Safe travel in Russia?
 

My adult daughter and I are planning a Nov. 2002 vacation to Moscow/ St. Petersburg with a tour and I was wondering if it would be safe. I was hoping being with a tour would make it safer. Althuogh, we do have some "free" time and planned on shopping.

You all should be fine. Sometimes being in big foreign groups just make you stand out, so keep an eye on your stuff as you would do anyway. St. Pete's is just beautiful, but it WILL be cold in November, a little gray, and daylight hours will be limited. Check out lonelyplanet.com - their thorntree message boards have more of an eastern european section to answer more specific questions. Have fun!

A good comment from OK regarding standing out because of the group. Good tour groups do provide security and will keep aggressive beggers away. Beggers, souvenir hawkers and pickpockets are the biggest problems and most of the time it is not a major problem (because you are traveling off season there will be less and less of that).<BR><BR>Your biggest problem will be the language barrier--try to at least learn Cyrillic (the Russian alphabet) as then you can read street signs and the like.

By the Way I,m going to but in october.<BR><BR>In wich tour your going? Trafalgar??<BR><BR>Im'm interested also to go also in november.<BR><BR>Thanks in advance.<BR>Do you know how cold would be that time ??<BR>Do you know if it'snow at that time ??

Doris-don't *shout* that you're American by wearing clothing that has a US flag on it. Same thing with luggage. Also, we noticed that most Russians wear black from head to toe-shoes, socks, slacks, trousers, skirts, shirts, blouses to and including a black leather jacket. You can certainly minimize your packing this way! Enjoy your trip-both cities are spectacular in their own way. Take lots of film as well-you won't be restricted from taking outdoor pictures, however, don't try and take pictures of any military personnel-the Kremlin guards left no doubt in your mind that 'nyt' meant 'no'. You'll have to pay a few rubles (generally less than a $1) to take indoor pics in some cases. Have a great trip.

I have to disagree about the wearing of black. Yes, there are practical reasons that a traveler would wear black, but most Russian whom I met (and saw) in three trips of two or three weeks each didn't dress in such a fashion. <BR><BR>Also the photo fees were generally a bit higher than $1.<BR><BR>Debbie is spot on with the recommendation on taking film--you will have many, many picturesque sights to record (I have about 3,000 photos from my trips to Russia!).

Anyone going on the Trafalgar Scandinavian/Russia tour?

Watch out for the drunks, they are your greatest danger.

You can read consular advice on this<BR>from Australia on http://www.dfat.gov.au/consular/advice<BR>from Britain on http://193.114.50.10/travel and on http://www.fco.gov.uk/travel/countryadvice.asp<BR>from Canada on http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/menu-e.asp, under "Travel Reports"<BR>from France on http://www.dfae.diplomatie.fr/voyageurs/etrangers/avis/conseils/alphabet.asp<BR>from the USA on http://travel.state.gov, under "travel warnings"<BR>Some experienced American travellers find the American site over-cautious. It is therefor useful to check all five sites.<BR><BR>Ben Haines, London