Saint Petersburg

The currency is the ruble (₽, RUB), in the range of ₽85 to ₽95 to the dollar in 2026. First and foremost, know that Visa, Mastercard and American Express cards issued outside Russia haven't worked in the country since March 2022: they won't pay, won't withdraw from ATMs and won't get you through the metro turnstile, and neither will Apple Pay or Google Pay. Bring cash, dollars or euros in new, unfolded bills, and exchange them at a bank branch (Sberbank, VTB, Alfa) showing your passport. Street exchange booths with “the best rate” are the city's most common scam. The domestic system is Mir, and some travelers open a local account, which takes time and paperwork. Price ranges in 2026: pyshka, ₽30–60; espresso, ₽200–400; stolovaya lunch, ₽350–700; main course at a mid-range restaurant, ₽700–1,500; dinner for two with drinks, ₽3,000–6,000; hostel bed, ₽900–1,800; three-star hotel, ₽4,000–8,000 a night; Hermitage ticket, ₽500–1,200 depending on the time. The tip is 10% and almost never included in the bill, so leave it in cash on the table, because the card machine usually has no field for it. Since January 1, 2025, the city has charged a municipal tourist tax of 1% on the room rate, with a minimum of ₽100 per night, already included in the hotel bill and scheduled to rise one percentage point a year until 2029.

Airport: 17 km south, one terminal since 2013

The airport is Pulkovo (LED), 17 km south of the center, with a single terminal opened in 2013. The cheapest way out is bus 39 or the 39E express to Moskovskaya metro station, about 25 minutes, and from there another 20 by metro to Nevsky; there's also a night line. A taxi to the center costs ₽1,200–2,500, and the dominant app is Yandex Go, which in practice requires a Russian phone number and card: without them, use the official taxi desk in the arrivals hall and pay in cash. Since 2022 there have been no direct flights from Western Europe; travelers from Brazil usually connect in Istanbul, Dubai, Doha or Moscow. Overland, the Sapsan train links Moscow and Saint Petersburg in about 4 hours over 650 km, with more than ten daily departures at Moskovsky station. The other train stations each serve their own direction, and mixing them up is the classic mistake: Vitebsky is the 1837 line to Tsarskoye Selo, Russia's first; Baltiysky goes to Peterhof and Oranienbaum; Finlyandsky to Vyborg; Ladozhsky to the north and east.

Metro: 70 stations since 1955

Within the city, the metro handles almost everything: opened on November 15, 1955, it has about 70 stations on five lines plus the initial stretch of a sixth, runs from 5:45am to midnight, and is the deepest in the world on average, with escalators of up to three minutes. The 2026 fare is 65 ₽ per ride with the Podorozhnik card, which costs about 60 ₽ and is topped up with cash at the ticket window or the machines; a single paper ticket costs more, around 85 ₽. On the surface there are buses, trolleybuses, and trams; private vans (marshrutki) were phased out in April 2022 and replaced by the regulated blue network. The center is flat and walkable, with 15 minutes between Nevsky and Palace Square, but the imperial scale of the facades makes distances seem shorter than they are. At night, plan around the bridges: during navigation season, from mid-April to late November, the bridges over the Neva open in the small hours, and the Palace Bridge stays raised from around 1:10am to 2:50am and from 3:10am to 4:55am, with the gap from 2:50am to 3:10am to cross. Check the day's schedule before heading out.

The risk of violence against visitors is low, and the center is well policed, even in the small hours in summer, when you can walk at three in the morning with no reason to quicken your step. The real problems are small and predictable: pickpockets on Nevsky, on Sennaya Square and in the crowded metro; street taxis without meters charging three or four times the fare, which you avoid by using the official desk or agreeing on the price beforehand; and exchange booths with rates that are too good, where the math changes when the bills are handed over. At night, Dumskaya Street concentrates cheap bars and the fights that come with them, with no serious danger for anyone just passing through. In winter, the bigger risk is physical: ice on the sidewalk and icicles falling from roofs, so respect the tape that cordons off a strip next to the building. Don't drink tap water without boiling it, because of the history of giardia in the Neva water intake; bottled water is cheap. Carry copies of your passport, migration card and registration receipt, which the hotel issues: police can ask for documents, and registration is the host's legal obligation, within seven business days. Avoid photographing military installations, railroad bridges and police officers. Since 2022, political protest in public spaces has had legal consequences, including for foreigners, so don't take part and don't film. Emergencies: 112.

Hand your coat to the checkroom

In theaters, museums, restaurants and even many canteens there's a garderob, and walking into the hall in your coat is a clear breach of manners. You get a numbered tag and hand it back on the way out; checking your coat isn't optional at the theater.

Take your shoes off when entering a home

Taking off your shoes when entering a home is a rule without exception, and the host will offer tapochki, the guest slippers. It comes with the superstition of not shaking hands or passing objects across the threshold: step inside first, then say hello.

Flowers always in odd numbers

A bouquet with an even number of flowers is for a funeral, and the florist will correct you. Three, five, seven: never two or twelve.

On the escalator, stand to the right

The metro escalators run up to 130 m and three minutes; those standing keep to the right, and those walking pass on the left. Everyone gives up a seat to elderly people, pregnant women and children as a matter of course, not as a kindness.

Don't be surprised by the lack of smiles on the street

Smiling at a stranger on the street isn't a habit and can read as insincerity; the absence of a smile isn't hostility. Warmth shows up after the first sentence, not before.

Say “Piter,” never “Leningrad”

Locals call the city Piter day to day and Saint Petersburg in formal settings; using Leningrad as a joke doesn't land well. It's also worth learning that here people say porebrik (curb), paradnaya (building entrance) and bulka (white bread), words Moscow doesn't use.

No Visa card issued outside Russia works

Arriving with only a foreign card. It doesn't work anywhere: no bank, shop, turnstile, or app accepts Visa or Mastercard issued outside Russia since 2022, and without cash in hand you can't even buy a metro ticket.

Sleeping on the wrong side of the Neva

Booking the hotel on one bank of the Neva and spending nights on the other, during navigation season. When the bridges go up, in the small hours, anyone caught on the wrong side waits until near dawn, with no other way back to bed.

The Hermitage is closed Mondays, the Russian Museum Tuesdays

Going to a museum on its day off. The Hermitage closes Mondays, the Russian Museum Tuesdays, and the Saint Isaac's and Savior on Blood complex usually closes Wednesdays. Check before you head out, and buy a timed ticket in summer.

The 64 fountains switch on in late April

Counting on Peterhof out of season. The 64 fountains of the Grand Cascade run on gravity, with no pumps, and are turned on around the end of April and off in mid-October. In winter, you see the palace and no water.

Underestimating Nevsky's scale

Underestimating the scale. Nevsky Prospect runs 4.5 km, Palace Square covers more than 5 hectares, and a full visit to the Hermitage easily runs past four hours on your feet: set aside the day and wear walking shoes, because the granite doesn't forgive.

Здравствуйте

Hello / good day (ZDRAS-tvooy-tye): the standard formal greeting when entering any place

Спасибо / Пожалуйста

Thank you (spa-SEE-ba) / please and you're welcome (pa-ZHAL-sta)

Одну пышку, пожалуйста

One pyshka, please (ad-NOO PISH-koo, pa-ZHAL-sta)

Сколько стоит?

How much does it cost? (SKOL-ka STO-yit)

Извините

Sorry / excuse me (iz-vi-NEE-tye): for asking to pass and for calling the waiter

Я не говорю по-русски

I don't speak Russian (ya nye ga-va-ROO pa-ROOS-ki)

The Neva delta and the floods

Saint Petersburg sits on the delta of the Neva, a river only 74 km long that drains Lake Ladoga into the Gulf of Finland and pours an average of about 2,500 m³/s into the Baltic. Almost the whole city is under 5 m above sea level. The highest natural point, the Duderhof Heights, is 176 m, and already lies in the southern outskirts. That is why flooding is the historic threat: the problem was never the rain, but the west wind pushing the gulf's water up the river. There have been more than 300 recorded floods since 1703, including those of 1824 (4.21 m) and 1924 (3.8 m); the 25 km barrier and gate complex, which closes off the gulf by way of Kotlin Island, was begun in 1979, completed in 2011, and has already blocked dozens of surges.

Vasilyevsky's grid and the trident to the south

The urban fabric combines two shapes. To the north, Vasilyevsky Island is cut by numbered “lines,” which in Peter I's plan were supposed to be canals and became streets; to the south, the trident laid out in 1737 fans out Nevsky, Gorokhovaya and Voznesensky avenues from the golden spire of the Admiralty. Between the two run the Moika, Fontanka, Griboyedov and Kryukov canals, crossed by about 800 bridges across the whole city, 18 of them drawbridges. Height has been regulated since the 19th century by the cornice of the Winter Palace, about 23.5 m, which keeps the center's skyline strictly flat and explains why the 462 m Lakhta tower was pushed 9 km to the northwest.

Latitude and the year's light

At latitude 59°57' N, the June solstice gives almost 19 hours of daylight and no real darkness; the December one gives fewer than 6 hours of light, with the sun rising around 10am.

The geography of the books is still standing

The city is the address of modern Russian literature, and the geography of the books is still standing. Pushkin died in the apartment at Moika 12, now a museum, two days after the duel at Black River in January 1837. Gogol set “The Overcoat” and “The Nose” on Nevsky. Dostoevsky wrote “Crime and Punishment” (1866) with distances counted in real steps between Sennaya Square and Kokushkin Bridge, and died in an apartment at Kuznechny Lane 5/2. Anna Akhmatova lived nearly thirty years at the Fountain House, on Fontanka 34, and wrote “Requiem” there from the lines outside Kresty Prison, across the river, decommissioned in 2017. Joseph Brodsky grew up in the “room and a half” of the Muruzi House, at Liteiny 24, was convicted of “parasitism” in 1964, expelled in 1972, and won the Nobel in 1987.

The Mariinsky since 1860

In music, the Mariinsky, opened in 1860, is where Marius Petipa directed the ballet from 1869 to 1903 and where “The Sleeping Beauty” (1890) and “The Nutcracker” (1892) premiered; the second stage, Mariinsky II, opened in 2013 across the Kryukov Canal. The Philharmonic, in the hall on Mikhailovskaya Street, is where the most remembered concert of the siege took place, in 1942. Far from the classical halls, the Leningrad Rock Club, opened at 13 Rubinstein Street in 1981 under official supervision, launched Akvarium, Kino, Alisa and DDT. Soviet rock of the 1980s is practically a local product. In the visual arts, the Academy of Fine Arts has existed since 1757.

Affordable theater and neighborhood bars, the everyday culture

Everyday cultural life happens in three places: the theaters and concert halls, still cheap by European standards and full on a weeknight; the neighborhood bars, concentrated on Rubinstein and Dumskaya streets and in the courtyards off Nekrasova, with hours that stretch in summer because it never gets dark; and Zenit's soccer at the Gazprom Arena, in Krestovsky, with about 64,000 seats and a crowd that fills Line 3 on match day. SKA's hockey shares the winter with soccer. The city has also made films since 1914, at Lenfilm, and keeps a large circuit of apartment-museums, the Russian kind of museum that preserves a writer's or composer's address with the furniture still in place.

“Crime and Punishment” (1866), Fyodor Dostoevsky

The novel was written with the map open: Sennaya Square, Kokushkin Bridge and the well-yard courtyards are all in place, and you can walk Raskolnikov's route in an afternoon. It explains the city from below, the part south of Nevsky.

“Russian Ark” (2002), Alexander Sokurov

Ninety-six minutes in a single unbroken take, no cuts, moving through 33 rooms of the Hermitage and three centuries of Russian history. It's the best visual introduction to the palace and to what it represents.

Symphony No. 7 “Leningrad” (1941), Dmitri Shostakovich

Shostakovich wrote his Seventh Symphony during the siege, and on August 9, 1942, it was played inside the besieged city by a thin, starving orchestra, with loudspeakers turned toward the German lines. Listen to it before going to Piskaryovskoye Cemetery, where the victims of the siege are buried, because it changes what you see there.