Traveling by Train Inside Russia

        Booking tips :

• Booking opens 90 days ahead for most trains.  From April 2019, a handful of trains including the Moscow-St Petersburg Red Arrow and (for summer) all Sapsan trainswill open up to 120 days ahead.

• Train fares in Russia are not particularly expensive, although there have been significant price rises over the last few years.  Moscow-St Petersburg on a top-quality firmeny sleeper train such as train 1/2 Krasnaya Strela costs around 3,200 roubles.  On a lower quality Moscow-St Petersburg overnight train such as train 56, you can find kupé tickets for as little as 2,260 rubles, platskartny berths for 1,400 rubles, though I'd still recommend taking the better trains.

• Look for trains described as firm, short for firmeny which is the top quality category of long-distance fast train with the most modern coaches and a high standard of on board service.

• Russian fares vary by season.  Higher fares are charged at Easter, New Year, July & August, lower fares in January & February.  Higher fares are charged for the fast high-quality firmeny trains, lower fares for slower unnamed low-quality trains.

• On the best trains you can buy tickets either 'without services' (no meals) or 'with services' (meals included, either served in the restaurant or in your compartment).  A number against a knife & fork logo on the Real Russia booking system or a 'У' with a number in the 'category' column on rzd.ru indicates the total number of meals you get with a 'with services' ticket, it might be just one or two even on a journey lasting several days.  An example of the sort of meal served can be seen in these photos from the Moscow-Irkutsk-Vladivostok Rossiya.

• Trains used to run to Moscow time in Russia, even where local time was 7 hours ahead of Moscow, and Russian rail timetables used to show Moscow time for all stops.  However, after over a century RZD Russian Railways ended this practice in August 2018, and you should now find online booking systems and station timetables showing local time at each stop.  It makes things a lot easier to understand!

• Children:  In Russia, one child aged 0 to 4 travels free, children aged 5 to 9 travel at half fare, children aged 10 and over must pay full fare.  Important:  Note that unlike trains in most of Europe, on Russian trains even infants and babies travelling for free must have a (free of charge) ticket with their name on it.

Buy tickets online at rzd.ru...

You can also now buy Russian train tickets direct from Russian Railways at www.rzd.ru which now has an English version.  It's a bit fiddly and not as user-friendly as Real Russia, but there are no fees and it does work if you persevere.  It accepts some overseas credit cards, though not all.  It may currently reject US-issued cards, though perhaps not all.

How to buy tickets at the station

The cheapest place to buy Russian train tickets is at the station reservation office.  Here are some tips:

• Remember to take your passport, even if you only want a Russian domestic train ticket.

• Russian train reservations open 60 days before departure, you can't buy tickets before reservations open.

• Russian Railways have an efficient computerised reservation system, and you can book any journey within or out of Russia at the reservation office at any Russian railway station.

• To avoid language problems if you don't speak Russian, it's a good idea to learn the Russian alphabet so you can write down the journey and date you want to show to the ticket office staff.  When writing dates, use roman numerals for the month, or example for '3 June 2008' write '3 VI 2008'.

• People often ask me, "If I go to the ticket office the day before I want to travel, will I find tickets available?".  Well, if you know the Russian alphabet, you can check how many berths in each class are still available on any train on any date within the next 60 days using the Russian Railways website, www.rzd.ru.  So you could see how many berths are left today on trains from (say) Moscow to St Petersburg tomorrow or the day after.  This will give you a pretty good idea of how many places are likely to be available if you ask at the station a day or two before departure.

• Many main stations have a 'servis tsentr' (service centre) where you pay a small fee (about 100 rubles) to book your ticket in a relaxed air-conditioned environment.  The extra 100 rubles can be well worth it!

Security.  Are Russian trains safe for families or single women?

Yes!  There is no need to worry unduly about security on Russian trains, even for families or women travelling alone. How do you think Russian families or solo women travel?  By train, of course, like everyone else!   Just use common sense as you would in a hotel, locking your door at night and not leaving valuables unattended in your compartment.  In addition to the normal lock on the compartment door, 'Spalny Wagon' and 'kupé' compartments have a security latch which stops the door opening more than an inch or two, and which cannot be released from outside.  There's also a safe place for your bags at night - if you have a bottom bunk, there is a metal box underneath the bunk which you can only get to by lifting up the bunk - in other words, for anyone to get to your bags, they will have to shift you off your bunk first..!  Your provodniks will probably also lock the access doors at each end of the corridor at night to prevent unwanted guests.  Men and women share the same compartments in Russia, but it's generally quite safe for women travelling alone.  If you're a woman and find yourself in sharing with three men that make you uncomfortable, just ask the provodniks (carriage attendants) if they can move you.

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