Moscow is an easy city to enjoy and a confusing one to arrive in unprepared: half of the practical advice online predates 2022 and much of it no longer works. Here is the current, tested list — the things that actually matter in 2026, in roughly the order you'll meet them.
Money and payments
- 1. Your foreign Visa and Mastercard will not work. Not in shops, not in the metro, not in taxis. This is the single most important fact about visiting Russia today. Plan around cash;
- 2. Bring euros or dollars in cash and exchange as you go — exchange offices are everywhere in the centre, rates are posted openly, and passports are required for larger sums;
- 3. Everything is card-first for locals, cash-friendly for you. Every till accepts cash; don't be embarrassed to pay for coffee with a banknote;
- 4. Google Pay and Apple Pay don't work — they left with the card networks. QR-code payment terminals you'll see everywhere are for Russian bank apps only.
Phone and internet
- 5. Buy a travel eSIM before you fly. Since 2025 a local Russian SIM requires state biometric registration — not worth it for a short trip. An international travel eSIM with Russia coverage, or roaming, is the practical answer;
- 6. Instagram and Facebook are blocked (their parent company is banned in Russia), and many Western sites are patchy. If you rely on them, set up a VPN before arrival — VPN app pages are hard to reach from inside the country;
- 7. Download offline maps and an offline translation pack for Russian while you're still on hotel Wi-Fi — both save you daily.
Paperwork
- 8. Visa-free doesn't mean form-free: from 1 July 2026, visa-free visitors must file an arrival application in the RuID app at least 72 hours before crossing the border;
- 9. Keep your migration card. You get it at passport control (increasingly electronic) — it's needed when you leave;
- 10. Hotels register you automatically with the migration authorities; if you stay in a private apartment longer than 7 working days, your host has to do it — ask them about it directly.
Getting around
- 11. The metro is the best in the world for visitors: trains every 90 seconds, English announcements and signs, and stations that double as sights. Buy a Troika card at any station cashier with cash and top it up as you go;
- 12. Order taxis through the Yandex Go app, never off the street — street "taxi" quotes for foreigners are a lottery. Cash payment is an option in the app settings;
- 13. Central Moscow is bigger than it looks on the map. "Two stops" can be an hour's walk — check distances, not stop counts;
- 14. Trains beat planes for St Petersburg: the Sapsan covers it in about four hours, city centre to city centre.
Daily life
- 15. Book the big sights online, ahead: Kremlin and Armoury tickets on kreml.ru (the Armoury sells by timed session), Bolshoi Theatre on bolshoi.ru — the box office on the night is usually too late;
- 16. Many museums close on Mondays — check the day plan before building your itinerary around one;
- 17. Tipping is around 10% in restaurants, in cash, and always optional; nobody chases you for it;
- 18. Tap water is fine for brushing teeth, but most visitors (and many locals) drink bottled — it's cheap everywhere;
- 19. Dress for the season seriously. Winter is a real −10…−20°C with ice underfoot; proper boots and layers, not fashion. Summer can hit +30°C;
- 20. Learn the Cyrillic alphabet on the plane. An hour of practice and half the city becomes readable — метро is just "metro";
- 21. The emergency number is 112, works from any phone, and operators can find English speakers.
None of this is difficult — it's just different from what travel habits in Europe or the US prepare you for. Sort the card-and-SIM question before departure, and Moscow itself is the easy part.
