Hello!
Dear friends, I need you help. Now I'm writing my degree work about the difficulties which are typical for foreigners in Russia. It is great if I can use some real stories. If you had some troubles during your trip to Russia (for instance, something about etiquette, behavour), please, tell me about it. Surely, I won't mention your name or something, I just need to clarify which points are the most difficult fo foreigners in Russia.

The biggest problem we faced in Russia was food. IMHO much of it is sub-par - often not fresh (lots of things that have been frozen) and you need to be VERY careful where you eat if you want something more than calories for stoking. We had several nice meals - but the prices were enormous versus what you would pay in most of western europe.

What is needed most is
1) a lot more modest/moderate restaurants with food that is both fresh (not canned or frozen) and nicely prepared (not gourmet - just good home cooking standard)
2) a real guide book with information on how to find these places without paying the earth

We typically do one splurge meal in each city we visit - and I don't have a problem paying a high price for that. But I don;t want to have to pay $200 to $250 for dinner for 2 for anything decent to eat - or to struggle through food you can barely swallow.

Thanks for your reply!
You know, the problem of food is really problem as when I were abroad I also couldn't find anything both tasty and not very expensive.

I'll try to make a list of such places and then place it on my site. I guess it starts fuctioning in July if everything is OK.

Sorry - I have traveled all over europe and found that it is possible to get good food at all price points quite easily - and in some places (like Belgium) it's practically impossible to get food that isn't very good -no matter how inexpensive.

I'm not saying that cheap food in Russia was bad - I;m saying that quite expensive food was bad. Only at the most expensive places is the food more than just edible - and on an economy that is fairly low-budget - you shouldn;t have to spend $100 and up per person for dinner to get a decent meal.

Well,I haven't such great experience of travelling.

I see you points, but it's really so: there are a few normal places to eat in Moscow. As I'm a student I hadn't yet a possibility to try any expensive restaurant, but as for the cheaper ones, it's OK very often.

I'll fix it, thanks.

>>Only at the most expensive places is the food more than just edible<<

I had some excellent meals and never paid more than $60 (and that would have been much less without wine!)