Private Guide St. Petersburg
 

Need private driver/guide in St. Petersburg in August for return visit to Hermitage:Red October charges are very expensive.Arriving by cruise ship.

If you have a Russian Visa then you can hire a local guide. W/o the Visa you must use the ship tours only. Visas are expensive as you have to be invited by a hotel or tour group or something like that to get a Visa. That basically means payinga fee. Just one way to pay the locals basically. So factor in the cost of the Visa when you evaluate the cost of the guide. If you still want a local guide and driver, we had a wonderful guide, Olga, who also provided a driver. You can reach her at [email protected]
Enjoy!

We used "Denrus" which now also has a budget tour. We were very pleased with our private tour with them in 2002.

You can use Red October or Denrus without having a visa..at least that is what Denrus declares on their website.

Thanks for the help: Why are the fees so high for this service? Visa no problem as we live in San Francisco area and Russian consulate/embassy available.

Yes you can use Red October or Denrus without having a visa, however you will be under their control, any visitors who wish to explore Russian on their own need a Russian Visa.

micarda,
the best way is to obtain Russian Visa in your consulate and hire a private guide.
trip to the Hermitage usually takes about 4 hours including transportation.
Entrance fee is 350 rubles
air-conditioned car or minivan with driver is 12 euro per hour
private guide (like me) is 12 Euro per hour
According to your interests and preferences additional sights can be observesd on the way.

We obtained our Visas through a company recommended by our cruise company, which was economical and very efficient.

Here's another HUGE recommendation for Olga Stepanova. She was very pleasant in e-mail exchanges, had many wonderful recommendations, was very flexible. She met us at our ship and accompanied us into the city. We booked her for two days and could not have been more pleased with her. She also arranged taxis for our return to the ship.

She has a website http://www.tourservice.sp.ru/ and can also help you with obtaining visas.

In addition to Denrus and Red October there is another tour company that we used and highly reocmmend. It is alla-tours and the web site is www.alla-tour.com
We too had been to St. Petersburg previously and the tour we did with Alla was totally customized.You can tour with her company without a visa which is pricey and not very convenient to get. The application form is annoying long and detailed.Also, you can keep your price down by using public transportation. If you only want to go to the Hermitage you probably don't need a driver all day or at all if you really want to keep price down.The guide we had took us back to the Hermitage and to a lesser known part of the Hermitage across the square which was wonderful and no crowds.I suggest you contact her.