В Россию-- вперед! (с многих денег?)

[ulvesang.livejournal.com]

Entirely unrelated to this community, but I find that the members here are quite helpful and knowledgeable, so I'll give it a go:

Looking for travel options from the UK to Russia (Moscow) in September (TO LIVE NOT BE TOURIST), I'm seeing they cost roughly £150-£300. However, I've heard that it's "much cheaper" to just fly to a major Eastern-European hub inside the EU like Warsaw, Riga or Talinn and actually go into Russia by train. Is this bollocks? £200 isn't cheap by my standards, but it seems pretty cheap for a long flight like that. I have no clue how expensive/cheap a Polish long-distance train might be.

Finally, Russians always seem to tell me that "Russia/Moscow is one of the most expensive places in the world". Coming from a place like the UK, them's fightin' words. How bad is it, really? I mean, what kind of budget should I prepare as a student (who's only drunk ~1 night per week)? I don't want to end up on the street/starving/perpetually sober, especially in Moscow.

Comments

[alamar.livejournal.com]

I don't think that'll be much cheaper.
First, you'll be bored to the bones by such long train trip; Second, good train tickets are expensive these days (and cheapest will be PITA for someone new to russian trains, though it can differ for international routes). And you'll lose 2-3 days on that.

Moscow can be either expensive or cheap depending on the lifestyle.
Once you'll figure out where you'll stay you can live on £20/day just fine :)
Add another £10 for some extra fun.
But, of course, you can spend enormous amounts of money in some cases/if you don't know certain things.

[svl.livejournal.com]

USD250 per day will cover your hotel (not 5 stars tho, but ok one), food, some beer and coffee and transportation.
May be less, but $250 is a safe bet by my standards.

[margaritka.livejournal.com]

in terms of cost of living, the 2006 index
lists moscow as the #1 most expensive city to
live, while london is 5th. but as you know,
living somewhere and travelling somewhere bring
up two different types of living expenses.

[ulvesang.livejournal.com]

I'm NOT travelling, I'm living.

[ulvesang.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but I wouldn't wnt to live in a hotel for 1 year. A bit lonely.

[svl.livejournal.com]

Well, in that case $1000 per month for a good apartment (good place, a few minutes walk to subway station, good renovation, etc), and like $20-40 per day, if you don't spend much on luxury items. Just some food, drinks, cinema.

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Off-topic, but is that Snufkin?

[khathi.livejournal.com]

Transport -- well, I wouldn't say anything on that. So let me just speculate a bit. £200 seems to be fair price for the plane, but if you could find budget flight to Poland or Baltic states for, say, £50, you might save maybe half of that 200 pounds. I'm not familiar with current prices on such trains, as I lived last four years in Japan, but I think that £50 would get you at least some decent ride: 7 years ago a sleeper from Moscow to St. Pete costed about £20, but I'm not aware about current prices. One thing that I'd recommend -- don't go through Poland, you'd have to cross TWO borders on the route, so you won't get any sleep. ^_^

About cost of living in Moscow -- well, there's living and living. The highest cost in Europe is actually true, but that's not for humple people, actually. It's for those who wants to be chic or just pay for themselves from company's accounts. One thing that is fiendishly expensive in Moscow is a housing. Real estate market is pretty much overblown there, so rents could be up to £500 for a good room in a good neighbourhood. You can save on it, right, but you have to spent a pretty penny on commuting then. Other things should be considerably cheaper than in UK, booze too. ^_^

[jadore-vin.livejournal.com]

Last May I flew from London Heathrow to Moscow for about 300 USD, after that I stayed in a dorm for a few weeks which was cheap. A friend of mine there was renting a very nice apartment 1 bedroom apartment near a metro stop for 1000 USD/month. He found the place through an agency. I bet you could find a better deal apartment hunting on your own, or sharing a flat with roommates, but it might be a bit of a hassle. Good luck to you, sounds like it'll be a good year.

[oryx_and_crake]

Last time I checked, you had to show some kind of ID while buying a train ticket and for non-Russian citizen those could cost a lot more... No idea whether this is still true though.

[msk01.livejournal.com]

As I see, ryinair.com suggests London-Riga for 25.20 GBP (with taxes) on 10th of September.

Direct sleeper-train from Riga to Moscow goes 17 hours and costs 110 USD (56 GBP).
Direct sleeper-train from Warsaw to Moscow goes 20-22 hours and costs around 75-100 EUR (51-68 GBP).

So, you can get a good discount, but lose a day in the train.

Don't forget what you have to buy train tickets ahead, because there is always a chance what they could be sold out. And are you ready to communicate with only-Russian-speaking cashiers and trainmen?
For Russian railroads you can get timetables and prices at http://rzd.ru/
But it's only in Russian :(

What about a cost of living, it depends on your habits. A cup of coffee in cafeteria costs more expensive, but a kilo of rice and a metro ticket costs cheaper :) You can have more opinions on expat.ru from foreigners who live here.

[msk01.livejournal.com]

Yes, you can find a roommate at http://flatmates.ru/

[dimata.livejournal.com]

You can fly Germanwings http://www.germanwings.com/ (through Cologne/Bonn) or AirBerlin http://www.airberlin.com/ (through Berlin). There's a rather good choice flying Edinburgh - Cologne/Bonn and then changing plane to Cologne/Bonn - Moscow. There are close flights (about two hours between the planes). And both tickets will cost around 180 euros. It looks better then the price you've mentioned. :)

Concerning costs of living it's hard to say. Because I don't know how much it can cost for a foreigner. You can try to find some more information at http://waytorussia.net/
That's a really good website and they can help with renting a flat (don't consider this as an advertisement, I'm not related to them).
If you have any questions feel free to ask questions! :)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Same price for all since at least 1999.

[joliecanard.livejournal.com]

The problem with that cost of living index is that the data is from company expense accounts. Employees aren't going to seek out the cheapest things if it's someone else's dollar.

Moscow is probably a bit below average for cost of living compared to other major european capitals. If you wanted you could live off 10 GBP a day without problems.

[khathi.livejournal.com]

While it's so for train tickets in Russia, I'm not aware if it's still in action in Baltic states, but I'm sure that Rusian Railways has no special charge for foreigners. Even China lifted this about ten years ago, when they liquidated foreign exchange yuan. ;)

[inoctiluci.livejournal.com]

$1000/month is a really good apartment, with two rooms, not too far outside of the ring. Or at least it can be.

[inoctiluci.livejournal.com]

Check out www.waytorussia.net for train info, and for generally good info on being/living/traveling to/in Russia.

[svl.livejournal.com]

expat.ru, check this out for flatmate offers, cost of living info, etc.
That's a site with a large expat community, most of them live in Moscow, some live here for 10 years or more.