Anyone been to Russia?
neilo23
Posts: 783
Just booked a week in Siberia for September in the city of Kemerovo. Anyone have any dos and don'ts or general tips and interesting experiences to talk about? I'm expecting a bit of a culture shock.
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Yeah a mate of mine went there for a week a few years ago. He was such a top bloke. Do miss him.0
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Cornerblock wrote:Yeah a mate of mine went there for a week a few years ago. He was such a top bloke. Do miss him.
Hahahaha :-)0 -
Yep, worked in the North and Far East of Russia as well as Moscow. Please do yourself a favour and learn some Russian, not a lot people speak English. I recommend Pimsleur as it will at least enable you to get assistance for the usual things. I gave up trying to tread the language as I am lazy but you as a traveller will be looking for restaurants etc.
Lovely people, but my advice is lock the passport in the hotel and take several (colour) photocopies of your passport and visa. The police when I was last there (4 years ago) were not above asking for cash and holding onto your passport whilst they did it.+++++++++++++++++++++
we are the proud, the few, Descendents.
Panama - finally putting a nail in the economic theory of the trickle down effect.0 -
Don't walk around in shorts because chernobyl fall out.0
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symo wrote:Yep, worked in the North and Far East of Russia as well as Moscow. Please do yourself a favour and learn some Russian, not a lot people speak English. I recommend Pimsleur as it will at least enable you to get assistance for the usual things. I gave up trying to tread the language as I am lazy but you as a traveller will be looking for restaurants etc.
Lovely people, but my advice is lock the passport in the hotel and take several (colour) photocopies of your passport and visa. The police when I was last there (4 years ago) were not above asking for cash and holding onto your passport whilst they did it.
I'll be visiting someone but they won't be able to be with me the whole time so I am trying to learn a bit of the language (and am finding it very hard!).
I assume it's not as dodgy as people make out? Before I left England I lived in Tottenham which I'm sure was more dangerous.0 -
Stewie Griffin wrote:Don't walk around in shorts because chernobyl fall out.
It'll save me from the leg shaving.
What's Philip Lane like these days? ;-)0 -
neilo23 wrote:I'll be visiting someone but they won't be able to be with me the whole time so I am trying to learn a bit of the language (and am finding it very hard!).
I assume it's not as dodgy as people make out? Before I left England I lived in Tottenham which I'm sure was more dangerous.
Not dangerous as such but it pays to be aware more than anything.+++++++++++++++++++++
we are the proud, the few, Descendents.
Panama - finally putting a nail in the economic theory of the trickle down effect.0 -
neilo23 wrote:symo wrote:Yep, worked in the North and Far East of Russia as well as Moscow. Please do yourself a favour and learn some Russian, not a lot people speak English. I recommend Pimsleur as it will at least enable you to get assistance for the usual things. I gave up trying to tread the language as I am lazy but you as a traveller will be looking for restaurants etc.
Lovely people, but my advice is lock the passport in the hotel and take several (colour) photocopies of your passport and visa. The police when I was last there (4 years ago) were not above asking for cash and holding onto your passport whilst they did it.
I'll be visiting someone but they won't be able to be with me the whole time so I am trying to learn a bit of the language (and am finding it very hard!).
I assume it's not as dodgy as people make out? Before I left England I lived in Tottenham which I'm sure was more dangerous.
I think you'll find Kemerovo has better shops than Tottenham now.0 -
Cornerblock wrote:neilo23 wrote:symo wrote:Yep, worked in the North and Far East of Russia as well as Moscow. Please do yourself a favour and learn some Russian, not a lot people speak English. I recommend Pimsleur as it will at least enable you to get assistance for the usual things. I gave up trying to tread the language as I am lazy but you as a traveller will be looking for restaurants etc.
Lovely people, but my advice is lock the passport in the hotel and take several (colour) photocopies of your passport and visa. The police when I was last there (4 years ago) were not above asking for cash and holding onto your passport whilst they did it.
I'll be visiting someone but they won't be able to be with me the whole time so I am trying to learn a bit of the language (and am finding it very hard!).
I assume it's not as dodgy as people make out? Before I left England I lived in Tottenham which I'm sure was more dangerous.
I think you'll find Kemerovo has better shops than Tottenham now.
And you'll have more chance of understanding the locals....0 -
Yes. Don't drink the water or try to keep up with the locals when drinking wodka0
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Cornerblock wrote:neilo23 wrote:symo wrote:Yep, worked in the North and Far East of Russia as well as Moscow. Please do yourself a favour and learn some Russian, not a lot people speak English. I recommend Pimsleur as it will at least enable you to get assistance for the usual things. I gave up trying to tread the language as I am lazy but you as a traveller will be looking for restaurants etc.
Lovely people, but my advice is lock the passport in the hotel and take several (colour) photocopies of your passport and visa. The police when I was last there (4 years ago) were not above asking for cash and holding onto your passport whilst they did it.
I'll be visiting someone but they won't be able to be with me the whole time so I am trying to learn a bit of the language (and am finding it very hard!).
I assume it's not as dodgy as people make out? Before I left England I lived in Tottenham which I'm sure was more dangerous.
I think you'll find Kemerovo has better shops than Tottenham now.
Yeah, but you probably have to pay in the Russian shops.0 -
Ive been to the western part of Russia 4 times in the last few years, Moscow and Petersburg areas. Enjoyed it, its an interesting place. I did get robbed once on Nevsky Prospect in St P, really my fault for getting my wallet out to buy a bus ticket. Lesson is, just carry a few coins and notes when you're out and about, dont carry everything with you all the time.
Dont know anything about SIberia tho!
I had Russian people with me most of the time, would have been a struggle to communicate alone, for example to buy a train ticket or register at the Post Office, lots of admin and bureaucracy.0 -
I hope the OP doesn't mind me tagging onto this thread.
I have been contemplating visiting Kiev in the Ukraine next year. The city looks lovely plus i would love to do a day trip to chernobyl. The women are also quite tasty (another story)
To those who have visited Russia or any of those countries that use the cyrillic alphabet, how the hell did you navigate and use local shops services etc?
I feel like a dyslexic person when i even attempt to read cyrillic writing. It's like they all blend into a random mess of characters
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A week? I thought time in Siberia was measured in years of hard labour.0
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Not been to what’s now Russia but have been to some of the now-independent countries of what was once the Soviet Union, and had no problems. I think you’re more likely to be mugged or attacked in the UK and more likely to be robbed/pickpocketed in the large French or Italian cities.
The people vary from mostly friendly to a few somewhat cold, but rarely any actually unfriendly. Had no trouble with the police, but the customs/passport people can be awkwardly slow and stubborn.
There is still a relative poverty and a drabness while also a small sort-of nouveau-riche class who tend to overdo things, like driving flash cars at speed up and down the main city centre streets well beyond the midnight hours, radio blasting and honking all the time, and young women often dressed to the hilt for no real reason, looking like celebrities or models.
Driving can be a bit haphazard as overtaking is done any time, including at blind bends, when there’s oncoming traffic, etc, while lane discipline and speed limits don’t really exist; it’s the poor surface of the roads which halfway calms traffic.
Take care walking out at night, pavements often have pot holes or odd paving stones projecting up 5-6", and street lighting is often poor, or actually goes off as power shortages seem relatively common.
Be prepared for some serious drinking, it’s all part of the hospitality, and possibly some serious eating too, if the people you’re visiting decide to have a family-friends get-together banquet. Those are great!0 -
Seems that the general consensous is that the people who haven't been there expect me to come back (if at all) in a coffin and the people who have been there think I will return with good memories and a damaged liver. I think I prefer the second option :-)0
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A friend of mine was working out that way, on a refinery in the middle of no where. He reckoned in summer (not sure if that includes September) there was gazzilions of giant hornets.
I don't like hornets, especially giant ones.0 -
Worked in Kursk and Ivanovo in Western Russia and a few other places in Russia, as well as other former Soviet states, always felt safe enough. Always plenty of places to get a drink and a bite (and a hooker if thats what floats yer boat
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Great places in summer, f00kin dire in the winter.0 -
knedlicky wrote:Had no trouble with the police, but the customs/passport people can be awkwardly slow and stubborn. !
Any idea how long it takes to get the visa? My flight is on 11th September (yes, I know) and I only applied a couple of days ago. Hope I haven't left it too late.0 -
neilo23 wrote:knedlicky wrote:Had no trouble with the police, but the customs/passport people can be awkwardly slow and stubborn. !
Any idea how long it takes to get the visa? My flight is on 11th September (yes, I know) and I only applied a couple of days ago. Hope I haven't left it too late.
When I went to St Petersburg in 2003 I think I applied for my visa a couple of months before I was due to leave.
Waited.. waited... waited a bit more... I was getting worried about two weeks before departure, phoning up the embassy in London, but no-one was answering the phone. Then I read that they almost never answer the phone at the embassy.
Got the train to London. Queued outside the embassy for three hours. Finally got to the front of the queue and was told that the office was now closed (midday) and the only way to get the visa was to pay £120 and get it fast-tracked. I had no choice but to do this. It took them about five minutes to actually give me the visa once inside the embassy!
So, yeah. That can be very bureaucratic!0 -
Shefsimon - what did you make of Ivanovo? Due to (I think) clothing industry it's widely reputed to have the greatest male/female imbalance in whole of Russia. In short - a red blooded male unlikely to escape alive!! (exaggeration - but that is general idea).0
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tremayne wrote:Shefsimon - what did you make of Ivanovo? Due to (I think) clothing industry it's widely reputed to have the greatest male/female imbalance in whole of Russia. In short - a red blooded male unlikely to escape alive!! (exaggeration - but that is general idea).
I was there in the depths of winter, and it was effing freezing, and my hotel was sh1te, and a bloke who I was working with got mugged coming back from the boozer.
Like most places I've worked in Russia, and former bits of Russia, they are great in summer and dead in winter.
I think all the women must have been hibernating.
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Is that Siberia looks too far west.
In about 1988 I did a tour. Flew to Leningrad for a couple of days, flew down to Moscow, coach through the city to an other airport then 11 hour flight to Khabarovsk which was as far east as one could easily get. Then several days on the Trans-Siberian Railway to Irkutsk and Lake Bikal. One of the most stunning regions I have been to. The small prop plane up to Bratsk for a couple more days. Then on to Moscow with a plane change somewhere.
We had the same guide with us the whole time. A young lady who's proper job was translating physics books. She had a hard time as she wanted to look after us, but had to follow instructions. So when we got to our hotel in Moscow and couldn't check in because the check in staff had gone home (it was early evening) she had to take us to a floating hotel instead of her instinct to stand her ground and argue our point.
Would I do it again ?
Not all that, but Lenigrad (or St Petersburg as it is now) would be worth a second look as it was such a culture shock at the time.
I agree with a previous post - don't drink the water. A couple of people in our group got dodgy tummys after drinking some. If you don't like cabbage you will starve.0
