Getting around, and what it actually involves

In Moscow, the metro is the default and trains arrive often enough that nobody checks a timetable. Payment is a Troika card, a bank card or a phone; single paper tickets exist but almost nobody buys them. Above ground, the city has added suburban rail lines that behave like a metro — same card, same turnstiles, longer distances.

Outside Moscow the picture changes. St Petersburg has a metro, deep and slower. Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara each have one or two lines, useful but not a full network — buses and trams do most of the work. Smaller cities run on buses and, in places, marshrutkas: fixed-route minibuses you flag down and pay on board.

Between cities, the train is the normal choice. Moscow to St Petersburg is a few hours by fast train and a night by sleeper, and both fill up. Long-distance sleepers are still how a lot of the country travels, priced well below flying.

What visitors get wrong: assuming a foreign card will work. It will not, for tickets, taxis or the metro. Everything above assumes a Russian card or cash. Taxi apps require a local phone number.