Currency: Russian ruble (RUB)
Exchange rate: 90 per € (12.2020)
Time zones: UTC +3 to UTC +12
Country code (phone): 007
Climate (for capital): continental
Everyday life
As national holidays of June 12 be the day on which the Russian SFSR in 1990 declared its state sovereignty and “the people Unity Day”, which is reminiscent of the so-called November 4, to the liberation of Moscow in 1612 by Polish-Lithuanian foreign rulers. In addition, there are several public holidays every year, of which the New Year celebrations (continuously from January 1st to 5th), Orthodox Christmas on January 7th, International Women’s Day on March 8th, Labor Day on May 1st and the Victory Day (end of WWII) on May 9th enjoy a high status in the population. If a public holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, it is customary to set up a non-working bridging day on Monday or Friday by declaring the previous Saturday or the following Sunday to be working days in return.
Most shops are open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., the supermarkets until 11 p.m. or all night long.
A new time law has been in effect in Russia since October 2014. It includes the transition to standard time (the abolition of summer time) and an adjustment of the time zones. Now the following applies: Kaliningrad time (Moscow minus one hour, UTC + 2), Moscow time (UTC + 3), Samara time (Moscow plus one hour, UTC + 4), Ekaterinburg time (Moscow plus two hours, UTC + 5), Omsk time (Moscow plus three, UTC + 6), Krasnoyarsk time (Moscow plus four, UTC + 7), Irkutsk time (Moscow plus five, UTC + 8), Yakutsk time (plus six, UTC + 9), Vladivostok time (Moscow plus seven, UTC + 10) and Srednekolymsk time (Moscow plus eight, UTC + 11), Kamchatka time (Moscow plus nine, UTC + 12). In winter, the time difference to Central Europe is therefore one hour more than in summer.
Money
According to mathgeneral, the currency is the Russian ruble (RUB) to 100 kopecks. Banknotes are in circulation in denominations of 5,000, 2,000, 1,000, 500, 200, 100, 50 and 10 rubles. Coins come in denominations of 10, 5, 2, and 1 ruble, and kopecks in denominations of 50, 10, 5, and 1.
The central bank is the central bank of the Russian Federation based in Moscow. The largest banks are Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank, Vneshtorgbank, Rosselchozbank and Alfa Bank.
International credit cards such as American Express, Diners Club, Mastercard and Visa are accepted in larger hotels, restaurants and shops. When paying by credit card, however, you should have a passport or identity card with you, because credit cards often have to be shown because of the frequent fraud.
In many hotels and department stores there are ATMs where one credit or debit card cash can take off. Travelers checks should be made out in US dollars or euros and are only accepted in Moscow and St. Petersburg in authorized banks. Foreign currencies should be exchanged at official exchange offices and banks. Currency exchange outside of bank hours is possible in international hotels, exchange offices and airports.
Security
As the attacks in the Moscow metro in 2010, at the airport Domodedovo in 2011 and in the St. Petersburg Metro have shown on April 3, 2017, it may in Russia, outside the Caucasus region at any time to attacks coming. You should therefore be particularly careful when visiting crowds that are not particularly protected by the police and when using public transport (especially the subway and bus). The crime in Russian cities is not higher than in Western cities.
The Federal Foreign Office recommends that German nationals add themselves to the crisis prevention list so that they can be contacted quickly in an emergency.
The general emergency number 112 can be reached free of charge from both landlines and mobile phones. The previous emergency numbers remain valid: 01 fire brigade, 02 police, 03 first aid.
Communication
Internet
Free WiFi can be found not only in cafes and restaurants, but also in other public places such as airports, train stations, buses, trams, trolleybuses, the subway, suburban trains, high-speed trains and at bus stops.
In Moscow, almost all streets in the city center were equipped with free Wi-Fi as part of the “ Urban WLAN ” project. In order to access the public WLAN, your own telephone number must be entered. Shortly afterwards you will receive an access code. You only have to go through this procedure once.
Opportunities for charging cell phones are also often provided by cafés, subway cars or in airports.
Phone
The four largest providers Tele2, MTS, Beeline and MegaFon dominate the mobile communications market, and there are also some smaller regional providers. If you bring a mobile phone from a German provider, this works in Russia via the roaming partner of your network operator.
For tariff packages with cheap Internet it pays a local SIM card to buy, it must be with his passport identify. SIM cards are available in branches of the providers – either directly after arrival at the airport or in shopping centers (“Euroset” or “Svjaznoj”).
Post Office
The majority of the Russian postal system is handled by the state-owned company Potschta Rossii. It offers its services in a total of more than 42,000 post offices spread across Russia. In many cities, post offices offer basic postal services – such as sending letters, parcels and telegrams, as well as post giro – as well as public computer workstations with Internet access. The post offices are open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Airmail shipments to Western Europe take about 10 days. Potschta Rossii is a monopoly in the mail delivery sector in Russia. International courier companies such as DHL and TNT are also active in Russia in the parcel post sector.