We're planning a delayed honeymoon in St. Petersburg, leaving from MCI on September 30 and returning home October 8. Have already booked CO from MCI to FRA and LTU from FRA to LED. My questions so far (there will be many!):

1. I assume that on paper it's illegal to pay for anything in $US. How strictly is it enforced? Do the locals prefer tips in $US and/or would we get into trouble for handing them out?

2. Do they accept rubles in LED's duty-free shop? We had the unhappy surprise when we were leaving GIG of finding that they did not accept the local currency and came home with a few too many Reals. Don't want to come home with too many rubles.

3. The big question, after the suicide bombing in Moscow- just found out that Presidential elections in Chechnya are scheduled for October 5 and we'll be in St. Petersburg then. Aargh! My husband and I are pretty intrepid- we took a lovely trip to Scotland as scheduled on September 28, 2001- but would you see this as a big risk? We have no plans to visit Moscow or Chechnya. At this point we could move the trip with only penalties on CO but the trip would have to be later and the city would be colder and darker.

Thanks for your help.

Many things are priced in dollars,(hotels and menus) but everything is paid for in Rubles. They are easy to get at the ATM machine, but the ATM machine have a very low max(under $200US equivalent). The hotel will charge you in dollars, or equivalents, convert it to rubles, charge your credit card in rubles, which then get converted back to dollars by the CC company.

Don't know about #2.

I think LED is probably much safer than MCI. I'm from the DC area and my factory is in Baltimore, and I felt much safer in both LED and MOW than in the DC/Balt area.


When are the fountains at Peterhof turned off?

[This message has been edited by slawecki (edited 07-07-2003).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by slawecki:
Many things are priced in dollars,(hotels and menus) but everything is paid for in Rubles. They are easy to get at the ATM machine, but the ATM machine have a very low max(under $200US equivalent). The hotel will charge you in dollars, or equivalents, convert it to rubles, charge your credit card in rubles, which then get converted back to dollars by the CC company.

Don't know about #2.

I think LED is probably much safer than MCI. I'm from the DC area and my factory is in Baltimore, and I felt much safer in both LED and MOW than in the DC/Balt area.


When are the fountains at Peterhof turned off?

[This message has been edited by slawecki (edited 07-07-2003).]</font>


I think the fountains in Peterhoff are turned off for the most of the year except for the summer months. Even in summer months all the fountains are open only on the weekends (as far as I remember).

I dont know about LED, but in SVO they only accept Rubles at the cafes in the International zone (past the passport control), so I would think LED would be similar. Try to spend your Rubles before you go through the passport control.

ATM machines now give you whatever your daily withdrawal is at your own bank (converted to rubles). So, myself I can withdraw upto $1000 at a time, but I know my friend can only get $300 (approximately 9550 rubles) at a time. Depends on your bank in the States

Interesting note: if you run out of rubles in a restaurant in Russia, and thier credit card machine is not working (happened to me several times), you can ask to pay in dollars at today's rate, they are usually very accomodating.

Currency is not as much of an issue as it once was, but the rules keep changing. The ruble is quite stable (especially now with the dollar so weak) and the dollar is no longer the clearly-preferred currency. Use rubles in St. P, for tipping, paying for meals and purchases, etc. You can get money from a cash machine on most US ATM cards, but as noted, there may be limits. Also, more fraud than in other countries, so if you use an ATM, choose one that looks reliable (like in a bank instead of on the street). You don't lose out, though, by changing cash dollars at exchange points - good rate, low buy-sell spread, no commissions (all this is "usually" so you need to look around and compare a bit - worst rates by far are in hotels). You'll generally get a better rate than your bank will charge for the ATM or credit card - I always bring cash and convert (of course, you need to determine whether you feel comfortable carrying the cash ...) Note that this is the reverse of advice for most European countries. The airport rules waffle back and forth and can very shop to shop. LED has crappy shopping anyway. Safest is to spend all your rubles or exchange what you've got left back to dollars before you leave or apply to the balance of your hotel bill.

Karen

PS: In October, I wouldn't bother with Petrodvoretz - go to Pushkin, Pavlovsk or Orienbaum.

The fountains at Petradvorets are turned off in mid-October, all depending on the temperture. You can go to www.peterhof.org (http://www.peterhof.org) for more info. Catherine's Palace in Pushkin is a must-see now that the Amber Room has been restored. I found it easier to pay everything in Rubles, the only places I saw that would take dollars were the souvineer stands near some of the sights, although as the others have posted, there probably are more places that will take dollars.
You'll be perfectly safe in St. Petersburg. You'll feel safer there than you would in NYC I can assure you. I only flew into LED, then took a bus to Estonia on departure, but can only hope that the departure terminal is different than the int'l arrivals 'terminal'. Very strange. Not bad, just...odd;like you were in a schoolroom instead of a customs & immigration area. No shops, no people, just a straight walk, then a left then out the door to greet the taxi mafia. BTW, last year once you claimed your bags, after immigration, you could go either through the left door(goods to declare) or the right door(nothing to declare). But the signs were backwards. You'll be safe and fine, but you really should find a way to get to Moscow for at least one day. There's nothing like seeing Red Square and St. Basil's early in the morning with no-one else around. I'm going back next week and can hardly wait.

If you only had one day in St. Petersburg, how would you spend it?

Peterhoff, Catherines, or Hermitage. Each takes a full day.

I would personally go to Hermitage. Might try to find out how to have someone else get the tickets for you. We had a 20 min line in mid April(before season). The restaurants overflowed at lunch. We toured the gold rooms on one day. Not worth the time, if only one day available. None of the Troy throve was on display. Make certain you go everywhere in all the buildings. There are surprises everywhere.

If I had only one day in St. Petersburg I'd go crazy!

I'd be tempted to just walk the length of the Nevsky Prospect with a good guidebook and drop into the buildings that look interesting. That gives you a monastery (Nevsky), 3 cathedrals (Our Lady of Kazan, Cathedral of the Spilled Blood and St. Isaac's), a great food emporium (Yeliseev) and tons of history. If the weather is bad then I'd go for the Hermitage. Check their Web site first to make sure you see the stuff that interests you. Thanks to a guidebook, we found an obscure corner with the mummified skin of a hunter still bearing tattoos after a few millenia.

Fantastic city- even though the weather was bad (early October- to be expected) and the Nevsky was as crowded and polluted as any major city, I'd go back again in a heartbeat.

Would also just walk up Nevsky from the Moscow train station to the river (2 mi), making sure that you saw the Kazan Cathedral, saw St. Isaac's Cathedral (make sure you walk to the top of it - great view of city), and then spent a couple hours in the Hermitage and on Palace Square. Lived in St. Pete for 6 years...great city in the summer to visit.

Regarding currencies in Russia, last I heard using any other currency than rubles is officially illegal. The key here being 'officially', in practice money talks and hard currencies are quite readily accepted.

I was concerned about the currency issue, too, but found our private guides quite happy to accept $US- in fact, they appeared to prefer it. We knew we were fueling an underground economy that the Russian Taxation system never sees, but the guides were great and we were happy to see private enterprise alive and well. Never tried to use anything other than rubles in hotels, stores or restaurants, though.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Athena53:
I was concerned about the currency issue, too, but found our private guides quite happy to accept $US- in fact, they appeared to prefer it. We knew we were fueling an underground economy that the Russian Taxation system never sees, but the guides were great and we were happy to see private enterprise alive and well. Never tried to use anything other than rubles in hotels, stores or restaurants, though.</font>

Flying from SVO to LED then from LED to AMS (don't even ask http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/smile.gif ) I will need to transfer between Pulkovo-1 to Pulkovo-2 terminals at LED

Any experiences on how its done and any suggestions would be very appreciated

It isn't too difficult to transfer. Take a taxi. Problem being that with the taxi mafia there at Pulkovo 1, it will cost you like $10 minimum for the 10 minute ride. There may be a bus, but I wouldn't bother with it. Just pay the $10. You will have to negotiate it down from wherever they start.

Had to transfer from Pulkovo1 to Pulkovo2 exactly one week ago. Did not have much time, so I simply walked out of baggage claim, turned left, went to small information window may even be a money exchange window and asked how to get to Terminal#2. Before I knew it, there was a man there who hailed a taxi for me and told me the price. I think it was 450Roubles. Also, there is a bus that travels between the 2 Terminals but I did not have time to fool with that.