How much does it cost to travel in Russia?

It’s been a long time since we ‘revealed’ how much we have spent. This post covers Russia,  a country that we were really unsure about before we left. Moscow frequently appears as one of the world’s most expensive cities. Is it really such an expensive country? Yes and no..

The easiest way to start off is to give a breakdown of what we spent during 14 days in Russia and 1 day in Mongolia (Mongolia accounts for very little of the total as it is quite cheap)

Accommodation: £216.19
Eating Out: £212.17
Transport: £39.89
Groceries: £87.85
Attractions: £147.11
Alcohol: £18.78
Miscellaneous: £3.41

Total: £725.41 or £48.36 per day

Although it is over our magic (and slightly unrealistic) £44 a day, it still sounds quite reasonable doesn’t it? Well there are a few caveats to these figures. The first one is accommodation – if you have been following this blog you will know that we took the Trans Siberian railway which straight away saved us 4 nights accommodation.

The second is transport. The train tickets weren’t cheap, but we had paid them off in full before we left. I have chosen not to include them in this breakdown as it would make the costs unrealistically high. I will go over the cost of doing this trip in a future post.

There is also the issue of food while on the trains – because we were living on instant noodles our food costs were very low, and realistically this isn’t something you’d want to do regularly.

So how much were things in Russia? It’s been a while since we were there, so these prices might be a bit out but I think they are about average.

Average Costs

£1 = 60 roubles, $1 = 36 roubles.

Single Metro ride (Moscow) – 40 Roubles
Single bus ticket – 12 – 25 roubles (depending on city)

Bread from convenience store – 70 roubles
Small packet of salami – 80 roubles
Large bag of crisps – 50 roubles
1l bottle of Coke – 60-70 roubles
Bottle of beer – 50 roubles
0.2l bottle of Vodka – 100-150 roubles (yes it really is pretty cheap in Russia, and the cheap stuff is good!)

Meal for 2 at restaurant such as My My – 600 roubles
Large beer at a restaurant/cheap bar – 150-200 roubles
Sandwich from a chain cafe – 170-250 roubles

Ticket for the Kremlin – 350 roubles
Ticket for Church of the Saviour on Blood – 250 roubles

Conclusion

After hearing so much I was pleasantly surprised with Russia. Make no mistake, it CAN be obscenely expensive, but if you’re careful it can be done cheaply. Generally the country got cheaper as we got further east – Irkutsk was quite good value though still not ‘cheap’

Eating out can be difficult, there are no shortage of great restaurants but they are so expensive. We didn’t want to resort to fast food so we found good alternatives in self service chains like My My, where can you can get a good cooked meal for around £5 each.

Groceries arn’t too expensive, and we were shopping in city centre convenience stores which are always going to be far more than large supermarkets.

Public transport is very cheap compared to Western Europe so it’s easy to get around without using taxis. Though buses can be a bit of a gamble if you can’t read where they are going!