Way to Russia Community and Forum

Bulletguy · Frequent Guest Joined: 21 Mar 2009 Posts: 16

I have been looking at the possibility of touring parts of Russia in July this year in my campervan, but from what information i can find via the internet there does not appear to be any camping site facilities anywhere in Russia. Does anyone have a website listing camping sites in Russia?

Many internet sites about travelling in Russia mention the need to park a motorhome or campervan in a secured compound as it is not safe to leave parked in a street. Is criminal damage to vehicles really this bad in Russia?

I really would like to visit Moscow and maybe St Petersburg.

What are the road conditions like? I have driven in Poland where some roads are of very bad surface.

I need to stay on camping sites to make use of electricity and also to get fresh water supply.

My campervan is a Ford Transit and this model is very common throughout UK and many EU countries, so should i experience a breakdown, repairs are not a problem. But are there any Ford garages in Russia?

Finally.....i am english and speak no Russian!! Would this be a problem for me?

overseas_expat · VIP Joined: 11 Jan 2005 Posts: 741 Location: Moscow

What you propose will be next to impossible.

#1 Russia has no campgrounds
#2 Russia has a system of visas and registration. Registration is tied to addresses. One must be registered at a particular address, which one cannot do if one is driving around and hanging out in the woods. Failure to register is a CRIMINAL offense. The Russian government takes registration very seriously.
#3 If you speak no Russian you don't have a snowball's chance in hell of doing anything in Russia. There is NO ENGLISH in Russia.

To sum up, no, you're not going camping in your van in Russia.

Bulletguy · Frequent Guest Joined: 21 Mar 2009 Posts: 16

overseas_expat · VIP Joined: 11 Jan 2005 Posts: 741 Location: Moscow

Ah young duckling, you are probably not old enough to realize that Russia *officially* shook off communism a mere twenty years ago. Previous to that travel within the country was restricted even for Russians, and foreigners were 100% unwelcome.

What that means now, is that there is no tourism infrastructure at all, and foreigners are still largely unwelcome except for in the very strict hotel/tour group/structured sense. Freedom for foreigners to just comfortably wander Russia and look around--does not exist.

And you have no understanding of Russian registration. Foreigners must register with the Russian government within 72 hours of arriving in Russia. One of the only ways for a foreigner to do this is in a hotel. Therefore your camper van idea is a loser since there would be no way for you to register your presence in Russia as you would have no actual location. You see, they use this process to keep track, very careful tabs, on foreigners who enter the country. Savvy?

And no, they are not interested in the tourist industry.

One may meet Russians in the center of St. Petersburg and Moscow who speak English. Otherwise no, there is virtually no English to be found in Russia.

But hey, give it a try! just load up your camper van and head for the border and see what happens. Good luck with that. Rolling Eyes

Bulletguy · Frequent Guest Joined: 21 Mar 2009 Posts: 16

overseas_expat · VIP Joined: 11 Jan 2005 Posts: 741 Location: Moscow

Well, since you have such a worthy resource at hand, a random quote from Radio Moscow, and you have absolutely no comprehension of the Russian registration system, why do you come here and ask our advice?

Bulletguy · Frequent Guest Joined: 21 Mar 2009 Posts: 16

overseas_expat · VIP Joined: 11 Jan 2005 Posts: 741 Location: Moscow

In fact, I have provided information and answered many of your questions. It seems that my answers don't suit you and so you have decided to attack me personally. Go for it.

Read my posts again. Regarding your questions:

#1 There are no campgrounds in Russia.
#2 Outside of big international cities, there is no English in Russia
#3 There are no motorhome services in Russia.
#4 There is no good way to comply with Russian registration requirements while camping in the woods.

greg222 · VIP Joined: 15 Feb 2005 Posts: 599

What overseas expat says is true. There are no campgrounds like what you would be used to and you won't be able to register. Therefore you'll be at risk of being shaken down by police. And it will be rare that you find someone who speaks English outside of the major cities. That said, people manage to do what you plan to do. So as long as you're happy to accept the problems and risks then go for it.

There are people on this forum who have driven a lot in Russia. Hopefully one of them will chime in with some advice about road conditions, etc.

gaijin · Lounge Lizard Joined: 03 Oct 2007 Posts: 155

There is no problem concerning registration: you can come via Estonia or Finland, have a stop in Piter. If you get to a registration agency in the morning you can have your registration (for the full stay) in the evening. It costs about 20 euro for 1 month registration. Maybe more if you register a car, I don't know. If you come in the afternoon you have your registation the next day. And Piter is definitely worth staying overnight!

Ford is present in Russia, they even have a factory here.

If you have traveled to rural France and thought people spoke little English, that's the situation you will encounter in Piter or Moscow. It's worse in the rest of Russia. Everybody is supposed to learn English at school but many take pride in NOT knowing English, because it's the language of the bad guys... Learn some basic vocabulary ( free resource on the Mango Languages website), buy a good conversation guide and a good electronic speaking dictionary. Millions of people travel in countries where people don't speak their language and most of them make it safely home...

To the angry overseas expat: Have you travelled to Japan? Do you seriously think people are better at speaking English than Russians? If yes, I can tell that you have been only from the airport to the hotel, from the hotel to a business meeting in English (where you were pissed at the poor level of English of your partners), from the meeting to the restaurant (where you didn't notice that the waiters of that expensive restaurant didn't know more than 10 words of English, because your partners were ordering for you), from the restaurant to the hotel (I kindly pass on the late karaoke bar party), and from the hotel to the airport. That's not what I call travelling in Japan. Had you done otherwise you would have realized that Japanese people don't speak better English than Russian. The situation of Tokyo and Osaka is about the same as Moscow and Piter, if not worse.
And yet, I still have to meet a person in his sane mind recommending not to travel in Japan because of the language problem.

You are also wrong saying that Russians have no interest in the tourism industry. New hotels are being built, in European standards, and foreign companies are rushing to open to this land of new opportunities for the tourism industry (Sokos, Radisson, Accor...). The boom of the tourism industry is only starting but many decent hotels already exist, and not only in Moscow and Piter.

Concerning the roads, they can get pretty bad in remote areas. If you just stay on the main roads, you'll be fine: international roads going in, road between Moscow and Piter, and you can even extend from Moscow to some cities of the Golden Ring without too much trouble. I know that in some of these cities people complain a lot about their roads, but I've seen that the roads between cities are more or less OK, it's just that some roads between a city and its neighbouring villages can look like they have been bombed. They redo them regularly with the cheapest materials in order to get the contract again a few years later...

Concerning safety, I would say that it's rather betterthan in western Europe, but you have to be careful with drug addicts in need, who will not think twice about beating you if you refuse to give your cash. Your best bet is to look for truckers sites. The increased unemployment has also increased crime...
If what worries you is damages to cars... if you would dare park your car in Marseille, you can park it in Russia, the risk of having it damaged is definitely much lower.

Bulletguy · Frequent Guest Joined: 21 Mar 2009 Posts: 16

Thank you gaijin.....your reply has proved very informative.

Last year i spent three weeks touring eastern Germany, Czech, Poland and part of Ukraine. Certain areas i travelled in Czech and Poland were extremely rural and i never expected to find anyone who could speak english, but this language 'barrier' did not stop me from trying to communicate with people of all ages.

I really would like to visit Moscow.....possibly the same as a foreign visitor coming to United Kingdom for the first time would want to see London.

I have always felt that since the fall of communism, Russia is now beginning to open up to the west more, and encourage tourism. As you will know, Russian people freely visit the UK.....some have even made it their home.....some even buy a football club!

I like to try and understand better, the culture of a foreign country and its people. You cannot do this by watching television documentarys in your own country. I prefer to see with my own eyes and make my own decisions about how a country is.

When in eastern Germany i met many people who had grown up and lived behind the Berlin Wall in ex DDR. They told me about how their life was then and it was not nearly as bad as what my own country would have me believe back in the 60's through to 1989.

I have driven alone in many european countries and would say that my worst experiences of bad driving (often dangerous) was found in Belgium and Italy.

I will contact the Russian Embassy in London for more information.

Thank you for your detailed and friendly reply.

Ender · Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 7:22 pm Post subject:

Ender · Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 7:27 pm Post subject:

DITTRICH · Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:40 pm Post subject: Motorhome Camping

Dear Bulletguy,

Your desire to bring your motorhome to Russia is admirable and provided you are used to muddling through in order to get to an end result, you should be okay. My 2c, perhaps put more diplomatically than others is as follows:-

1 Take someone who can speak at least some Russian or learn a little yourself. It will ease communication and allow you to read cyrillic road signs at the very least.
2 When Russians go camping, they tend to go with tents and any old car or van, based on what I've seen around Lake Selegir in Tverskaya Oblast. It's not like europe or the USA where you can plumb into electricity, the internet and so on like our American friends driving ""RV's".
3 Camping just anywhere in the middle of nowhere wouldn't be recommended. It might be as safe as safe can be, but then again it might not. There is just no reliable information that I've seen to help you. Sure people travel the trans siberian highway and camp in the wilderness, but who knows, nearer civilisation, people might take a shine to your possessions.
4 If you want to sty in Russia >10 working days you will need to extend the vehicle temporary import certificate - best done in StP if that is your first calling place. Instructions are on the website. You need to register your visa "at an address" before you can extend the import certificate as registration is needed for the customs documents.
5 Roads, even the main "M" roads can be crap - it varies from "european" to "polish". Incidentally, the worst drivers are "polish" not "russian". I have had the opportunity to compare both driving styles and the russians are better.

In short, your trip can be done, but I would recommend point 1:take someone who speaks the language, preferably a backpacker type who is used to roughing it. I only drove to Russia solo from London after I had worked there and learned to speak the language. I got involved in an accident - someone elses fault. Without my language skills I'd have been stuffed completely. As it was i did fairly well and even screwed GBP700 approximately out of a Russian insurance company.

overseas expat was trying to be helpful but the language was a bit terse and...

Best of Luck and let us know how you get on (hopefully your next post not from the police cells in StP).

Les

PS Getting help from the Embassy is optimistic IMHO

DITTRICH · Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:47 pm Post subject:

As an extra question, when approximately would this trip take place? For 2009 I depart around 30/07 returning 31/08 . I plan 3 days London>Frankfurt-am-Oder>Kaunas>Dimitrov 3,065km. Maybe too fast for your motorhome? Your green card may well extend into Russia if UK insurance companies change their forms in time. I mention this only as a possibility. You are welcome to ask any advice.
Les

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