What was visiting Russia like?

[Trunkss]

To those who had visited Russian Federation before the war what was it like?

I've started getting very interested in Russian history, culture and language. What's Moscow and St Petersburg like compared to London and other cities? How are they at different times of the year? I assume very cold and snowy in the winter months, but what's the summers like?

I spent a week in St Petersburg in August 2008, it was lovely. Beautiful city, we also visited Peterhof. Went to the Hermitage twice plus a ballet. The siege museum. Russian art museuem. Ate amazing borsht. Drank potent cheap vodka.

We mostly walked, got the metro once and a bus once. (And the hydrofoil to Peterhof.) Around the tourist areas, road signage was in English (well roman) script but otherwise it was all Cyrillic which made translating the guide book into real life a challenge.

People were friendly even if they didnt speak English (i think younger people were more likely to speak it than older people). Obviously my Russian was very limited...! But we got by.

St Petersburg about 15 years ago was being heavily renovated by rich people - felt a bit like posh areas of London. People mixed - police tried to extort money from us. Amazing art. Food mixed. More edgy version of Paris or Berlin I guess. Good & bad like most large cities.

Cruise ships used to routinely go. My parents, elderly doddery travellers have been many times, they loved it. They just got off the boat, wandered about, doing their own thing as if it was Barcelona or Gibraltar! Different times.

History wise is there a mix of Imperial Russian history and USSR history in the museums?

Fantastic! We went in 2018 and mainly saw imperial history (Moscow and St Petersburg), although we did visit Lenin's tomb.
Obviously, there is a language barrier for most of us, but we had a private guide in each city, so for the main sights the guide navigated us easily through the (then) crowds. But we did also get out and about on our own.
I absolutely adored St Petersburg, in particular, and always said I'd love to go again... sadly, I can't see that happening now.

We went to Leningrad in 1980, very austere, very restrictive as to where you could go but fascinating. Bitterly cold, -40°, feet of snow everywhere.
My suitcase was taken by someone else in the group, I was hauled off for strip search, everything in the suitcase was scrutinised, toothpaste squeezed out etc. Very frightening. The man who’d taken my case was arrested, we didn’t see him again. He was British and clearly up to something.
Hotel was an experience, opposite the Aurora.
Everyone seemed very poor, we were totally ignored, no one smiled and students pestered you for blue jeans and biros, very odd.
Definitely a fascinating experience.
We didn’t all the Intourist guided trips, Hermitage, Catherine’s Winter Palace, Novgorod, St Peter and St Paul’s cathedral etc.

Did you get to go inside to see Kremlin and Winter palace?

Museums

Kremlin

Google is a mine of info, if only a few MN'ers can enlighten, @Trunkss

Very much so in St Petersburg.

I remember how stern the people looked, someone in our group commented on how they hadn’t seen anyone smiling, the tour guide said that smiling at people for no apparent reason was deemed odd to the locals. To us smiling would be seen as a friendly gesture but to them apparently it just made us look daft.
Also, cars driving along the pavements, that was a shocker.

What's the food scene like? Do you get a variety?

I was planning to do the trans Siberian railway but didn’t manage to pull it in before the foreign office advice changed to do not travel. So watching with interest.

I can’t comment on food in cities but I worked with a Russian. woman in her sixties who moved away to marry a British man. She told me that lots of people, even folk with jobs in the city, had small holdings in the countryside where they grew their own food. That summer meals are delicious, and that they do a lot of pickling and fermenting to build up supplies in order to get them through the harsh winters. I would love to know if people still do this today, because if they do, I’d imagine the food scene being interesting, especially over the summer.

We went to St Petersburg as part of a cruise 20 years ago. Obviously we didn't get to see much, but tbh I didn't get a great impression. Everywhere we went or passed through seemed to be either palaces and roads of designer shops or rather grim-looking, grey streets with miserable-looking people. Nothing in between.

I went in 1999 and 2000, to Moscow. People don't generally smile much, but were helpful when I asked something in a shop or hotel. Might be more English spoken now, especially by younger people but I had to get by in my rickety Russian and read Cyrillic. Museums were very interesting, we went to the Kremlin museum and the Armed Forces museum, and cloakroom staff were trying to puzzle out where I was from.

We went to St Perersburgh on a Baltic cruise in 2018. Loved it. We did a couple of days of escorted tours around the city, Peterhof palace. Did a bit of "free" walking around. To be honest, most of it didn't look that different to other European capital cities with large impressive historic buildings, museums, churches, etc., "stateley" homes, and the usual chain shops - even a McDonalds (or was it Burger King)! The main difference was a lot of austere looking blocks of flats - all very grim and dirty looking outside the city centre.

I lived in St Petersburg for a few months in the early 00s as part of my degree. It was a truly life changing experience and I have very happy memories from that period. It’s an incredibly beautiful city and at the time was very cheap to live in if you were a student (we got free entry to the hermitage and other museums, so I’d just go in and wander around any time I liked). When I arrived it was February and bitterly cold/got dark very early, but towards the end of my stay it was the ‘white nights’ where it stays light until gone midnight. I lived with a Russian family, which was eye opening - they didn’t have a functioning washing machine and had to hand wash all their clothes. My host relied on income from student lodgers and I think she regarded me as spoiled. It definitely encouraged me to grow up a bit. I’d love to go back one day (went once on holiday in 2007 but not been since, and god knows when it’ll be possible again).

We did a tour in 2018. Yes, we did get inside the Kremlin. The Winter Palace is the Hermitage Museum so we were taken there. We took ourselves to the Summer Palace. We travelled by train from Moscow to St Petersburg. We saw fabulous art in both cities but were told little history - I was the one telling the others in the group. On the train we were told off by the ‘stewardess’ for speaking to a group of Russian teenagers who were desperate to practice their English on us. When we went to the buffet car with an American couple we were questioned by a man who was definitely from the FRS and he followed us out of the station. We had good food but we ate in mainly Georgian restaurants which are ubiquitous, like Italian restaurants here. We also went to Lenin’s Dacha and the Peter and Paul Fortress where all the Royal Family are buried. The metro system in Moscow was amazing - gold covered statues and mosaics covering the walls. I told DD that it was built when the people in Ukraine were starving to death and eating their shoe leather. Our local guide in St P said she lived in a shared flat in one room and had a shelf in the hallway where she kept her food. You can’t fly direct to Russia now and personally I wouldn’t go. It wasn’t as safe as I thought it was when we went and it certainly isn’t safe now. Most foreign journalists have had to leave the country.

I went for the solar eclipse in Siberia in 2008, My DIL is Russian, so it was combined with some time with her family and friends in and around Moscow, plus going to Siberia on the trans Siberian railway.
I was shown everywhere touristy and otherwise around Moscow, so it probably wasn't the typical experience. I did go to the opera and ballet, the Kremlin and St Basil's, Arbat the art show street, loads of parks and inspirational monuments, deeply alternative cellar bars with bookshops attached, live music and food. How I wished I could have joined in the conversations there! I had a phrase book and 5 phrases taught to me, that I used all the time.
I went to a traditional Russian restaurant, as well as those indistinguishable from those in the west. Never had a duff meal anywhere.
I visited the family's Dachau, deep in the forest that surrounds Moscow, where meat was barbecued on swords! People were friendly and helpful, when asking for directions, taking taxis, etc. My DIL had already warned me that in the culture “if you go round smiling all the time, people think you're an idiot.”
I had waist length dreadlocks when I was there and didn't get stared at much. There was a small burgeoning alternative subculture in Moscow, posing self consciously around the Kremlin in lovely clothes, described as “Tolkienists” by my hosts.
I was going to Siberia on my own, so my DIL spoke sternly to a young man in the carriage who was taking the train to Vladivostok in order to drive it back. He told me how long the train would stop at every station so that I could get out and wander around. They play some martial music when it sets off! That felt so Russian.
People come and go along the route on this train, sleeping over or not. Again, very friendly, sharing food and yes, playing chess. Tiny babushkas would sell you food on the platform at each stop. Plenty of hot water from a big thingy at the end of each carriage to make tea in the fabulous tea glasses supplied. The loos are not great, in fact the public loos in Russia were not great, unless you're in somewhere like a big mall, or a restaurant. Best to take plenty of loo paper and wet wipes on any excursions.
The countryside is beautiful and from the train, I saw rural people going about their lives, on footpaths through woodland, in boats on lakes, fishing and whatever. It made me understand where all those fairy tales about the forests originate, it was still a real presence.
There were lots of westerners about in Novosibirsk for the eclipse, and I met up with a group I'd been part of online. We hired a student of English from the university to translate, because far fewer people spoke any English out here in the wild east. This was a potential issue getting the train back, and they run on Moscow time, which is very important to remember so you don't panic! We also hired a bus and driver to take us to a lakeside site to view the eclipse, which was everything I'd wished for.
My DIL had arranged for me to stay at the poshest hotel in Novosibirsk, which was super luxurious and very seedy at the same time, limousines and very done up young women on the arms of sharp suited men. When Russian women dress up, they go large. It was fascinating.
At that time, you had to record where exactly you were going and staying and how long for, and get something stamped by the hotels, very important, but they seemed strangely reluctant, so you have to be firm.
i deviated from this, to illegally visit Akadamgorok, where at that time the Museum of the Sun was situated. I am very glad I did, as I met the proprietor, since deceased, but it was an amazing experience, to connect with this shaman, even if only for a day.
If we can ever go to Russia again, I will be there like a shot.

I lived in Russia for 3 years around the late 2000s, early 2010s. Such an amazing experience. For part of it, I was a student and you could get discounted tickets to the Bolshoi for the equivalent of a couple of quid. There was a fantastic 20th century history museum in Moscow, which was so interesting. I used to take all my friends to visit. There was also a park near Gorky Park (i think?) which had all the statues of Lenin and Stalin that were pulled down after the collapse of the USSR. I also have fond memories of visiting St Petersburg and rushing to make sure we weren't stuck on the wrong side of the bridges opening / closing! And doing the transsiberian rail to Lake Baikal, which is beautiful.

For my first year, I lived with a Russian family, and although there is a culture of "looking stern" on the outside, everyone i had any real and meaningful contact with were incredibly warm and welcoming to me. So many great homecooked meals. For my remaining years, I shared a flat on the outskirts (a typicals 70s /80s built block) and although they looked quite unpleasant from the outside, on the inside the rooms were big, high ceilings, really warm, great balconies.

I went to St Petersburg, Moscow and did the Trans Siberian circa 2009. I found it fascinating. They are very suspicious of foreigners, I was with an Indian friend who is quite dark skinned and I was very worried about him, but turns out I think they viewed me with equal suspicion (white but obviously not Russian). However, we were fine except for some fairly terrifying border crossings and an attempted mugging on the metro. We stayed away from the police and tried to keep a low profile.

The Hermitage is the most amazing things I have ever seen. Museums / historic sights generally had lots of rules and precautions (some ridiculous like no guns!) and everything was covered in plastic because museum visitors seemed to touch everything in sight. I wanted to go to museums about modern Russian history but they didn't seem to exist.

Food was generally a bit meh but we enjoyed various restaurants. Fashion preferences seemed to date from the 80s, some impressive bleached mullets going on. There was generally a lot of weird stuff going on, like I remember there was an event which involving racing inflatable sex dolls down a local river. The hostel we stayed at in St Petersburg was called Crazy Frog and involved about 40 people staying in a 3 bed apartment, it was something else.

We went to St Petersburg about 15 years ago. The main centre and sights were very set up for international tourists and some signs were in English. Most of the history there was imperial but some USSR. We went to the cathedral, the hermitage, a bloody amazing cat cafe, etc etc.
it felt safe.

we’re all veggie or vegan and it was fairly easy to find veggie food.

it was absolutely packed with international tourists of all nationalities though. Like central London in August.

we didn’t risk Moscow largely because none of us spoke or read Russian at all but when the war ends and if it opens up again I’d love to go.

Yes to both of these. Plus The Hermitage, the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, Pavlovsk Palace, St Isaac's Cathedral, Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood in St Petersburg.
And St Basil's, GUM (now a designer shopping mall) and various grand metro stations and lines in Moscow. Those are the main things I remember.
I loved the Orthodox churches, particularly.

Wow @Giggorata , what an amazing trip

Thank you all for telling me.

I went in the mid 00s. Everyone told me it would be freezing in Siberia (near Novosibirsk) and they were wrong! It was very hot and sunny. Lovely people in Siberia. The buildings are as stereotypically grey and square as you'd imagine though! Moscow I didn't like, people were rude and impatient, but it's a capital city like any other. St Petersburg felt very European. The driving is crazy! A 3 lane motorway turns into 6 lanes when people decide it should. The food was excellent, but wine lists were amusing because everything had to be imported, so you'd see a bottle of Lambrini at like 80 euro equivalent!
I'm so glad I got to go there. I said at the time, I bet when I have kids they won't believe we could once visit Russia, and here we are.