The phone code of St. Petersburg is 812.
How to call St. Petersburg from abroad. To make a call to St.Petersburg, Russia from abroad you should dial 00 for international access, 7 for the Russian country code, 812 for St.Petersburg code and then the 7-digit number.
International calls from St. Petersburg . Dial 8, wait for a tone, then dial 10 (international access), then the code of the country, the area and the phone number. The price of a phonecall to Europe will be around 20 roubles ($0.7) a minute in the daytime. In the nighttime and weekends the tariffs are 30 to 50% less.
Russia - St. Petersburg. When you call somebody in St.Petersburg from any other Russian city, dial 8, wait for a tone, then dial the St. Pete phone code 812, and then the 7-digit phone number. The price of a phonecall from Moscow to St. Pete, for example, is about 4 roubles a minute ($0.15).
St. Petersburg - Russia. If you're phoning from St. Petersburg to some other Russian city, dial 8, wait for a tone, then dial the code of the city (e.g. Moscow - 495, Novgorod - 8162), and then the local city number you need. The price of a phonecall to Moscow will be around 4 roubles a minute ($0.15).
Inside St. Petersburg. If you're in St.Petersburg and calling inside St.Petersburg, you should dial the 7-digit number without any codes. The local phonecalls are free.
Calling Russian mobile phones. Russian mobiles have either direct (cities they were registred in) numbers, or indirect numbers. The indirect number is of this form: 8 tone *** *******. If you use mobile phone, you can dial +7 instead of 8.
PUBLIC PHONES. The "phone" in Russian is "tele`fon". The public phones are called "taxofon" ("таксофон"). The public phones in St. Petersburg work with chip cards, some pay phones in the metro work with coins.
There are two systems of public phones in St. Petersburg, each requires a different type of card.
The fist system is operated by St. Petersburg Taxophones phones. Their phones are installed outside, they are in green booths and work only with chip cards. One minute of a local phonecall costs about 0,6 -3 roubles, to phone abroad will cost you 33 roubles per minute. You can buy a phonecard for 10, 30, 50, 90, 150, 280 units (each unit is one minute of local call) at metro stations, newspaper kiosks, Sberbank branches, MMT offices for long-distance communications, post offices and railway stations. Besides, on each phone there's info on where's the nearest place to by the card.
There is also system of public phones, the phones are installed in the metro only and said to be removed soon. They use either cards or coins (two different types). Don't buy the cards for these phones, because you'll be limited to using it only in the metro. Use coins better - the same price.
HOW TO PHONE FOR FREE IN ST. PETERSBURG. There's a great option to phone for free: there's a cafe chain called "Ideal Cup" (see our Eating Out section), the cafes are spreaded all around the city. Each cafe has a free phone inside, which you can use for not more than 3 minutes. Besides, the phones have phone numbers (obviously), so somebody can phone you at specific time as well. There are also message desks next to every phone, so you can leave a message for your friends.
How to Send the Post
BASICS. If you want to send something by post from Russia, you can do it either through government post service or courier services - the difference is price and speed.
STATE POST SERVICE. The government post system in whole Russia is unexpensive, but there is a certain risk that your letter would never reach the reciepient. It's ok in the most cases with the parcels though.
How to send it. You should buy the post stamps at the post offices, which you can find by "Почта" (Pochta) sign. Post offices usually work Monday - Friday from 9.00 to 19.00 and Saturday - 9.00 to 17.00, sunday is day off. It costs around 20-25 roubles (0.8$) to send a letter to foreign countries. For that price your letter will arrive in around 2 weeks.You can send your letter or a postcard using any of light blue post boxes on the streets or directly at the post office (better). Sending an average (around 500gm) parcel costs around 150-230 roubles ($6-8).
Where to send it from:
Central City Post Services (Pochtamp). International and domestic post. Less expensive, than courier services. Open: mon-sat 9.00-20.00, sun 10.00-17.45. Address: Pochtampskaya St., #9 (metro Nevsky Prospekt, near St.Isaac cathedral and Astoria hotel). Phone: 312-8022
}Post office in St. Petersburg / photo by Janelle / FlickR
COURIER SERVICES. Faster, much more reliable and therefore more expensive. Here are addresses of some courier post service providers in St Petersburg:
1. West Post. Least expensive courier services. English speaking, American managed. St. Petersburg: #86, Nevsky pr. 191025, tel.: +7 (812) 336-6352, +7-812-327-3211, fax +7-812-275-0806, internet: http://westpost.ru/en, email: zakaz@westpost.ru.
Internet: http://www.westpost.ru ||| 2. City Express. Chaykovskogo street, #2/7, lit. O , tel (812) 305-3883, email: spb@cityexpress.ru. internet:http://www.cityexpress.ru/Eng ||| 3. DHL Saint-Petersburg, Izmailovski prospekt, #4, tel 7-(812) 326-64-00, internet: http://www.dhl.ru/en/express/shipping/find_dhl_locations/saint_petersburg.html ||| 4. EMS Garantpost Moskovsky pr, #109B, tel. (812) 325-75-25, e-mail: exp@ems.spb.ru ||| 5. TNT Sofiskaya, # 14 and several other offices around the city. tel. +7 (800) 100 2777 , +7 (812) 718-3330, fax +7 (812) 718-3495, email cs.led@tnt.ru ||| 6. UPS. Shturmanskaya, #12, tel. (812) 703 3939, (812) 703 5365
