1

old information. No you don't need to declare anything anymore except as noted in the next question.

Only if you have more than the equivalent of 3000 USD even if you have that much, I wouldn't declare it.

These are not issues these days. Guidesbooks are outdates.

I understand that antiques are no-no to take away,should I worry about anything else ?
Not all antiques or art are no-no's. For some they can be exported if you get the proper certificate.

It's primarily a cash society. More expensive places will take credit cards though and some more expensive shops in malls.

Yes. There are ATMs everywhere. Look at the websites of MasterCard and VISA. Both have ATM locators which will show you banks with ATMs.

Take some cash but use ATMs as the rate is often better. Bring two cards if possible in case one is "eaten" by the ATM.


Ruth

2

Ruth is right, the metro should really get you everywhere you want to go with the exception of the airport. The best thing to do, so that you don't get taken advantage of, is write down a taxi service's number (they'll be written on the sides of taxis everywhere) and call that number to book a cab in advance. They'll tell you how much it will cost over the phone, so there's no negotiating with the taxi driver later. Good luck to you!

3

Yes a lot of these guide books/websites do seem to enjoy putting the fear of God into people. Taking a computer with you isn't a problem unless it's still in the box.
Are Russian customs strict? Depends on you if I'm honest, I'm not sure how they treat people from your country but I seen for myself they much more thorough with people from non western countries.
Are you planning on buying antiques? I took a onyx chess set out of the country once and even that got the customs clucking at the airport.
Cash or card? Cards are much more widely accepted than you might think, no more different than your home country. The problem I find in Russia when using cash is they will have you fumbling through your pockets looking for change.

4

Thank you very much for your answers.
Using Metro is the obvious choice but I hear that all signage is in Cyril.
If I could only understand how to read Cyrillic.

5

You can study the metro map and learn to read cyrillic is a few hours. The metro is really rather simple and if you just look puzzled and ask a young person a question in English, folks will help you.

Ruth

6

Ruth, the limits of cash that you can bring into and out of Russia have been raised to 10000 USD.
And that is the amount you do not have to declare.
If you have more, you can simply declare it, no special authorisation needed.

7

frostbite - It used to be that you could only bring in 3K USD without declaring it and even 10K only required a declaration, no special permission. I was not aware that this had changed.

Ruth