drvannostren

I hate overtly taking advantage of being of white decent. But it sounds like that's exactly what I'll be doing lol

OpenSky

When you arrive you are handed a migration card. Keep that in your wallet in lieu of a passport. your hotel sometimes keeps your passport for registration purposes, for example.

in SpB, cabs are so cheap relatively, ( if you earn USD / Euro) if you speak Russian or have smartphone, why bother with the metro. Its not moscow where the traffic is so bad.

I should note I personally don't look European at all and have never been stopped by a cop in Russia in 5 years of regular visits every 2-3 months. They typically don't bother foreigners that look like business people, the folks they bother are those that look like they just arrived from the caucuses for example, shabby clothes etc.

Similarly if you arrived from some place like AMS smelling of grass you can expect to be stopped.

The 1990s and early 2000s are over, and Medvedev back when he was president changed the rules re: registration ( which is 7 business days now, it used to be 3) so the days of cops shaking people down for documents are largely over.

AeroflotA340

I always carry my passport on me in Russia. It is the law. You never know what to expect!

eielef

I look pretty russian, I have a russian working permit, and I was stopped just once because I was on my phone speaking spanish. These random checks are more often when the FSB raises the level of security to over 5. From 1 to 5 there will be no-one checking, but from 6 to 10 there will be some people. Earlier in December we had two days of Level 10, and every one was being checked, not only documents but also all their luggage in the metro stations. Was lots of queues for that, but is for your safety.
And the law requires you to carry your passport with you at all time. No copy, nor ID, no nothing is acceptable. Just passport, with migration card and the registration card if you spend more than a week in that city.
That's the law, if you want to risk to being stopped, and have nothing with you (an ID is considered similar to nothing), you'll be send to the police station until someone enters you hotel room, finds your passport and bring it to the police station... Is pretty hard, specially if you are traveling alone.
Leave a copy of all three papers in your hotel (better if it was a colour copy), just in case it was stolen, you'll get your papers back easier that way from your embassy and from the Russian Migration services.

Last, but not least, Metro is a fairly safe way of traveling, though some times bad things happen. If you are planing to use cabs, download on your phone the YANDEX TAXI app, which is extremely easy to use (available in english), cheaper, and SAFE. You'll know in advance the cab's license plate, colour, price of the trip, driver's name, and even you can pay with debit or credit card (just you have to ask for that when you are ordering the cab, so they'll send you a car with a pos-net machine). Also, you can ask for a VIP car (mostly a Mercedes or an Audi) or a Van (for up to 8 passengers) for a small extra fee (like: standard will be 1000pyb, vip 1500pyb and Van 1250pyb).