Russian Railways online booking site
 

The site seems now to be available in English which is great, but still it seems to have some bugs. No matter what ticket I try I always get this error message
Invalid request parameters. Please change your requirements.
2040 (TИП ЛИЧHOГO ДOKУMEHTA HE COOTBETCTBУET CTPAHE BЫДAЧИ)

Anyone who knows what this means? Google Translate did not make any sense. I have tried everything, selecting, unselecting compartments etc, but always end up with that error message before I am even able to purchase tickets.

Does this happen before or after registration? I've tried to select a ticket/train/compartment before registration and had no problems
The message you get is translated as "Type of personal document [passport, etc. - T.] does not correspond to country of issue". Was there an option for a type of ID? If yes, this should generally be a passport for foreign citizens (military ID and other options are for Russian citizens only).

It doesn't seem to support entering foreign passport numbers (at least Norwegian passport numbers which are 8 digits)

The page says like this on the document number field:
"The information of passports or birth certificiates issued to foreign nationals is entered specifying the type of document (33)"

However the field only seem to support 9 digits or something like that. Not any more not less. So that is why I attempted to add a digit in the end.

Edit:
Found out the trick, I had to chose foreign document and not international passport (international passport is probably for Russian international passports - passport maze)

Glad to hear it worked for you. Translation quality isn't always great here

For posterity, the website works perfectly in the Russian version. The only thing you need to do is have another window open of the same website and run google translate on it.

Hello
Thanks for your explanation I changed it to foreign document and it worked but when I get to credit card page it has got all the blank fields and I tried 4 -5 times but it does not process, can some one help what information goes on the four blank space in credit card payment.

I just used it last night, booking Sapsan from Moscow to St Petersburg.

I think it's the CVC number on the rear of the card that you're thinking of?

Having said that in my experience some cards just won't work. eg a Visa credit card from Barclaycard in the UK refused to process but tried my visa debit and it went through fine.

Good luck

Thanks for the info but when you fill the payment information there are 4 blanks and I don't know where to put the Creditcards number and where to enter my name address and zip any help in this area will be greatly appreciated
I have tried barcleycard MasterCard and united chase visa and us bank master card and even boa debit card none worked

For at least last 5 years I was never able to use US issued card to pay for rail tickets directly on rzd.ru - I tried credit and debit cards from Chase, Citi, PNC, US Bank.

I even spoke with ВТБ24 support (they process payments for rzd) and was told that my cards could not be accepted and its' for my own safety :)

Always had to 'borrow' a credit card number from my sister.

My experience 2 weeks ago:

Site did not work with any of my US-issued or Canadian credit cards. It got to the Mastercard SecureCode stage for one of my Canadian cards, but still failed. I got it to work with my Hong Kong issued HSBC Mastercard once I passed the Securecode check.

Aside from that piece of frustration, I found the site adequate to use and book my train ticket. I ended up not even having to show my ticket on board, the conductor already had my name down and just checked my passport.

That's correct. For non-Russian issued passports one needs to choose "Иностранный документ" = "Foreign Document"

Russian Railways online booking site
 

I appreciate everyone's input but how do I buy thr ticke as I do not have any credit card issued outside USA

You can try 3rd party sites like:
http://www.ozon.travel/railway/
https://www.svyaznoy.travel/rway/

But they charge 600RUR commission. Per recent info from an anti-corruption organization, 70% of the commission gets a private company that is owned by the family of the president of RZD - so they sure have no reason to fix the payment system.

I used Tutu.ru they charged me about RUB 300 commission. Much much better than Real Russia who actually screwed up the one ticket I bought from them!
Cheers
Howie

Finally started booking tickets for our transsiberian adventure for the summer.

First card was rejected, but 2nd Visa went thru nicely using Verified by Visa.

Glad it was such a painless process :)

btw, if anyone is looking at tickets at 45 days out - they go on sale about 9pm Eastern.