Transport (municipal, international)
In the capital and other big cities of Russia there are several widespread means of transport, as a rule: metro (underground), bus, trolleybus and tram. The price for a single trip on surface public transport is 15 rubles if you buy a ticket beforehand or if you pay to the conductor, and in case you buy a ticket from the driver, it will cost you 50 rubles. A single metro trip costs 50 rubles. In other Russian cities the prices for the public transport tickets can be lower. It`s very convenient and economical to buy a transport card for several trips and for several different means of transport. The most popular means of transport in Moscow is metro that consists of 11 lines. Almost 160 stations are open from 5-30 A.M. to 1 A.M. It`s important to note, that some of the underground stations are real works of art, as they are designed with mosaics, glass paintings and bass-relieves. Some travel agencies even organize special excursions in Moscow underground. In the suburbs of Moscow 5 passenger airports are situated: Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo, Vnukovo and Bikovo. The biggest one is the Domodedovo airport. International flights are made from Sheremetyevo, and Domodedovo and there are also charter flights from Vnukovo. The majority of the domestic flights are from Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo and Vnukovo. A flight from Moscow to Saint-Petersburg will take less than an hour, a flight to Samara – 1,5 hours, a flight to Ekaterinburg – 2,5 hours or so, a flight to Novsibirsk - 4 hours and if you need to fly to Chabarovsk – it will take you almost 7 hours. There is a plenty of buses and mini-buses that will take you to Moscow from the suburbs where the airports are situated. You will have to pay for transit. There are representations of different travel agencies, local and international car rent services, changes, taxi order in international airports etc. There are nine railroad stations in Moscow: Belorussky, Kazansky, Kievsky, Kursky, Leningradsky, Pavelecky, Rijsky, Savelovsky and Yaroslavsky. The most part of trains to Europe depart from Kievsky and Belorussky railroad stations. Train is one of the most popular means of traveling through the huge Russian territory. It will take you only one night to get to St.-Petersburg, Pskov, Petrozavodsk, it will take you a day to get to the cities of Volga region such as Cheboksary or Nijny Novgorod, to Kiev (Ukraine), to Minsk (Belorussia), to Riga (Latvia). It will take you a little more than thirty hours to get to Ural: Perm, Ekaterinburg, Omsk and also Russian Black Sea coast: Anapa, Sochi. A trip to Novosibirsk will take three nights and two days and a trip to Chabarovsk can take more than 5 days. The connection between big cities is carried out with the help of commuter trains that are considered a very convenient, popular and economical means of transport. As a rule, there are also special buses that will take you to the city of your destination right from the landside area. You can go to Baku by bus from Kursky railroad station and near Kievsky railroad station you will find buses that can take you to Kaluga or Bryansk, for example. It`s not difficult at all to rent a car in big cities, however, the traffic is so hard that serious traffic jams take place quite often. Besides, the quality of roads that connect different cities is quite low sometimes. Petrol isn`t expensive in Russia – it cots nearly twice less expensive than in Europe. Taxi cars are yellow-coloured, with black checkers above, as in many other countries. State cars lead the calculation on the basis of kilometrage and for-profit ones take payment according to the amount of minutes spent. At the average, the price for the taxi in Russia is lower than in many European countries, but it`s higher than in Turkey, Tunisia or Thailand.