I had the same issue when I was in Russia. I had to provide my passport with visa and migration card to purchase a SIM card (I got MegaFon I think). The store did accept copies of the documents after a bit of discussion (none of which worked in English so knowledge of Russian helped a lot)

Some of the people I was in the country with purchased their phones (they did not have tri- or quad-band phones) at a рынок (market) or a street vendor and did not have to provide any documents. They were really surprised when I had to provide my passport.

A sim card purchased local is the cheapest option. Topping up can be done at many places through automated kiosks. I picked up an "international" sim card for when I traveled outside of Russia that had an Estonian number but it was much more expensive and ridiculously expensive to use when I was in Estonia--I think it was €1 or €2 per minute, but had free incoming so it did come in handy when people called me. I picked a cheap quad-band phone from eBay so I did not have to worry about losing or breaking it.

Yeah, Ediny tariff on MegaFon is RUR3/min to the US and locally - that's about $0.09/min. According to the MegaFon-Moskva Website, incoming calls are free (Все входящие вызовы Бесплатно). There's an additional 50 kopek charge for the first minute (that didn't exist three years ago). For top-up cards, unless you buy them from MegaFon stores, you'll usually get charged a commission. You'll buy, say, a RUR1000 card but pay RUR1100.

I'm going to Russia in mid-May, so I'll check it out. I arrive at DME at 5:35AM, so I doubt that anything will be open there. Visa registration procedures have changed since 2006, so I don't think to send your passport and migration card off to OVIR (or whatever the new name of the place is) to be stamped anymore. They probably will still check your passport and migration card (they'll have to write down the numbers), but that three-day waiting period may have been eliminated.

I was able to buy a card from an official BeeLine store down near the Yugo-Zapadnaya metro station with a photocopy of my passport, migration card, and a stamped note from my sponsor (which happened to be a division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) called a spravka stating that my passport was being registered. That was a uniquely Russian experience - pick out what you want, get a receipt for it, turn around and pay the cashier 10 feet away to get a stamp on the receipt, turn back around and get the item you paid for by giving the stamped receipt to the salesman. Where else can you experience such inefficiency?

pm me

Who? Me?

I purchased one at the airport. just took my passport info. it as 170 rubles, but i put 1000 on the card. not sure what the rates are back to the US, but its still working. the hotel called in the credits for me and registered it?? i could not read the receipts.