I will be going to St. Petersburg and Moscow next month. Usually I get currency by ATM in the airport for the country that I'm visiting. Is this possible in St. Petersburg? Are there ATMs in the city and in Moscow?
2
yehyeh
There are many ATM's at St Pete's airport. From memory I think there were about 3 or 4.
Yes, lots of ATMs in the city.
3
everbrite
Perhaps you aren't aware but both VISA and MasterCard, the two largest credit card companies and their affiliates have ATM locators on their websites. Why not check there?
Ruth
4
spoerle
If you try the ATMs at the Airport you will find out that the amount of money you will get out is very small. Go to Alfa Bank you will get the highest amount = Your bank will charge approx 5 Euro, when taking out the equivalent of, say 300 Euro, the costs are 1,7 percent.
(If you use a debit card withj the logo "Maestro".
5
davidbdc
In St Pete airport you'll arrive (I assume) at the international terminal - as you come out through customs go all the way to the right and at the end you'll find three or four ATMs. The one on your right (at least the last time I was there) is affiliated with Cirrus and Maestro. Find out what network your bank is affiliated with.
Most of the ATM's in the airports will limit you to 8000-10000 withdrawals...you can do more than one on most of the machines but I usually do the 8-9K and then find ATM's in the citi - CITI bank in both cities are plentiful and I use them in both Moscow and ST. Pete.
The one other thing I'd recommend is taking a few hundred dollars in either USD or Euros in case the ATMs aren't working - about 8 months ago I actually landed in SVO and all the ATMs were turned off - don't know exactly why - I had rubles with me so no big deal but if I didn't then it would have been a minor problem.
6
km6xz
Be sure to notify your card issuer that you are going to be using the card in Russia between certain dates. If not, your card will likely be locked after the first transaction for "suspicous deviation from buying patterns". You can contact customer service, security division to get it unlocked but it is a hassle because most cards have only an 800 number on the back for customer service. You need the direct number which might be hard to find. So contact them before you leave.
Bring more than one type of card, for some reason transactions often do not work and having a backup is needed. If you bring cash, Euros are preferred, the dollar is pretty unstable and is generally dropping by the week. Currently it is down to 23.3 at exhange banks.
ATMs are everywhere, a few to every block on the streets, and in almost every store. Checks are not used here so the society went from all cash to mostly plastic almost overnight, first with Debit cards and then later credit cards.
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