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Russia
6 places · 1 border · 7 routes · 6 experiences
Places
Borders
Routes
🎒backpacking to euTallinn → Pärnu → Warsaw🎒Caucasus loopTbilisi → Kazbegi → Kutaisi → Batumi → Yerevan → Lake Sevan → Baku🧭Iron Curtain Trail / EV13Norway → Finland → Baltics → Poland → Germany → Austria → Balkans → Black Sea🧭Mongolia off-road expeditionUlaanbaatar → Kharkhorin → Gobi → Altai → Khövsgöl Lake🏍️Trans-Euro TrailPortugal → France → Alps → Balkans → Romania → Nordics → Caucasus🎒Trans-Siberian corridorMoscow → Kazan → Yekaterinburg → Novosibirsk → Irkutsk → Ulan-Ude → Ulaanbaatar → Beijing🧭Vladivostok → LisbonVladivostok → Kazakhstan → Moscow → Warsaw → Berlin → Paris → Lisbon
Recent experiences
Moscow end-of-line notes: foreign Visa/Mastercard don't work — I opened a local bank card on arrival for shops and ride-hailing, then closed it and cashed out before leaving. Keep every hotel registration slip until exit. Want the ballet? Book at least a month ahead.
Hard-learned tip for Trans-Siberian arrivals: I rolled in on a Sunday morning with no rubles — banks shut, foreign cards useless (sanctions), taxi drivers refusing foreign cash. Stranded at the station. Exchange cash BEFORE crossing, download Yandex Go, and book a hotel near the station if you arrive on a weekend. Lake Baikal redeemed everything — try the smoked omul.
Mongolia→Russia by rail: at Sükhbaatar officers board, check passports and search luggage; at Naushki passports are collected for stamping while customs goes bag by bag. About two hours all in. Russian eVisa (~$50 for many passports now) — mine glitched my whole name into the surname field, but they only match ticket↔passport, so it passed.
Two nights in Tomtor near Oymyakon — thermometer at camp read -52°C, official station -51°C. The vans (Hiaces) handle the highway fine but can't reach deep-snow gulag sites; pay extra for 4WD SUVs if you want the abandoned towns. Every day out here felt like an expedition.
Landed in Yakutsk at -45°C. Winter independent travel here isn't realistic — local operators run Kolyma Highway trips for a fraction of what foreign agencies quote (~$3,000 for 9 days vs $6-10k). MIR card worked in even the tiniest village shops. Long stretches of the road have zero signal; every overnight stop had wifi.