They are usually rented furnished, unless noted otherwise. (Note: if an apartment is listed as “1 room,” it literally means “1 room” and not “1 bedroom.” But practically all apartments have separate kitchens.) Unrenovated 1-room apartments in the suburbs, about 15-minutes walk from a metro, can go for about $500-600 per month. One or two room, ostensible Evro-remont apartments in the suburbs, or un-renovated apartments in the center of town, usually start above $1000 and go to around $3000 or more. Real Evro-remont apartments in the center, or apartments with three or more rooms, will usually be above the $2000 range, and can easily go up to $10,000 or more per month. Unless you are bringing your family or are particularly picky, though, you should be able to find reasonable accommodations for between $1000-$1800 a month.

35 Next, how do you find these places? If you arrive in the early summer, it’s not that hard, as many Russians like to move to their dachas for the summer and are not averse to earning a bit of extra cash subletting. You can seek people like this out by making a posting on the www.expat.ru forums, which is a web site where expats and English speaking Russians exchange news and list things that they have for sale. Everyone on the list has an email address and speaks English, so you can correspond directly with them from home and arrange to look at the available flats upon arrival.

Another solution is to contact a real estate agency. There are many quite good English-speaking agents in the city who will help you find places for a fee of 2 to 1 month’s rent–usually depending on the term of the rental. Some of the English-speaking agencies that are more likely to deal in short term, mid-priced apartments are:

Flatlink www.flatlink.ru, [email protected], 363-4435 Evans Realty (one month minimum) 232-6703/04 [email protected], www.evans.ru; Beatrix, 626-4488/4905 www.beatrix.ru; [email protected] Noviy Gorod, 974-7364, 975-8991, www.newcity.ru; [email protected] Penny Lane Realty (three months minimum) 232-0099, www.realtor.ru Blackwood, 730-2000, 915-4000, [email protected], www.blackwood.ru . Pullford, 232-3158, 299-1594, www.pullford.ru; [email protected]

Don’t forget to ask the agency’s fee in advance and calculate the fee into your rental budget.

There are also some web-entrepreneurs who act as go-betweens between Russian landlords and Western visitors for either month-to-month or short-term services apartments. These include www.apartmentsnetwork.com, Russia Info Center http://www.russia-ic.com/travel/lodging/apart-moscow-short/, www.all- hotels.ru/index.eng.html and www.enjoymoscow.com. Most of these actually show photos or web videos of the available flats so that you can feel safer about renting them site-unseen, but remember that for the most part these web- intermediaries don’t offer the flats themselves and don’t guarantee the quality of the places.

If you want to start your search after you get here, there are some magazines, like Iz Ruk v Ruki (Hand to Hand) where people advertise, in Russian of course. Unfortunately for the budget-minded, most of the magazine ads are themselves placed by agencies. Another one is Arenda, which advertises direct rentals with no realtor ads, but it gets quickly snapped up on the newsstands on Monday mornings. Ads found in the English-language papers

36 are also a good place to look, although they are usually geared to people with high-end corporate budgets, and usually direct you to the realty agencies listed above.

If you are interested in homestays or roommate shares you might have success by gluing fliers near university campuses. Placing an ad in English, offering to exchange English practice and cash for a spot on the living room sofa, is a cheap housing solution that sometimes works for students. Russia Info Center, mentioned above, also advertises homestays, as does www.cheap- moscow.com.

One final apartment hunting tip: unless dealing with a well reputed rental agency NEVER PAY RENT TO ANYONE FOR ANY REASON before you actually sign the lease, get the keys and can put your stuff in the apartment. There have been incidences where people have found a landlord in the newspaper, paid a month’s rent and then arranged to meet the landlord at a fixed time to pick up the key, only to find the apartment rented to someone else and the supposed landlord non-existent.

Also beware of “fee per view” arrangements. There have been times where agents have required fees of up to 1000 rubles ($43) just to see an apartment, and the unwary student has found that the landlord was never interested in anything less than a year lease and the real price was nowhere near the price the agent quoted.

Getting Around the City

Moscow boasts one of the world’s greatest public transportation systems, and it is probably right. The subway or “metro” has multiple lines radiating across the city, and a circle line that connects them all. Metro trains run approximately two to six minutes apart from about 5:30 in the morning till about 1:00 in the morning, however the number of trains that run changes, and occasionally a train will stop carrying its passengers. So if you see everyone getting off all of a sudden, don’t panic, it usually means that the train is heading off for the depot. Follow the crowd and get on the next one.

Metro lines are named, numbered and color coded. So, although the sheer size of the system can be daunting, the metro is fairly easy to use (although every long-term visitor can name one favorite station that they always get lost in) and convenient because the metro avoids the traffic jams that can occur aboveground. Be sure to check the exact metro closing time at your particular station if you are planning to stay out late.

Busses, trolleys and trams run about every ten or fifteen minutes in the daytime, down to about once in a half hour at night. They might stop running at various times, so also be sure to check the schedule, which (if you are lucky) will be posted on the walls of each bus stop.

To ride the metro you purchase paper tickets which currently cost 19 rubles a ride (a little under a dollar). The ticket will take you anywhere the metro goes, and transfers between metro lines (without leaving the station) are included. Tickets are purchased at a booth inside the metro station for groups of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 or more rides. If you purchase 10 or more rides, you get a snazzy plastic ticket-card. You can also purchase a one month pass (which deceptively only gives you 70 rides in the month). If you have a paper ticket (5 rides or less), you insert the ticket in a slot in a row of pass-through points, pull it out again, wait a fraction of a second for the green light to show, and walk through. If you have a plastic ticket-card, you wave it over the target-like sensor on the pass-through point, and wait for the green light, or for a number to show up indicating that a ride has been deducted from your ticket. It looks like there is nothing to stop you from walking through, but if you don’t wait for the green light or the number a nasty bar shoots out at about crotch level to prevent you from passing and perhaps damage your family plans! (Moscow is slowly changing over to a more modern system with gates that open to let ticket holders through. We think this is part of Putin’s drive to increase the birth rate.)

To ride the bus, trolley or tram you purchase tickets good for all three types of transport. They are available in the metro ticket booths or at ticket booths located in the bus stops (if any) for 20 rubles a ticket, or you can purchase them from the bus driver for 25 rubles. Nowadays most of the buses are equipped with a pass-through point at the front door, so entrance is only allowed at that door. You put the ticket in and then pull it out again. Some busses still have an older system with a real conductor who can sell you tickets and check your tickets. If the conductor isn’t on board, then it’s an honor system—you get on the bus, and then insert your ticket into a little punch machine and punch it. Once in a while an inspector/conductor will get on board and ask to see your ticket. If you don’t have a ticket you could be fined. Although the fine is minimal, the tickets are also a minimal price, so please purchase them and support the Moscow transportation system.

If you want, you can purchase one monthly pass for all types of Moscow transportation. These cost about 1300 rubles or the equivalent of about $60, so they are not a great savings in cost, but it can be very useful not to have to worry about buying tokens and tickets all the time.

38 When out of Moscow, cities may or may not have metros, but all have bus, trolley and tram systems that work much the same way. Unfortunately you cannot use your tickets from one city in another city and will have to purchase new ones.

Getting around by “taxi” can be a real experience. First, there are very few official taxis just driving around Moscow—especially not outside the city center. Second, almost any private car driver is willing to work as a “gypsy cab” and stop to give you a ride if you want. In the daytime, riding in the gypsy cab is probably safe enough–there have been very few hitchhiker horror stories in Russia. Use your common sense however. Don’t get into the car if you don’t like the look of the driver, if the door handle is broken off so you could not exit easily, or if there is someone else in the car. Don’t get into the front seat with the driver—sit behind him instead. Don’t take unofficial taxis at night unless it is an emergency or you are accompanied by a friend. If it is an emergency, have someone go with you to hail the taxi, and conspicuously write down the license number of the driver. This should deter all but the most determined muggers. Also (loudly-if you speak Russian) arrange to call back your friend after you get home to let him/her know you are safe.

Gypsy cabs will charge between 150 and 300 rubles for most trips. (Sometimes a Russian can bargain them down to 100 rubles, but foreigners are seldom so lucky.) Official taxis cost about the same. The usual rule of thumb is to agree on the price before getting in the cab. You can usually bargain. If the driver won’t budge on the price and you think it is too high, just put your hand out again and flag down another cab. At the time of this writing, the fair price in Moscow for a ride of 5 to about 15 minutes was 100-150 rubles, longer rides go up to about 200-500, especially at night or if the driver is stuck in traffic for a while. You can get all the way across town in bumper-to-bumper traffic for about 600-800 rubles, so never believe it if a driver tries to charge you more.

If the taxi driver doesn’t ask about the cost of a ride with you in advance, in official cabs you just get in and have to be ready to pay whatever he asks– which can be really high. Contrarily, if a gypsy cab driver doesn’t ask in advance, it usually means he will accept any fair amount you are willing to give him. But it’s always better to state a price in advance just to make sure you won’t have a nasty confrontation at the end of your ride.

If you have the foresight to know where you are going at least a half-hour in advance, there are many taxi services where you can order a car by the phone. Three that we like are Taxi Blues, a large service with multiple phone numbers 105-5115, 128-9477/5957/7763, 214-6409, ,212-4703; 232-Taksi, at that easy to remember number or 232-1111; and Taxi Dlya Vas (Taxi For You) 747-

39 7488, 941-1031. All work 24 hours. The prices are not much higher than gypsy cabs. They average of about 250 rubles for any trip less than 30 minutes and 3-4 rubles each minute after.

A ride to an airport is considerably more expensive than standard taxi prices. This is in part because the “taxi mafia” might hassle your driver for a kickback, and he understandably wants to be compensated for the risk. Expect to pay around 1000-1500 rubles or more, depending on the airport and time, for both gypsy and official cabs. If you are leaving for the airport at an odd time, be sure to call and reserve a cab the night before.

Getting Outside the City

Overnight train travel is both the last great bargain and the last great travel adventure in Russia. For prices still a good bit cheaper than you will ever see elsewhere in Europe, you can rent yourself and a friend a first class sleeper compartment to practically any city in Russia. Or, go cheaper at four to a compartment with bunk beds. Whichever way you go, bringing a picnic dinner, plenty of vodka and wine, and a guitar. Well, the guitar isn’t necessary, but it’s a great addition to the party. If you are lucky you will make lots of interesting friends from the next compartments, get more than a little tipsy, and learn some Russian folk songs to impress your friends when you get back home.

As with everything in the new Russia, however, we have to warn you. Russian train travel is no longer as safe as it used to be, and tourists are potential targets. We would advise you against traveling alone. Taking a group of people, and preferably one of them a Russian speaker, is by far the safest solution. Leave your valuables back home and take only what you need for the excursion. The seats of bunks lift up to provide secure storage—if you keep your possessions under you the thief has to lift you up to get your things. Also be careful who you are associating with on the train—if they don’t look like the kind of people you would want to be friends with back home, they probably aren’t the kind of people you would want to be friends with here.

The train compartments these days are usually equipped with special locks that stop the compartment handles from being turned with a key inserted from the outside. Be sure to put your lock on before retiring for the night. If you don’t have one of those locks, try inserting a cork into the lock on the inside (see, there is a legitimate reason for bringing a bottle of wine). You can also try securing a belt or cord lock between the door handle and the coat hooks inside the compartment. Finally, we suggest putting towels or clothing near the bottom of the compartment door so that anyone coming in will trip and wake

40 you. Of course, the ultimate solution to avoid being robbed in your sleep is to stay up singing all night.

Plane travel is not anywhere near as pleasant as the train in Russia. Aeroflot, and the numerous babyflots that it has become, are still ready to teach you the meaning of the word bureaucracy. Come very early for your flight— about two hours early is best. Don’t expect them to willingly grant you things like special meal requests or even non-smoking seats. Just sigh and be lucky that you got a seat at all. (Don’t forget your passport—you can’t get on even a domestic flight without it.)

The one exception to the local airline disaster is Transaero (Moscow booking office—788-8080). They charge a bit more, but last time we tried it they actually had an American made plane, served us California wine, and departed and arrived on time.

Finding Things

Maps are readily available in bookstores, in newspaper kiosks and from individual vendors in various underpasses and metro areas of Moscow. Although you can occasionally find a map with the English alphabet, we would highly recommend getting one with the Russian alphabet and taking a day or two to learn the sounds of the letters. Reading a map in English does you little good when faced with a Russian street sign.

Comprehensive telephone books are generally unavailable in Moscow, although you can get a number of various “yellow page” directories. They all operate on a voluntary submission basis, and some charge for listings, so none are really complete. The English language ones are more geared to the needs of the Western visitor, so we will only discuss these.

Probably the best phone book is the Moscow Business Telephone Guide, which is distributed free once a month at various shops, hotels and restaurants around Moscow. Precisely because it is good and free, it is often hard to get copies--if you see some around, grab them up for all your friends. Although the main listings are in Russian, there is an English index.

“Traveler’s Yellow Pages” combines the phone book function with some other handy information for visitors. It also has an on line version: http://www.infoservices.com/moscow/index.html

41 For tourist guides of Russia, take your choice of those available in your local bookstore. Largely the difference is just a matter of whose writing and organizational style you like the most. The only thing to beware about is the publication date. Things changed fast here in the 1990’s. Anything older than 2000 should be donated to an antiquities museum. Nothing before 2006 should be relied upon for restaurant and club reviews.

English Language Reading Materials

Moscow has four main English language newspapers and Saint Petersburg has one. Other cities get a smattering of English language news from papers brought in from the capital.

The main daily Moscow paper, which is really a pretty good publication, is The Moscow Times (www.themoscowtimes.com). The Moscow Times (as well as the Saint Petersburg Times) is edited by native speakers.

The weekly Moscow News is the oldest English language paper. It is owned and run by Russians, and was originally designed for publicizing Soviet news abroad. Some of the articles are difficult to read due to awkward English, but the paper is worth picking up because it often carries in-depth interviews with interesting political figures.

The Exile (www.exile.ru) is a Western rag that targets the youth Expat crowd. Once you get past the sensational journalism and sexploitation covers, you will find one of the best reviews of the Moscow club and bar scene. Because of the popularity of the paper among students, it can be hard to find in the summertime. One should look for it in several bars around Moscow. The online version is found at www.exile.ru

Speaking of on line papers, The Russia Journal, a paper well known for excellent political news and previously widely available in Moscow hotels and restaurants, is now only available on line at www.russiajournal.com.

There are a few other papers designed for visiting business people and other special interest groups; but these four papers are the only ones to have made a serious mark with the expat population.

As far as magazines go, there are a number of tourist mags published in English that can be really handy for finding places to go and things to see. GO! Magazine is about nightlife in the city, includes all interesting places in Moscow, popular cafes, bars, restaurants and Moscow’s best clubs. You can find

42 it at coffeeshops and other similar places. Where Moscow” and “Where St. Petersburg” magazines are the same type of thing as GO!, but perhaps a bit more for the older crowd. “Passport” is another glossy monthly that purports to cater more to the long term expat. Both “Where” and “Passport” are usually found in hotels and restaurants.

Besides newspapers and magazines there are several bookshops that carry English language books: Anglisskaya Bookshop (18 Kuznetski Most; 628- 2021) is a branch of the British Shwemmers chain. Anglia British Bookshop (299-5416, 11/6 Staropimenovski Per) is another British chain, as is Britaniya, 925-7562 near metro Paveletskaya. English language novels are also available in special sections of the largest Russian language bookshops: Dom Knigi, on Novie Arbat Street; Moskovski Dom Knigi, on Tverskaya Street; and BiblioGlobus near metro Lubyanka.

Keeping in Touch

-MAIL

The Russian mail system is rather poor, but improving. We were absolutely thrilled to see a letter arrive from Virginia in only two weeks last year! Mail arrives about 80% of the time, so, for anything important, experienced Muscovites rely on e-mail.

Another option is to rent a box with a foreign mailing address. Two or three services in town offer a mailing address in a Western city to which your friends can send post, and from which their service will forward your mail on to Moscow in a bulk express mail package, and will drop it into your box at their addresses in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. The most popular of these is Independent Postal Service (Malaya Dmitrovka 29, 733-9073, [email protected]). It has addresses in the US and in Western Europe to which people can send you mail. Boxes cost an average of $40 per month for about 4 pounds of mail. It also has a service that allows you to send and receive letters through them without having a box (for prices of about $3.00 a letter). Foreign mailing address services are actually not much faster than two weeks for a letter, but you might stand a higher chance of receiving it.

43 -E-MAIL/WEB

By all means plan to communicate by email from Moscow. If you use a “proprietary” mail service such as AOL or your local provider’s mail service, we recommend opening a free web-based email account (www.gmail.com, www.hotmail.com, www.yahoo.com) before you come to Moscow, and having your other mail forwarded to your new box. Proprietary companies like AOL don’t always have access lines or work well in Russia.

If you have an office or educational email with a specialized website for checking mail, be sure to write down the web-site address—ask your system’s administrator. It can be really annoying to know that you left the outside access website safely stored in the internet explorer “favorites” file on your desktop computer back home!

Internet access, while still more expensive and slower than in the US, is rapidly improving in Russia. If you bring your laptop, you can buy ISP service in the form of plastic cards that sell for between $5 and $10 for a limited number of hours. (Average price is about 60 cents an hour.) The cards are available in computer stores and kiosks all over Moscow and St. Pete, and are the most convenient way to buy on-line time. Quality of card-based providers varies from very good to rotten. We highly recommend the card system if you will only be in Russia for a couple of months. Beware, however, card instructions generally require a bit of Russian ability to figure out.

If you want more hours of access than a card provides, prices for an Internet service provider account range from about $20 to $100 a month, depending on how fast and how much you want to access the internet. Some providers have more services and even allow you to dialup access from abroad, while the cheaper ones have strictly Russian access. Two services with English language interface are Golden Telecom (787-1222) www.goldentelecom.com and Comstar (956-0000) http://www.comstar-uts.com/ Another popular provider is Relcom, which runs Russia’s trunk network.

Another option is to talk to your landlord and see if you are staying at an apartment that is capable of being wired up for ADSL access (about 70% of Moscow and 95% of downtown). For $40 worth of hardware (if your laptop has an Ethernet port) and $25 per month, you get unlimited high-speed access through Stream. www.stream.ru They also provide cable TV through the same line.

Internet Cafes have become fairly popular in both Moscow and St. Petersburg. You may find one just looking for the signs, but the biggest one in

44 Moscow is Time-On-Line, http://www.timeonline.ru, located in the underground shopping mall at Manezh Square, in front of the Kremlin. It is open 24-hours. After the shopping mall closes for the night you can enter through the shopping center entrance nearest the metro, by telling the guard the super secret password: “TimeOnLine.” They have some separate cabinets where smoking is allowed. Recently, an Internet café called Pronto opened on the second floor of the Tsentralnaya hotel (Tverskaya 10).

WiFi is gaining popularity in Russia—at the time of this writing, there are 182 free “Yandex hot-spots” in Moscow, and 20 in St. Pete, as well as several others related to other providers—in popular restaurants, cafes and bars such as TGI Fridays, American Bar & Grill, Il Patio, and even McDonalds, where wireless Internet access is free if you’re a paying customer. For a list of free Yandex venues check http://wifi.yandex.ru/where.xml?lang=en).

You can also access the internet by purchasing WiFi time at practically any internet café and at some other restaurants and cafes. Kofemania cafes are WI-FI enabled, as are the Starlight Diner restaurants, the public areas of all Marriott Hotels, and the Time-On-Line internet café. For a complete list of all paid and free WiFi spots in Moscow check http://www.passportmagazine.ru/wifi/. The cost averages about $10 an hour.

One warning about e-mail, if you’re accessing the Internet via dial-up: telephone lines in Russia can be very poor, so web access can be slow and you can get lots of disconnections. For those long letters home, we recommend writing them in a word processor or in Notepad, then copying-and-pasting the contents into your email client, and sending it. That way you can avoid the “AAAAARGH!” of getting the “404: Not found,” and losing all your work, if your connection is cut.

-LONG DISTANCE

Ah yes—the telephones! The difficulty of getting phone lines to dial out of the country is directly proportional to the number of Western businesses in your neighborhood.

The cheapest option for calling home, apart from ICQ, is to buy a Russian phone card. You can purchase phone cards in the same places as internet cards—kiosks and cellphone shops. Westcall is a popular one, and so is Arctel. The Evroset chain of cellphone shops has their own card. A series of cards entitled Call Home specialize in having native language interfaces and better rates for calling to one particular country--get the one with the American flag on

45 the phone to call the US with an English language interface, the British flag to call Europe with English instructions, German flag for German language etc. All of those cards provide relatively good-quality connections, for 4-6 cents per minute to the US and Western Europe.

On the state telephone system, to dial long distance, press “8" and wait for a second dial tone. Then, to dial internationally, press “10" plus the country code (US is 1, GB is 44, France is 33), then the area code and number. So, to dial San Diego, California, for example, you would dial “8 (wait for tone)-10-1- 619-_ _ _ - _ _ _ _.”

If you can’t get through with the Russian state-run international phone service, or if your apartment or hotel room does not have the long distance enabled, and you don’t want to try a Russian phone card, you can try using your Western calling cards. The access number will be printed on information given to you by the company.

Finally, if you don’t have any calling card and have the kind of relationship that lets you hit your significant other with a huge bill, you can call collect on a couple of systems. AT&T has local access numbers that make international calling a lot easier (check at www.att.pp.ru). AT&T has an answer machine system in English. A private Russian long distance company is Aerocom, from which you can make both collect calls and Aerocom card calls to the U.S. Their number is (424-7202/7117, 938-5046). They speak Russian but when you reach them just ask for “Aerocom Call USA” or “Aerocom Card” and they will connect you to the US collect or on several different phone card systems. You get a discount if you use their proprietary card system.

-LOCAL CALLS

The local phone system is not much better than the international. If you get a busy signal or pure silence, simply call again. It takes at least two tries before you can really rest assured that your party, and not just the circuit, is not responding.

Telephone calls from pay phones are an adventure. The most popular payphone system in Moscow is run by the city MGTS, for which you can often find a machine in metros, airports, underpasses, etc., and where you can use coins or a modern metered phone card system. Thus you can join possibly the most useless collectables market in the world by purchasing decorator phone cards. They even have a catalog of the different pretty cards you can buy. (We’ll stick to stamps, thank you very much.)

Pay-phone calls are about 20 cents a minute. MGTS cards cost around 50-500 rubles, and give you 10 to 100 minutes of calls. MGTS pay-phone access can be purchased in the ticket booths in the metro stations.

-CELL PHONES

One of the better ways to stay in touch locally is to forget the pay-phones altogether and go cellular—“mobilniy telefon” as they are known here. You will be happy to know that this is one place where life is easier and cheaper in Russia than it is in the US.

Cell phones can be used in Russia if they have a GSM 900/1800 system. However, the US phones run on a 1900 system. So, if you have a tri-band phone then it will work here, but if you do not then you may have to settle for buying a phone when you get here. In addition, you will have to pay roaming charges unless you buy a local SIM card, and your US provider-specific phone may be locked into your provider’s system back home.

You may have two options then: find a hacker who will unlock your US phone for you, or buy a Russian phone. We suggest the latter (not only is it cheap, but you won’t be violating your contract with your US provider).

Russian phones (with the exception of two new systems called Skylink and Corbina) aren’t locked into a particular provider system. That’s handy because you can just switch providers if you change cities or change your mind. Plus, if you have a travel bug, the Russian phone you buy will work easily anywhere in Europe, with any SIM card you want to put in it.

Almost all Russian cell phone providers have pay-as-you go systems, so there is no monthly service contract and no charges accrue when you stop using the phone. This is handy if you are planning to travel back to Moscow a few times during the next couple of years and want to keep the same phone number. Plus the cost per minute of calls is much cheaper than most such systems in the US (as low as 1-2 cents per minute, no charges for incoming calls).

You can buy a new (not modern) phone starting from $40 and a used one even cheaper. Ones with fancy colors and features, and that are not fashion stigmas cost at least $100, up though $600 for an I-phone. To get your Russian cell phone, first you chose and buy your phone and then, at the same store, you select your service and get a SIM card to put in your phone.

47 The biggest cell phone distributor in Moscow is called Evroset. There are two huge Evroset stores on Tverskaya Street, not far from the Kremlin, and smaller outlets dotted all around Moscow. Other big and reputable dealers are Svyaznoy 3 and Dixis. You can also find independent kiosks that sell cells all over the city. Just look for big signs with the sign “Salon Svyazi” (communications salon), or the logos of the major phone service providers. General electronics shops also have cell phone sections.

Sim cards go for $5 and up. The monthly payments could vary from free to $100, with calls varying from about a penny to 15 cents a minute. Stay away from plans marked “executive” or “global” unless you want to pay an arm and a leg. There are three main operators: Beeline, MTS and Megaphone (and several smaller operators that we won’t discuss). Of those, MTS is probably the most expensive, but has the most thorough coverage throughout Russia.

Megaphone is popularly considered the cheapest of the three main phone systems, but they are notorious for giving false busy signals on their phone exchanges.

Most of the service providers require you to produce your original passport. Some dealers may want to see proof of your Moscow address and we don’t know what documentation of your address they will require. Your best bet is to ask the clerk in the phone store what you need before you start choosing your phone. Or, better yet, take along a Russian friend and get a pay-as-you-go account using his or her passport and address.

If you get a cell phone here, you should also think about what kind of number you want. The cheapest, and most popular option for individuals, is to get a “federal number” which requires your callers to dial “8" (the long distance number–equivalent to dialing 1 in the US) plus a three digit area code, usually beginning with “9.” This requires the persons calling you to pay a small long distance charge (about 4 cents per minute) unless they are calling from another cell phone on the system, but it saves you a lot of money over having a Moscow based cell number. Practically everyone uses these federal numbers for personal use, although due to the charge to the caller from landlines, and for general prestige reasons, they are considered poor manners when used for business.

If you want someone to call you from abroad on your cell phone, you should change the “8” extension to “7.” Then they should dial the area code and number as usual. Ie: From Moscow 8-926-234-5678, from abroad 7-926-234 etc.

48 If you are sending calls from your Russian cell phone to someone abroad, or to someone in Russia with a foreign service provider and roaming you probably need to dial + before the area code and number. Refer to your phone manual for how to dial the + sign.

Food

As mentioned in the section on “What to Bring,” the Russian diet is heavily meat and fish based, and they combine this base with lots of starch. Russian food can be delicious, but is designed to pad the bones for those heavy winter months. In other words, expect to gain a few pounds if you stick to a Russian diet.

If you go out for Russian cuisine you will find that the largest part of the menu is made up of “zakuski” (appetizers). The tradition here is to order multiple appetizers and a small main course. You can even skip the main course without even getting a sideways glance from the waiter.

If you are at a Russian dinner party, you will find that the zakuski are interspersed on the table with multiple bottles of vodka. Throughout the meal people will make elaborate toasts. Hint #1: pour small glasses for yourself, you are expected to drink it all down. Hint #2: eat lots of bread. Hint #3: NEVER try to out-drink a Russian.

If you get tired of Russian food there are plenty of foreign restaurants in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. (In fact, these days Russian food restaurants are harder to find and more expensive than foreign food restaurants.) Pizza parlors, Sushi bars and those really exotic American restaurants are springing up all over. They tend to be at least twice as expensive as you would expect from their counterparts in the U.S., so check the prices before you sit down. Hint: The Bizness-Lunch has hit Moscow with a vengeance. You can save a lot of money if you eat out for lunch instead of for dinner. The following restaurants are recommended by our students and staff:

The best deal on Chinese is the lunch special at the Junka (Junk Boat) (203-9420), behind the Mkhat Theater on Tverskoy Blvd., five minutes from Pushkin Square. Chinese lunch is about 350 rubles from 12:00 until 4:00pm weekdays. The food is greasier than you would get in the US, but about the best Chinese in town. Prices are higher in the evening. Kitaisky Kvartal (Chinese Block) is another really nice place. You will be surprised with the low prices, big portions and excellent service. The number is 105-5098, it works 24 hours and located near metro Prospect Mira.

Tibet (623-2422), on Kamagerchisky Pereulok (a pedestrian street off Tverskaya, about two blocks from the Kremlin) also has a great lunch special for about $10, if you don’t mind eating your food under a huge picture of the Dali Lama draped in mourning cloth.

If you are in the mood for a romantic French meal, someone suggested Metropolis which is located near Mayakovskaya Metro station. We are told it has good food and “a really cool interior.” Dinner for two with wine will set you back about $70 though. A less pricey alternative is the French brasserie Jean-Jacques at 12 Nikitski Boulevard, (290-3886) which is known for good French food and even better French wine. We recommend the steaks and the onion soup.

For Mexican, try La Cantina (692-5388) on Tverskaya Street not far from the Kremlin, is also good despite pretty high prices. Also, we can recommend Santa Fe (256-1487), a big place, popular with expats, located near the World Trade Center. Finally, one certain Pericles vice-dean highly recommends Pancho Villa (www.panchovilla.ru) near the Oktyabrskaya metro station for a lively dinner out, featuring live bands, all-night dancing, “tequila- shot waitresses” and a nice mix of locals and expats—all for a steep-but- reasonably-steep tab.

Indian food is really tasty in Moscow, although a bit expensive. Try Maharajah (921-9844/7758) on Ulitsa Pokrovka 2/1, just off Ulitsa Maroseyka, across the street from the Byelorussian embassy. Another good one is Barbar on Leninskij Prospekt. And Tandoor, 299-8062 in the concert hall complex close to Mayakovskaya Metro, has an Indian and Chinese kitchen.

For American food, we can suggest American Bar and Grill (located near Mayakovskaya metro station (250-9525, 251-7999). Starlite Diner is another popular place. There are two: one is near Mayakovskaya metro, hidden in a garden behind the Satire Theater (290-9638), another is at Oktyabraskaya Square (959-8919). It has a real American diner, shipped whole from Colorado, and it serves Starbucks coffee. T.G.I. Fridays has an outlet located right next to Pushkin Square (200-3921; 200-5653), and also several others around the city. Hard-Rock Café (244-8970/8973) was opened on 44 Staryi Arbat – 3 floors of live music, drunk people and American food. More upscale is Uncle Guilley’s (933-5521) steak house located in the former home of a pre-revolutionary gourmet (Stoleshnikov pereulok, d.6), and other recommended steakhouses include Stone’s Louisiana Steak House, 951-4244, Bldg 4, 30 Pyatnitskaya Ulitsa, and American Steak House, 931-9000 18/1 Olimpiysky Prospect. Also more upscale, but less in the meat lovers’ realm, is Simple Pleasures (960-

50 5076, 207-1521, Sretenka Street) which has more modern (ie healthy) American cuisine, with a large covered patio on the roof. It’s classy but not too expensive, and a great place to sit and watch the rain on warm days. For beer or wine and a fancy burger after work there is also the patio at Scandinavia (937-5630). The patio is not outrageous and is very popular for happy hour with the expat crowd (or you can go the more expensive route and eat real Scandinavian food inside). And at the bottom end of the spectrum, don’t forget one of the thirty or so McDonald’s in town. (These days it’s declasse to collect McD’s placemats in cyrillic, but we won’t tell.) Also, for you chicken fans, a Russian counterpart to KFC is Rostiks—with outlets all over the city.

There are many Italian places in town. Il Patio (251-0884) is popular with Americans because of its reasonable prices and good salad bar. It specializes in Italian style, thin crust pizza. There are three or four around Moscow. The one across from the Pushkin Museum really does have a patio (hence the name of the chain) with a great view of Christ the Savior Cathedral. One of our favorites for northern Italian cuisine is Venetsia (Strasnoy Blvd 4/3, 650-6009 or 694-5862, www.trattoria.venezia.ru). The food is flavorful and reasonably priced by Moscow standards. Be prepared for a wait during peak hours—its very popular and they don’t take reservations. And a more upscale choice, La Cipolla d’Oro, which serves gourmet Italian at Ghiliarovskogo 39, is where Berlusconi reportedly dined when he visited Russia.

Fast food pizza is available from Sbarro’s, found on the ground floor of Manege Square shopping mall, on Tverskaya about two blocks toward the Kremlin from Pushkin Square, and at a bunch of other places around town. Watch out though, this fast food style pizza can outprice all the other pizza chains in town. For American style pizzas that deliver there are two: Jack’s (956-6196) and Domino’s (788-0898). Jack’s is more upscale and tasty. Lots of businesses order Jack’s pizzas and sandwiches for lunch meetings; but Jack’s is also pretty expensive. Dominos is, well, Dominos. Russian style pizza is a little more basic, but cheaper, and home delivery is freely available. Try TransPizza for web ordering (www.transpizza.ru), Funny Pizza (613-1320 supposedly the cheapest in Moscow for the size--250-350, ie $9-12 rubles for a big pie), Pizza Fabrika, www.pizzafab.ru, or Imperia Pizza (790-7797) (also cheap eats).

Sushi bars are last year’s big fashion trend in Moscow and there are still hundreds hanging on. We have tried, and liked, Yapona Mama, near the old Circus on Tsvetnoy Blvd, Planeta Sushi at Mayakovskaya Square, and Yakitoria, with outlets all over town. One student recommends Sushi Elite on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street, which has a very good atmosphere, but is probably a bit more expensive than the chain sushi-bars. Benihana’s is the latest addition

51 to the Japanese food crowd in Moscow. In case you don’t know it, it’s a teppaniaki chain with high prices, personal chefs who throw knives around in front of your face, and crowds of foreign businessmen eating there.

The past couple of years Moscow has also been making itself quite a name for “Fusion” cuisine. The high fashion statement the food makes also makes it the most expensive. Some fashionable fusion restaurants are Vanill (202-3341) on Ostozhenka Street near Kropotkinskaya metro, Uley (797-4333), which looks like something right out of La-La Land; and the stylish and popular Vogue Café (7/9 Kuznetsky Most, 623-1701), which manages to fuse modern food plus old Soviet food together. Again, they ain’t cheap. Another one that some call the hippest place in town is called Seer (Cheese) (16/2 Sadovaya Samotechnaya, 650-7770, 209-7247). Expect to spend your entire year’s budget, and then some. Since it’s out of our budget we haven’t tried it, but oddly enough some people call it fusion cuisine and some people call it Italian!

Not quite fusion, but more mixture is what we would call “Drova,” a chain of restaurants around Moscow that specialize in all-you-can-eat buffets serving everything from soup and salad to sushi. We really have no words to describe what you can get here apart from “cheap and filling.” A similar competitor that isn’t bad is Rahat Lukum, a 24 hour all-you-can-eat place that calls itself an “Eastern Restaurant.” (There are several locations around town— try Bolshaia Dmitrovka, 514-6478, and Ul Pokrovka 623-8022).

Bucking the meat-based diet tradition, there are even popular vegetarian restaurants in Moscow now. One is called Juggernaut, at 11 Kuznetski Most (928-3580). You have your choice of sit down menu or smorgasbord, with prices based on the weight. The ceremonial teas and healthy deserts are also very good. Prices are reasonable, and there is an attached vegetarian grocery and head shop. Also a new vegetarian café, Avocado (623-29-58) opened on Chistoprudny Boulevard –pretty cheap but not very tasty is the report we are getting. Vegetarians and meat eaters alike will love Sindbad (on Nikitski Blvd 14, where it intersects with Bolshoia Nikitskaya 291-7115 café@sindibad.ru), a cheap and tasty Lebanese café. Order the “maza” platter for a taste of every vegetarian dish on the menu, or let the meat eaters order gyro sandwiches (“sharma” in Russian), and finish off with a bong full of flavored tobacco.

For Russian food, there is a whole chain of “Yolki-Palki” (literally translated “Fiddle-Sticks”) restaurants in Moscow now. They are done in the old Russian tradition. Cafe Margarita (743-3625) on Patriarch’s Pond is a must for those who are fans of the novel Master & Margarita. Prices are average. Slightly cheaper is Grabli, on Prospect Mira near the Alexeyevskaya metro and at several other locations around the city. Grabli’s theme is “large and cheap”

52 with a huge menu of over 200 items and the average bill about 200 rubles. On the opposite end of the price spectrum you can try the Writer’s Club Restaurant, another setting from the Master & Margarita, that is quite possibly the classiest place in town. The Pushkin Cafe, 739-0033, opened in a glamorous three story mansion near Pushkinskaya, is also worth a try if you don’t have a budget. Ruskoe Bistro is the Russian version of McDonalds. They serve mainly “piroshki”-- mini-pies that you eat as a main course. They are edible, but after a while it gets old.

Be sure to visit restaurant Club Petrovich (623-0082), where you can try a Soviet cousin - "the best" dishes from the former Soviet Republics. There is a club system (everyone knows everyone through someone), however, you can get there without a club card from 10 am until 4 pm. This time you can effectively spend eating a roast suluguny (Georgian cheese) and Solyanka (meat soup) and trying to locate a club member, who will invite you to Saturday's party (getting there, you will understand who these strange Russians are).

Georgian food is an often reasonably priced treat; it is a bit spicier than Russian food, and most Americans seem to like it. Unfortunately many of the best Georgian places in town were closed last year due to a political spat between Russian and Georgia. (Surprisingly the government was petty enough to close down all the Georgian restaurants and ban Georgian wine.) One we know is still open outsmarted the government by disappearing the name but not removing the restaurant. It used to be called Dioskuria and now is just called “café.” It is located behind the Central Telegraph building on Noviy Arbat, through the arch in the middle of the building—look for a small house with a fence around it, which looks totally out of place surrounded by a bunch of high rise buildings—but don’t look for a sign. Try the baklazhani (eggplant), green lobio (refried beans) and shashlik (shish kebab). Other Georgian restaurants which all succumbed to the political pressure but whose phone numbers at least have made a comeback and so might be open again by the time you read this are Mama Zoyas (5 minutes walk from metro Kropotkinskaya (637-7743) and another located near metro Frunzinskaya (8-499-242-8550) ) and Guria (ten minutes walk from metro Park Kulturi, situated on a river boat, 261-7741). Both are cheap and good. A few of more pricey but good Georgian hotspots are Genatsvale (695-0401 12/1 Ostozhenka Street) which boasts two halls, one normal and one VIP; Rioni, at 27 Krasina Street (254-9194, 254-9664) small with a romantic atmosphere, but about $25-30 per person.

Uzbek food is a more expensive and more Middle-Eastern version of the Georgian stuff. Try Beloye Solntse Pustnyi (White Sun of the Desert) (621- 4678) complete with Belly dancers and a huge salad bar (but no Afghani terrorists here). Bring your credit cards, it’s a bit pricy. There is also Shesh-

53 Besh, which is a kind of generic Middle-Eastern chain found in several Moscow locations.

Actually, there is almost a rule in Moscow—if it has two names that rhyme, it is one of several chains of semi-Eastern theme restaurants that are a few steps above fast food: Yolki-Palki (Russian), Kish-Mish (Middle-Eastern) Shesh-Besh (Middle-Eastern), Moo-Moo (theme of early cow—you have to see it to understand), Shuri-Muri (similar barnyard theme), Shashlik-Mashlik (shish-kebab). All of them are mid range prices and consistent quality—good places to drop in if you are wandering the town and suddenly want to sit down for a bite to eat.

For Ukrainian and Jewish cuisine with a neat theme try Shinok (255- 0204/0888). Food is expensive but portions are large. Make reservations and ask for a table near grandma and the horse (they will know what you mean).

Another Ukrainian place is Taras Bulba Korchma, easy to find because of its huge logo of a tough looking dude with a pony tail. It’s at 12 Smolensky Boulevard, near Smolenskaya Metro (246-6902).

Finally, for light fare, Moscow boasts numerous good cafes and coffee houses. If you like simple food, you are fan of sandwiches, fruit cocktails and “glintvine” the best place for you in Moscow is Ludi kak Ludi café (People like People). It’s a small cosy place, one minute walk from “Kitai Gorod” station. There are only six tables, the place is always crowded but prices are very pleasant and service is perfect. Foreigners usually like it a lot. Don’t forget to make a reservation (621-1201). Book Café (694-0356) is a good idea if you have no budget. It is a really stylish and fashionable place. There are three rooms decorated in hi-tech style: the yellow room is the best for lunch and daytime meetings, blue one is for your dates and orange is always good. The cuisine is fusion but the main thing is that there are books, of course - they have a plenty of stylish photograph albums. A similar concept is found at Bilingua Café & Bookshop, Krivokoleniy Pereulok 10, www.bilinguaclub.ru, which is popular with the artsy student set. The second floor has a bar so it’s a night spot as well as a café. The New York Times reviewed this place and rated it as “bohemian.” See it in the round at moscow.360cities.net/fs.html?loc=clubs_bilingua_ogi.p36

If you happened to meet a pretty girl and you want to make an impression on her we advise you two good cafés: Sad (Garden, 239-9009) and Aldebaran (953-6268/6306). Both places are not far from Tretiakovskaya Metro station. Aldebaran has higher prices, good service and delicious deserts. Sad is an open- air café, romantic and cozy, much cheaper than Aldebaran.

Coffee houses are generally chains available in several locations around Moscow. All are of similar price and quality, but we will recommend Kofemania (Wi-Fi internet access), Chocoladnitsa (great hot chocolate), and, our favorite (because it is right downstairs from our office), “the Bean” or CoffeeBean chain. Oh, and recently on the old Arbat they opened some obscure, unknown coffee house called Starbucks.

FYI: there is a free restaurant rating service (788-0600, 956-8866, 956- 6688), they speak English, know every place in Moscow (at least the address and telephone) and can reserve in most of them. Also see www.menu.ru (they have an English version)!

By the way, the appropriate tip in a Russian restaurant is about 10%.

Other hints: Russians find it normal to eat the same type of food for breakfast as you would expect for lunch and dinner. If you can’t handle a sandwich at 8am, you might want to avoid hotel breakfasts and buy some cereal and milk at a grocery store. Contrarily, soup is only ever eaten at lunchtime. And the lunch hour is late—2:00-3:00 is the peak lunch hour, and most placed don’t even open for lunch until 12:00 or 12:30.

Bars

Well, we could go on for days here, but truth is that the popular bars are changing so fast that we might send you to the wrong place anyway.

If you want crazy and wild, check out Papa John’s (22 Myasnitskaya tel: 755-9554 hours: 18:00-morning.) If you have a light stomach and are not ready to see anything then don’t go. But if you are interested in a little adventure then check this club out.

Another club to go to is Rock Vegas (Ulitsa Pyatnitskaya 29/8 tel: 959- 5333). This club tends to be a favorite for the Australian expats but they usually play live rock music and dance music. Last time there the cover band was playing ACDC and Rolling Stones. There are a lot of Russian women there but beware of the Russian girls that prey on the clubs where mostly expats hang out.

Real McCoy is the big expat place now. Located at Barrikadnaya and it is free to get in, though face control can sometimes be difficult to get past on weekends. Small but fun.

55 Club Propaganda (Bolshoi Zalatoustinksy Pereulok 7, tel: 624-5732, hours: 12:00-6:00) is the most highly recommended. Propaganda is a club that plays strictly house and funk music. It is too loud to talk but it is a good place if you like to dance. It gets very crowded on the weekends and chances are you will have to wait if you show up after 23:00. Worth going to--the crowd is fairly young. By the way, they have the best Cezar salad in Moscow, you must try it!

If you want to relax and listen to live Blues/Jazz music try B.B. King (Sadovaya-Samotechnaya 4/2 tel: 699-8206 hours: 12:00 to 2:00) or Forte (no phone but located right down the street from Pushkin Square McDonalds). Forte is especially lively when Mishouris and his Swing Jazz orchestra is playing. Both have a relaxed atmosphere and good crowd—good places to start the night.

Voodoo Lounge (Sredny Tishinsky Pereulok 5/7 tel: 253-2323). This club has a young crowd and high expat factor. Good place, like most of these clubs mentioned, to meet people. It gets crowded after 23:30. Drinks are reasonable and the dance floor is fairly big for Moscow standards.

Etage (Tverskaya Ulitsa 14 in the same entrance as Eliseevski grocery store). This bar/restaurant serves reasonably priced food and beer, and is a good place to go to unwind. This place is popular among the mid-20's crowd and there is usually a line outside the door from about 10:00pm on.

Infiniti is one of the best R’n’B and hip-hop clubs in town. It’s located just near the Krasnopresnenskaya metro station. Check www.infiniticlub.ru for details. (Druzhinnikovskaya 15 Cinema Center, 255-9056). B Club is another good R’n’B and hip-hop club. (Strasnoy Blvd 8A, near Metro Pushkinskaya, 209-4556, 200-4639 open Thursday thru Saturday).

The same person who recommended the R’n’B clubs above recommended A Priori, a small place near Noviy Arbat, Molchanovka 12/1 (open Friday and Saturday 11pm till 8am, 737-5843, 737-5844).

What claims to be the largest club in Europe is called B2 (650- 9918/9909), it is located not far from Mayakovskya Metro station-ulitsa Bolshaya Sadovaya 8. If they are not correct on the size, then at least they are close. There are five floors and eight bars, a concert hall, karaoke-club, sushi bar, pool hall and disco.

Another popular large concert venue is Apelsin Malaya Gruzinskaya Ulitsa #15, metro Krasnopresnenskaya. (253-0253) www.apelsinclub.ru. This

56 is a huge venue that has attracted some internationally known bands, and to top it off boasts two restaurants, pool tables, and a bowling alley.

Vermel is also recommended for live music on a budget. It’s a student hangout that plays rock, folk and alternative music at Raushskaya Embankment 4/5, (959-3303) metro Novokuznetskaya.

If you want ethnic, Latino and house, go to the Karma Bar (624-5633) on Kuznetski Most. Notwithstanding its popularity, it is big enough to give a good chance that you can dance instead of being squeezed in a crowd. Also, there is food and "hubbly bubbly" (you know what we mean).

If you cannot live without sports for a month, then you can go to Sport Bar (290-4498) located on the Novy Arbat. Entrance is free and they show sports on several televisions. Another option is Metelitsa (also on Noviy Arbat, 291-1130/1170, 745-5179). It is 500-1000 rubles to get in, and they have about 10 TVs set up with special sporting events piped in by satellite. For special events when they expect to draw a big crowd it costs 1000 rubles to get in. Alternatively it is 600 rubles per person to reserve a table—which must be reserved in person and paid in advance.

Another sports bar chain is Kruzhka. The most exciting thing about it is that it’s very cheap, always noisy and crowded. If you want to try something really special check it out. They have more than 20 locations around Moscow, check www.kruzhka.ru, but the most popular are at Arbat 31 (metro Smolenskaya), Myasnitskaya 32/1 (metro Chistie Prudi) and Nikolskaya 15 (metro Ploshad Revolutsii).

Finally, (and these hints come from our former night receptionist who was trying to tell us that we don’t pay her enough) here are some places worth to visit if you are looking for new impressions, if you never saw the real Russian drunks or if you are short of money:

The best place for such goals is called Pirogi (pie) (621-5827, 229-3453). One of their pubs is located on Bolshaya Dmitrovka street and another one is on Nikolskaya street. Be ready to see a lot of poor artists, students and jobless people who can do well only one thing-drink vodka! Everything in “Pirogi” is extremely cheap (50 rubles for the beer, 30 rubles for vodka!) but quality is a little bit poor. You will never forget this place!

Another good place to communicate with Russian marginal elements is Apshu (953-9944) –the modern version of “Pirogi” but with much better service and food. Good live music in the evenings. And Gogol Bar (514-0944, 628-

57 3677) on Stoleshnikov Pereulok, is pretty the same. It plays old Soviet songs from old Soviet movies in combination with Russian cuisine and cheap alcohol. Located in the centre of Moscow, it’s easy to find.

Of course this is not a complete listing of bars. Nothing beats the experience like exploring a new place yourself. If you feel adventurous then pick up the Exile newspaper (mentioned in the newspaper section) and just go to any club that sounds interesting. Please be aware that some places are more dangerous to go to than others because some places have patrons that do not like foreigners, and some places have a high mafiosi factor or high prostitute factor. The Exile rates bars on these factors to tip you off.

Oh yes, enter casinos at your own risk - at least at your wallet’s own risk. Moscow casinos are not the same as the places Mom and Dad spent their weekend Las Vegas vacation. The gamblers often take their business very seriously and the stakes can be high. The cover charges are sometimes high too- -just to make sure you are serious.

Health Clubs & Fitness Centers

Now that we have told you about the good places to eat, drink, and relax, it would probably be a good time to tell you how to lose that weight that you will probably gain. Not to scare anyone here but if the first time that you eat a hot dog off the street doesn’t help you to lose weight then you are going to have to find alternate means and those will be health clubs and fitness centers. So for those of you who want to pump iron, lose a couple of pounds, or simply have a membership card to a fancy place so that you can use it to try to impress people, then here is a list of some well-noted fitness centers.

Gold’s Gym (Leningradskii Prospekt 31, bldg. 30 tel: 931-9616). Yes people Gold’s Gym is here and for the price to use it we truly believe that all the equipment is actually made of gold. Though this is an expensive and elite club, if you are already a member somewhere else in the world then you can use your membership, for free, in Russia for two weeks, “or longer, if you sneak in and they don’t catch you.” Other than that, you would have to sign up for a one year membership at a cost of $1,500 or more.

Planet Fitness (Malaya Dmitrovka Ulitsa 6 tel: 933-1124, 299-7353). This place is still a bit expensive but for what you get it seems to be worth it. Quality facilities with all the features of a Gold’s Gym but at a cheaper price. The last time we checked, about a year ago, the cost for membership was about 7000 rubles for one month, 27,000 for a year. We are not sure whether you can

58 sign up for a month or six week membership but you can call and if someone is nice enough to talk with you then you might be able to find out the answer. There are a number of them in Moscow.

The last place is rather cheap. This gym is located at the Diplomatic Academy and although we do not have an address it is located inside the Diplomatic Academy which is right across the street from Park Kulturi Metro station. You can’t miss it. The Academy is located next to the Moskva River and it is an off-green building. The cost was about $5.00 per day last time we checked, which is fairly priced for what you get. Be a bit careful though. This is the type of place where you might run into people who want to firmly discuss Bush’s middle-East policies with you.

If you want to stay healthy but don’t want to spend club fees, you can always go jogging. It used to be the sure sign that someone was a foreigner if they were caught in sweat pants jogging down a sidewalk early in the mornings. But this isn’t so true any more because fitness is beginning to catch on here. Many people go jogging along the embankment below the lookout near Moscow State University. It’s known for rollerblading too. Another place is Park Pobedy (Victory Park). In the center of the city, some people run round the Kremlin grounds and the Boulevard Ring, but this have the disadvantage of lots of traffic crossings, so is better on a weekend. Being the city that it is, Moscow also has a branch of the Hash House Harriers, a running, drinking and socializing club that meets on Sunday afternoons at 4:00 in the foyer of the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall (next to Metro Mayakovskaya).

Religion

The state religion in Russia is Russian Orthodox and, other than that, finding different churches is about as easy as finding a needle in a hay stack. However, we have found some, so here is a short list.

If you are Catholic then you can find services held at St. Ludovic’s Catholic Church (Ulitsa Malaya Lubyanka tel: 625-2034). Their services are in English at 9:30am on Sundays. They also have services in Latin (8:00am) and French (10:30am). Also popular is Our Lady of Hope Catholic Parish, Kutuzovski Prospect 7/4, Block 5, entrance 3, apartment 42, [email protected]. The last time we checked they had services in English at 6pm on Saturday and Sunday evenings and at 7:00pm every weeknight. Finally, there is the Church of the Immaculate Conception (Polish Catholic) 27 Malaya Gruzinskaya Ulitsa, 252-3911, with a multilingual mass at 12:30pm on Sundays.

If you are Anglican then there is a church near the Kremlin. St. Andrew’s Church (Voznesensky Pereulok 8 tel: 772-5842) www.standrewsmoscow.org is between the Tverskaya and Arbat metro stations. Their services, in English, are at 8:00 and 11:00 on Sundays, with evening prayers every night except Thursdays at 18:30, communion on Wednesdays at 19:00, and various other meetings and services for the community throughout the week. The Moscow Protestant Chaplaincy also conducts non- denominational services at St. Andrews at 3pm on Sundays (143-3562, Moscow Protestant Chaplaincy [email protected]).

Another non-denominational Christian congregation is Calvary Chapel (8-916-183-5345, near metro Byeloruskaya, Presnenskiy Val 29, inside the house of culture on the second floor). Services in English are Wednesdays at 7pm till 9pm and Sundays from 11:00 to 2:00.

Lutherans may go to the Lutheran Church of Peter and Paul (Starosadsky Pereulok tel: 924-5820). Unfortunately, services here are held only in German and Russian. They are 10:30 (English) and 12:30 (Russian) on Sundays.

For Jewish people there is a Synagogue, Moscow Choral Synagogue located at Bolshoi Spasoglinishchevsky Pereulok 10. (tel: 623-6749). This Synagogue is at metro Kitai Gorod,. There is also a synagogue on Bolshaia Bronaya, not far from the Pushkinskaya McDonald’s (which is not Kosher). We are sorry, but we don’t know when services are held. Finally there is the Moscow Congregation for Progressive Judaism which holds regular English- language Reform night services in Moscow. Friday night services start at 7 pm and are normally held at JCC Nikitskaya, Ulitsa Bolshaya Nikitskaya d. 47/3 (metro station Barrikadnaya, contact Rabbi Nelly Shulman, 724-1636, 637- 3711, [email protected], http://www.reform.org.ru

For Muslims there is a mosque, Main Mosque, located at Vypolzov Pereulok (tel: 681-4904). This is near Metro Prospekt Mira, which is on the orange line and the brown circle line.

Finally, if you would like to try something different then you can check out any of the numerous Orthodox churches located all around the city. This is a dominantly Orthodox society, with unbelievably ornate services. So even if you are not Russian Orthodox it is probably worth going to a couple of services just for experience sake. Women should wear head scarves, and all should expect to stand during the long services.

Shopping

It is no longer a problem to figure out where to shop in Russia. You have some fun and wonderful options in Moscow for food shopping:

First, there are several farmers markets and flea markets in every Russian city, and you are almost certain to run into at least one of them. These probably won’t be your main shopping location, but it’s worth trying them at least once just for fun. Here, the shopping system is the bargaining system--pretend you are shopping in Mexico and you will do fine. These are great places for fresh vegetables, fruits, sausages and farm cheeses. The major farmers’ markets are more closely regulated than they look. So don’t be too frightened about the sanitation–but then again don’t buy anything that looks spoiled. Watch the scales while the clerk is weighing your food.

If you prefer your food in the more packaged form, there are multiple groceries and supermarkets around Moscow. There are about 20 stores of the Turkish “Ramstore” chain scattered around Moscow. Look for a weird green kangaroo logo (no, we don’t know what that has to do with Turkey either.) Prices are quite reasonable. Metro Supermarkets are huge cash and carry places. You will save money on your groceries, but if you don’t have a car you will probably spend your savings in carrying them home. The same goes for the major Auchan, French supermarket chain. Oddly, the stores are located nowhere near subway stations, but some offer free shuttle busses to the nearest metros. Closer into the city (and for that matter all over) you will find the slightly more upscale Seventh Continent chain. By the way, they deliver if you order by web: www.7cont.ru, 777-7779. For metro-ride convenience, try the location inside the Atrium shopping center at the Kurskaya train station. There is also a Seventh Continent at the end of Stary Arbat Street, near Smolenskaya metro. If you don’t find what you want there, cross the street to the very ritzy Stockman’s Department Store, where you will find a gourmet grocery shop in the basement, which appears to be where the oligarchs shop. For a shopping/tourism experience, try Yeleseyevski Shop, on Tverskaya Street in Moscow, with a sister shop on Nevsky Prospect in St. Petersburg. Bring your camera. You’ll understand why when you get there. Vegetarians can try Juggernaut, Ul. Kuznetsky Most 11, 628-3580 (Metro Kuznetsky Most). It’s mainly a restaurant but there is a small take out grocery section.

In some smaller grocery stores and places in smaller towns, you might still find the old Soviet system of shopping--the three line system. You see what you want behind the counter and, if you want, ask the salesperson to show it to you (a little pointing and charades should get your point across if you don’t

61 speak a word). If you want it you nod your head; memorize the price or get the salesperson to write it down for you; go to a separate cashier and pay; then go back to give the saleswoman the receipt and have her wrap it up for you. It’s actually a fun system because you get much more personal contact with people than in the U.S. self-serve system. So try it if you get a chance, but expect shopping to take some time.

Enough food. Moving to electronics, you can find three big chains that are more or less the equivalent of Circuit City if you want to replace your camera or buy a surge protector, diskettes or video film. These are Teknosila, Partiya, and M-Video, each with several locations around the city. You can also order electronics on line and have them delivered. Check www.yandex.ru, Russia’s most popular web portal, for a list of price ranges and shops for almost any popular electronic gadget you may want to buy.

If you can’t resist being a mall rat while you are in Moscow, there are two huge Western style MEGA malls, located south and north of the city. Prices, though, are about double the US, so you go for the experience, not for the bargains. Plus there is a modern shopping mall located right in front of Red Square. You don’t notice it unless you are looking because it’s underground, but you can enter it from the garden in front of the square.

If you want a real Russian touristy and shoppy thing to do, you might get a kick out of looking around Moscow’s huge exhibition center V.D.N.H. (also called V.V.Ts.) This is like a state fair where you can find deals on everything from electronics to vitamins, and ride the ferris wheel while you are at it. It’s a great place to look for rotary fans and cheap portable water heaters, and just spend an afternoon wandering around checking out the fountains and buildings.

Next, while we would never recommend violating anyone’s copyright, music fans and computer fans should check out the CD and electronics market called Garbushka (for the cultural experience only of course). There was a huge crackdown on piracy a couple of years ago, but still Garbushka thrives. Everything you always wanted and a few gifts for friends back home at prices of about $5 a CD, and $5-6 for a DVD. Don’t expect a warranty though. If possible, when buying DVDs, have the salesperson play a bit to make sure the English soundtrack really exists. Ask a music fan to take you there, you will never find them without a guide, but in case you try, go to metro station Bagrationovskaya and turn left, then walk about 200 meters to the huge buildings. Once inside is where the directional fun starts—the pirate CDs and DVDs tend to move locations depending on the most recent police raid so can be hard to find. But, you can also find licensed copies there at cheaper prices than in the US.

For serious souvenir hunting, nothing beats Ismailovo market, located at metro station Ismailovski Park, on weekends. Bring plenty of cash (safely stashed, as pickpockets abound), and comfortable walking shoes, and plan to spend most of the day.

Also there is a reason to go into Suviniry Shop on Petrovka Street. It’s a bit hard to find and there’s no phone, but you turn left to the second arch in a row of buildings after Stoleshnikov if you are coming from the center, then follow the sign with a big matrushka doll through the maze of alleyways. This little shop is one of the places where the people who sell souvenirs on the Arbat Street go to buy them!

Dry Cleaning

The best places to get your laundry/dry cleaning done are Kalifornia Cleaners and Diana Cleaners, both of which have outlets all around the city. If you have $20 or more in laundry, they will pick up and deliver. They are a bit expensive, but they are the safest and most reliable of the dry cleaners in Moscow. In addition to Kalifornia Cleaners, we have found one place in Moscow where you can do laundry yourself. The place is called “Fabrika Number 25 Srochnoy Ximchistki I Stirki Belya.” Unfortunately we can not vouch for it, but it was the only one that we could find. Anyway, they are located at metro Leniniskij Prospekt, Ulitsa Vavilova 11 (tel: (8-499) 135- 0182/9361).

For other dry cleaners than the ones listed above you are taking a bit of a risk, but, as one luckless student noted “If you get your clothes back at least they are clean.”

Weather and Pookh

Moscow weather is an experience in itself. Winter begins sometime around the end of October as the first snows set in and things begin to get cold. It ends sometime around March, when the snows melt and uncover all the trash that got dropped and quickly covered over the winter. Late February and early March are some of the least attractive times to visit Moscow! Surprisingly, visiting at the height of winter isn’t too bad at all. Ostensibly due to increases in the numbers of cars, global warming has settled its major impact here, and temperatures in the heart of the city, while still below freezing, are less snowy than in olden times and usually will no longer defeat an LL.Bean winter coat.

63 The central heating system in Moscow is also very good (advantage of living in an oil and gas rich country), and houses are well winterized. So don’t be scared–we think Chicago winters are much worse and British houses are much colder. Plus, in Russia you can warm up with a little vodka.

But, Moscow is a city of extremes. After the cold winter, you might be suddenly slapped with a hot and muggy summer. Sometimes we slide through with beautiful summer weather, but almost as often we have two or three weeks–usually in June/July–of South Florida fun. It’s worse, though, than Florida, because air conditioning is rare here. Most Muscovites simply go to their dachas if the hot weather settles in the city. If you can’t talk a Russian into taking you along, you might consider buying a fan–try V.D.N.H. (See shopping section).

The best time to visit is August. Among other things, the city is practically deserted, as this is vacation month. Like Paris, the locals head for the country. There are less traffic jams, more room to dance in the clubs, etc. The weather is also not bad in September-October and in April-May. Rain happens. But not in the extreme, unless you think the Southern California rain level is normal.

In St. Petersburg the weather, like a lot of other things, is similar to Moscow but a bit less extreme. Summers can be positively pleasant. Winter temperatures are not particularly low, but feel lower because the city is close to water.

Outside these two major cities, of course, it’s impossible to describe the weather because Russia ranges from Siberia to the Crimea, and all parts in between.

The final phenomenon you need to know about, if your visit will extend through the early summer, is the latest item on George Bush’s list of Weapons of Mass Destruction: Pookh. This white fluffy stuff is generated by thousands of poplar trees that were planted in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other major Russian cities after Comrade Stalin’s orders to beautify the places. (Poplars grow quickly, and when Stalin said “do” quick was important.) Pookh appears in early June and blankets the whole place. Why is it a WMD candidate? Well, if you are prone to allergies, this stuff can wipe you out. Be sure to bring appropriate allergy medicine. But Pookh is also a dual use weapon. You light this stuff and you have an effect better than napalm. Every now and then throughout Pookh season, expect to see gangs of 10-year-old terrorists in training lighting Pookh and watching the fun. (OK, we’ll admit it, we sometimes light it too when no one is watching!)

Be careful of the pronunciation of pookh. Change the “kh” to a “k” sound and you may have told someone that you are going to light a fart.

Dispelling Some Common Mythology

Crime and Safety

Moscow is neither extremely safe nor extremely dangerous. If you take the same precautions you would in New York or other world capitals, you will probably be fine. Don’t carry around large amounts of cash except in a money belt you wear under your clothes; and don’t show your money belt in public. Be especially careful about your belongings in airports, train stations, casinos, night clubs, street fairs and other crowded areas. Avoid drunks and suspicious looking characters such as gypsies. Don’t walk alone on empty streets after dark.

This being said, one factor makes Moscow slightly more dangerous than other cities. Foreigners are known to be people with money who are unlikely to stick around in Russia throughout the duration of a criminal trial. Thus we make attractive targets for crime.

How do you avoid being a target? Blend in with the Russian community. Leave your Rolex watch, Armani suit and gold jewelry at home—unless they are fake. You don’t really need the designer tailored suit here. Unless you are working with “New Russians,” a regular shirt and tie for men, and a skirt and blouse for women will get you through a meeting with practically anyone lower than Putin (though his ties won’t win him any GQ awards either). Avoid speaking loudly in English and acting obnoxiously touristy. Gestures such as whipping out your handy camcorder in public markets or pointing and gesturing wildly at a police escorted government car are sure to make you stand out in the crowd. In areas where it is impossible to avoid looking touristy--such as when taking a guided tour of the Kremlin cathedrals--just be careful. Avoid hanging out or doing business with characters who take little regard for the law themselves. If you hang out with Russian mafiosi, you should expect your life to be as dangerous as those of Russian mafiosi.

Mace is legal, but we aren’t sure whether, after 9-11, it can be carried in your luggage. Anyway, you should carry something of this kind only if you feel 65 more comfortable doing so than not. If you are one of those people as likely to spray yourself in the face as to spray an attacker, try devices that make lots of noise instead.

Guns, except for hunting rifles, are not legally available without a special license, and you should, at all costs, avoid the temptation of purchasing military surplus weapons on the black market.

If you are the victim of a crime, call 02 (the equivalent of 911). Supposedly they speak English, but in reality not always. If you want immediate help say “Pomogite, menya agrabili!” (“Help, I’ve been mugged”) and give the address. The police should come sooner or later. If you do not speak Russian do not hesitate to use an English Crisis Line which is free, confidential, and operates 24 hours a day. You should call a paging operator at 937-9999 or 931- 9682, give the code “CRISIS” and then leave your phone number. A counselor should call you back within five minutes. A psychological crisis line in foreign languages is available at 8-926-113-3373, 8am-11pm.

If you need an ambulance call 03 and if they don’t speak English say “Ya ranin mne nuzhna pomashch!” (I’m hurt and need help). Ambulances, unfortunately, may be a bit slow. (They may have to first drop off the passenger or two they picked up while acting as a gypsy cab to make a little extra cash.)

You do not need to put money in the phone booth to make emergency calls (01 -- fire, 02 – militsia, 03 – ambulance, 04 – gas leaks). But after you call the police, call your office or program director.

Take heart however. The news media is full of stories of shootings and violence in Russia designed to bring in readers and scare the heck out of visitors. Think of it this way: in New York those stories wouldn’t make front page news.

Disease and Medicine

Russia is not the bottom of the barrel in terms of disease control. Until the demise of the communist era, the Soviet Union had a very efficient system of vaccination and disease prevention. Unfortunately, as state control of the population decreased, so did the ability of the state to insist upon preventative medicine. Then the Russian rumor mill went to work. (The Russian rumor mill, you will soon find, is incredible! Years of Party line official news, and probably a bit of the Russian soul, result in the phenomenon that rumors, no matter how outrageous, spread like wildfire.) People stopped vaccinating their kids because of fear of AIDS and rumors that certain vaccinations caused cancer or caused

66 hair to fall out. Thus, we are now beginning to see a recurrence of diseases that were all but eradicated. Remember, however, you have probably been vaccinated for most things you might catch here. If you get sick, it is most likely the regular flu and not diphtheria, malaria, tuberculosis or Bird Flu. Check with your doctor and follow the advice about what shots you should have before traveling.

In Moscow there are several Western medical clinics whose staff all speak English. Most popular are the American Medical Center (933-7700); the European Medical Center (933-6655) located at Spiridonievsky per., 5 bldg 1; American Clinic (Groholsky Pereulok 31 937-5757) and the Russian- American Family Medicine Center (250-9186), located in downtown Moscow at 2nd Tverskoy Yamskoy Per., bldg. 10. All are about equal in quality, depending on who you speak to. Of the three, American Medical Center is by far the most expensive.

For dental care you can try the European Medical Center listed above, or the German Dental Center (737-4466).

Remember, unless you purchased a traveler’s policy, your insurance will usually work on reimbursement only. Russian clinics wouldn’t recognize a Blue Cross card if you hit them with it. So don’t go out without your credit card. The exception is that American Clinic takes BUPA, CIGNA and a few other internationally known insurance cards.

Finally you might want to think about buying emergency evacuation insurance. Most US health insurance does not cover the cost of an emergency flight home.

Departure Formalities

When leaving the country, be sure to arrive at the airport at least two hours before your flight. Russia has an export customs procedure that, depending on your luck, could involve crowded lines and a bit of a delay.

If you declared something at customs on the way in, don’t throw away the customs form or migration card you filled out on arrival. Upon departure you may have to fill out a second customs declaration form, which is sometimes compared to your incoming form.

67 Most routine souvenirs need not be declared on exit; however declarable items include gallery quality paintings, antiques, caviar, gold, precious stones, military uniforms and fur coats. Russian law is vague about the line between a non-declarable souvenir and a declarable work of art. Therefore, customs officials can, if they want, treat almost every item as dutiable. They tend, however, not to be too careful in checking unless their x-ray of your belongings indicates that you bought an unusually large number of souvenirs. The moral: if you must smuggle home a Repin, only take one. Also, keep the receipts so you can defeat any customs officer’s high assessment of your painting’s dutiable value. (Military uniforms and antiques cannot be exported at all without special licenses, so don’t buy them. Russian law classifies as antique anything over 25 years old.)

Don’t worry too much however, as most foreign visitors pass through export customs without question. These days the customs officers seldom even ask for the forms.

Conclusion

We hope this guide has been helpful in giving you a brief introduction to your trip to Russia. We wish you every success in your classes or other endeavors. Please contact us if you have any suggestions for changes or updates to this guide.

Sincerely,

Your authors, Marian Dent (original 1997 edition and some updates), Daniel Repko, Alex Lebedeff, Maria Tyurnikova and Ivan Tertichniy (for updates and bar and restaurant additions) and various Pericles LL.M. students (bar and restaurant updates), Irina Koroleva and Alina Khohrakova for checking phone and web addresses for 2008, and Lancer Martin for proofreading.