Living in Russia - some advice

[PhilipH]

Daughter has just graduated and is now signed up for a year in Russia studying the language and doing some voluntary work. There's lots of basic advice needed on simple things like bank accounts and transferring money. If anyone has the relevant experience and doesn't mind dealing with a load of questions, can they pm me please?

Ta

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[BrendanS]

Why pm? These forums are about information exchange, and if everyone took questions to pm immediately, no one would ever learn

More of a lounge topic really though, just to stir up some old arguements.

 

[john_morris_uk]

I agree. I use pm's fro passing on personal info like phone numbers and e-mail addresses etc.

A lot of info about working in Russia may be transferable to other countries. Lets have the info in the public domain.

 

[krevetka]

The main thing to say on the banking side is that it is pretty much the same as anywhere else. In addition to using credit cards/ cash/ travellers cheques you have two main choices: open a bank account and transfer funds into it, or use a money wire service such as Western Union. For bank accounts you can use an intl or one of the big Russian banks, the main intl ones offering retail banking are Citibank and Raiffeisen. You will need to be here to open an account. Once you have an account they will give you the transfer details and you just set up a normal intl transfer.
My main tip actually on banking is to have your UK account with one of the internet banks so that you can send them instructions by internet or telephone in terms of paying off credit card bills or transfer funds to Russia. I use First Direct which works fine.
Whether or not it makes sense to use cards and cash or have a bank account in Russia probably depends mainly on how much money your daughter will be spending. Card withdrawals on a credit/ debit card in Russia will have withdrawal fees from your UK bank, but transferring money is also not free. If you need hundreds of dollars a month then cash withdrawals on a card is probably cheaper, if you need thousands then sending a transfer once a month is probably cheaper.
You can bring in up to USD 10,000 in cash without declaring it, or more if you declare.

 

[Strake]

Nice to see the forum police are hard at work here as well.....

krevetka has answered your banking question and I would be happy to try and answer any other questions you have, either openly or via pm.
Mrs Strake is Russian (well, ex-Russian) and travels back and forth for business. Lot's of family over there as well.....so ask away.... /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[PhilipH]

No offence Brendan but didn't think it would be that interesting to others and it's not really a sailing topic - by all means happy to share info and always have done.

I would hardly take my daughter or her business anywhere near that degenerate place you mention.

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[PhilipH]

Yeah, yeah - see reply to BrendanS
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[Guest]

Ditto if you have any specific questions, feel free to PM me. I lived there for 7 years. It may take me a while to respond though as I'm only checking in every 2/3 days at the moment...

Krevetka mentioned some of the banking issues. Note that you can't take significant amounts of roubles outside Russia, and can't open rouble accounts abroad, and as a foreigner there are restrictions on the kind of rouble account you can open in Russia. Most people use a UK bank account (telephone/internet controlled) in £'s or $'s. and just take cash in roubles out at cash machines.

One issue she should look at is how she is going to be registered as living there, (and what kind of visa she will have - there are tourist, business and private visas, I suspect that students staying for a year probably need business visas, but she should check). Exact rules for registration change regularly, but it's especially important in Moscow where the police will stop you regularly to check that you are registered with the right to live in Moscow (informally it's called a "propiska" even though the propiska system was strictly speaking replaced by a registration system). Foreigners are obliged to register with UVIR department within 3 days of arriving in Russia.

 

[PhilipH]

Simon

many thanks - list of questions being prepared.

regards