Russia beyond headlines.
Everyday life, culture, practical reality and sourced perspectives. Read both sides, note what actually differs, decide for yourself.
What brings you here?
Everyday Russia
See allForeigners who live in Russia
Ten verified channels filming their own daily life here, with what each one is best at.
Moscow, unfiltered
Photos and notes from the city as it looks on a normal day, not on a postcard.
Place
Living in Siberia as a foreigner: Baikal, Irkutsk and the small towns
Four time zones from Moscow, the arithmetic changes: land and housing are a fraction of the capital's, and everything else — specialist medicine, imported goods, a flight home — costs more in time and money.
Ten claims about Russia, checked against numbers
See all 10 checksChecked September 2026
Do foreign bank cards work in Russia?
0 foreign-issued Visa or Mastercard payments clear inside Russia
Checked September 2026
Is Moscow safe for tourists?
Crowd-sourced safety scores place Moscow above Paris and London
Checked September 2026
Is the internet blocked in Russia?
Fixed broadband speeds are competitive with Western Europe
Foreign residents on camera
Meet all of themAustralia · Moscow
Travelling with Russell
An Australian in Moscow who built a channel out of the most boring possible subject and made it useful: he walks into a supermarket, films every price tag, and adds up the receipt at the till. Then he does the same with apartments — a rental-standard flat, a luxury tower, a suburban block — and tells you the monthly cost.
United States · Slyudyanka, Lake Baikal
Wild Siberia
Daniel Castle left the United States for Slyudyanka, a small town on the southern shore of Lake Baikal, and started filming the parts of immigration nobody romanticises: the residence paperwork, drilling a well, the price of farmland, a Siberian family's apartment, the road along the lake in winter.
Denmark · A village in the taiga
Survival Russia
Lars is a Dane who has spent well over a decade in rural Russia, raising sons, heating with wood, hauling furniture out of abandoned villages and building a sauna by hand. The channel started as bushcraft and became something better: a long-running record of a foreign family in the Russian countryside.
with sources instead of slogans
Practical: start with a roadmap
See allStudying in Russia: the whole path
Doing business in Russia as a foreigner
Coming to Russia: from idea to arrival
The five guides
Cost of Living in Russia 2026
Real 2026 prices: rent, groceries, restaurants, metro, taxi, utilities, gym and three full monthly budgets — Moscow, St. Petersburg, and a typical region.
Living in Russia in 2026
Visas, money, rent, internet, VPN, healthcare, language: a no-bullshit 2026 guide to actually living in Russia, written by a Russian who comes and goes between Moscow and Europe.
Mir Card & Money in Russia 2026
The complete 2026 guide for foreigners: opening a Russian bank account, getting an INN, Mir card abroad, SBP instant transfers, what's left of SWIFT, and using USDT as a bridge.
Moscow Travel Guide 2026
How to actually visit Moscow in 2026: e-visa, eSIM, cash without Visa, the metro, where to stay, what to eat, and a 7-day itinerary that skips the tourist traps.
Russian Visa Guide 2026
Every Russian visa in 2026 explained: e-visa, tourist, private, business, work, HQS, study, 'shared values' visa, RVP, VNZh, citizenship. Real costs, real timelines, real mistakes.
Russian language
See all10 min
Russian alphabet
All 33 letters with sound, look-alike traps and what each one really sounds like.
Instant
Your name in Russian
How your name is written and said in Russian, including the friendly short form.
5 min
Say it in Russian
Real phrases people actually use, with pronunciation you can copy out loud.
Community
Meet people who are learning Russian, travelling to Russia, living there, or who just want a more human conversation about the country.
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One email a week: what went up on the site, what I re-checked, and the reader questions worth answering at length.
- New guides and stories, with the date each was last checked
- Reader questions, answered in full
- What changed in the practical pages: prices, papers, transport
About the author
A word from the author
Hi, I'm Vlad.
I'm Russian, I was born beyond the Arctic Circle, and I now live in Lisbon. This isn't a newsroom — there's no editorial board here, just me, a laptop and too much coffee.
I read the Russian press and the Western press on the same morning, and I write down what actually differs. No slogans, no cheering for anyone. If I'm wrong, tell me — I answer.
— Vlad Lario, founder of Two Nations
More about me