rumbataz

We had only been in St Petersburg for a couple of hours when I had all my cash stolen from one of my trouser pockets on the Metro.

We were on the platform waiting for a train and it was rush hour so there were literally thousands of people around and inside the station. One strange thing I noticed was an empty plastic bottle appear at my feet from what appeared to be nowhere seconds before the train arrived.

I suspect it was a 'marker' for the pickpocket gangs.

When the train doors opened there was a mad rush and we felt ourselves literally forced onto the train by people behind us. It was an incredibly unnerving experience. There was no room on the train so were absolutely packed in like sardines. This is the point I suspect my pockets were picked. An attempt was also made to force the zip on my partner's handbag, resulting in the zip becoming damaged.

When we got to our stop and exited the train carriage, I did my customary check of all my belongings and noticed my cash was missing. Someone had taken all 6,500 RUB (around 65 GBP). Luckily my credit card in my other pocket was not stolen so we located an ATM and I withdrew some cash as we needed it for taxis.

So, be careful on the St Petersburg metro. We will not use it anymore and will stick to taxis which are reasonably priced and less stressful.

It wasn't a nice start to our short Autumn break but it wasn't a great deal of money and could have been far worse.

We managed to have a lovely evening and look forward to enjoying the rest our stay here in St Petersburg.

The moral of the story is to travel with the minimum amount of cash you need and to secure it as much as you can. Keep anything valuable zipped up and out of sight.

I've never experienced pick-pocketing in 30 years of travel until today.