It feels like it was ages ago that we went to the World Cup in Russia this last summer and I'm just now finishing this post. Sorry for the extremely long delay. This is what happens when you have a regular job, travel, and love to live life 😉. Anyway, the results are in, here is what we learned on our adventure to Russia or Россия (ross-SEE-ya) as it is pronounced in Russian. WARNING: I tried to make this post as detailed as possible since I have been receiving so many questions about Russia. Many people don't ever make it to Russia due to the visa regulations and just out of pure intimidation caused by our entertainment industry. If you ever get the chance I recommend crossing it off your bucket list!😊
As I did in Russia part one, I will address the same categories to show how they compare. In Russia part two, I will also be giving a short description of the individual cities visited within the sub categories, when I can. Sorry if there is a lot to read! I love details if you haven't noticed by now.
Leaving Denver we flew into Helsinki, Finland for a pre-trip trip and spent two days there, which I will blog about later. I chose this route because it was the cheapest way to go after much research on more affordable routes, thanks with the help of Hopper once again (unpaid advertisement 😉).
I get asked this quite a bit so here is a price break down for flights if anyone is interested.
$300 USD to get to Finland on Norweigen Air
$560 USD From Moscow to Denver (stop in Helsinki, one in New York)
From Helsinki it was a three hour train ride for $95 to St. Petersburg. Doing it this way saved us about $500 a piece on flights.
Food
One of the common questions I get about Russia is about the food. People seem to very curious about what they eat over there, as was I before I visited.
Much of their food is not out of the ordinary. Common foods that could be found were burgers, salmon, pizza, pastas, soups, sandwiches, etc.. Seafood was very common and slightly cheaper than it might be is some parts of the U.S. such as in Denver. Since the parts of Russia we visited were relatively close to the Black Sea, some cities closer than others, it was not difficult to find an assortment of seafood. Overall their food was influenced by the world, meaning there was a variety of things just like we can find at home in the U.S. or Canada 🌍.
One thing I found kinda interesting but made complete sense, was that some restaurants gave you rubber gloves to eat hand held foods, such as burgers. It came as part of the utensils. Not a bad idea in my opinion.
Of course we had to try some traditional Russian dishes and street food. We came across a some street food, in my opinion the best foods to try when abroad. Pictured below is Churchkhela (pictured below) , is a traditional Georgian and Anatolian candle like candy. It consist of nuts dipped in thickened juice over and over creating a fruit roll over the nuts and dried like a sausage. It is not super sweet but makes for a delicious snack in my opinion.
I'm including a link below if you are curious about how they taste. I would definitely try them.
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Other street foods we tried were pastries filled with meats and cabbage, or sausage rolls, which were hardy but tasty.
Our first trial of Russian food came from our hotel in St. Petersburg. It was a family run hotel and all the food was homemade by the family, it was like having a good home cooked meal for very cheap.
Eating out at restaurants was much like home, but smaller portions, as most countries do compared to the U.S. but also priced appropriately. I preferred the portion sizes and prices in Russia overall.
People
The people in Russian were nothing short of awesome! I am sure, just like anywhere in the world, you will come across people that aren't the friendliest, but everyone we met was super helpful and kind. Many people did not speak too much English, which I found to be one of the biggest language barriers I have experienced in a while, but with that said there seemed to be someone within listening distance that new a tiny bit of English that would voluntarily offer to help you communicate with others. Side note: If you ever plan on going to Russia LEARN THE RUSSIAN ALPHABET!!!! Here is a link that might help if you are interested in a helpful cheatsheet * https://amzn.to/2C1vdfk. It is intimidating but it is not as hard as it looks. If you can sound out the words it is much easier when it comes to transportation and food because some words sound just like the English word or similar, they just look much different.
There were a few instances as we walked back to our accommodations, in the burbs, that people would hear us talking and ask us if we were from the US and get very excited when we told them yes. They even went past far as wanting to take selfies with us and asking us what they could about things they were curious about. Since it was the time of the World Cup there were lots of Russians trying to get selfies with as many different from as many different countries as possible. They were great about making us feel welcome. Location is key when traveling abroad, it saves time to the major tourist sites but staying slightly out of city center has his benefits. It is often cheaper, not as much noise, and gives you more of chance to meet some of the locals. It stress it more when a city has a subway/metro with in walking distance, We LOVE using booking.com to find great deals and make bookings without worrying about cancellation fees. Use our link to help us keep Travelista Life going, at no extra cost to you!
The only time I felt slightly awkward was upon arrival to St. Petersburg we got a few stares but nothing we aren't used to when traveling abroad. It could have been my paranoia from what I heard from movies and other Russians that currently reside in the US.
Don't ever let the staring bug you, it comes with the territory😉. While we are on the subject, check out these beautiful subway stations, the photos do not do them justice.
Perhaps we got used it as the days went on but overall I feel like people didn't really mind all the tourist. I'm not sure how it would have been during a normal visit to Russia versus visiting Russia while it hosts a world event.
Clothing
As I said in part one, I could not find much on what kind of clothing was common for Russia. The little bit I did find or heard about was that they were conservative but I found it to be a mix for the most part. I noticed arriving to St. Petersburg, our first stop in Russia, the people on the subway wore earthy tones and not very many bright colors. This could have been because it was fairly cool outside even though it was the middle of summer. It reminded me of the cool crisp weather in San Francisco. Pants and a jacket were still very necessary here. Russia is such a big country that the weather varied from one city to the other.
In Sochi the weather was warm and tropical so as you would expect summer clothes all the way. Swim suit on the beach by day and shorts, tank tops, and summer dresses were the way to go by night. The is a huge coastline of swimmable beaches in Sochi but we struggled a bit to find the entrance to get there from our hotel. We had to take a long walk and a few detours around the hotels in the area until a nice security guard let us through the gate to go to a swimming beach. The cool water was very rewarding after the long hot walk in the sun.
Don't be afraid to wear what you like to wear. The Russian people are always well dressed so if you don't want to stand out too much like a tourist put a little effort into what you wear to leave your hotel. I hope this post gives you a good idea of what to expect from your trip to Russia. Feel free to email us or message us on Instagram or Facebook with questions! Thank you for reading! 😘
Fun group picture we took at the GUM mall for* Beats by Dre