Moscow: getting past the language barrier
In a couple of days I will be flying to Phuket via Moscow, and guess what? I will have a couple (read: a lot, 14) hours to kill once I'm in Moscow (IF I am able to leave the airport) so I thought, why not go to the city center and take a few pictures? How hard can it be? Well, quite hard apparently. I found a few bumps on the road whilst reading a little bit about Moscow, so I had to plan some things instead of making it a total spontaneous-hop-on-the-bus-and-we-will-see kind of thing and I thought I'd share my findings with you all.
Even if you have a super long connection in Moscow and you have a flight leaving, less than 24h since you stepped foot in the country, you might still need a visa to go wander around the city center. So if you happen to find a cheap ticket via Moscow and thinks that it is a good opportunity to also see the city, think twice or call the Russian Embassy.
Funnily enough, whilst Europeans need visas to go in the country, Brazilians, ladies and gentlemen, DON'T. I know, super weird, but I'm not complaining.
If you do not have a credit card, only a debit card (which is very common in Europe), you have to call your bank and ask them to unblock it for use in Asia, otherwise, you might get and you will have no money. No money, no bueno.
Even though it is a very touristic capital, do not expect people to speak English. In fact, not even the metro might have English signs, so be prepared and print (or save it on your phone) a map of their subway with the names of the stations in Russian and English. This will help so you don't get lost and stay in Moscow forever.
#Bonus: I also read that at the metro stations it is very likely that they people at the cashier will not speak English, but you can just show how many tickets you want with your fingers like making the number 3 or so.
- Back to the language barrier problem, if you staying for a very short time, say 1 day or a few hours in the city, it might be helpful to research some places to eat as well. This is very important if you have a special diet and cannot speak any Russian. What I did was: I checked the places on trip advisor that are vegetarian-friendly for example, and I wrote down the names of the places in English and Russian. I also made sure that the places I selected were near an area that I would be comfortable with ( because it is very touristic or because it is easy to find etc - I picked the Red Square), so not further than 1km from there if I'm walking. Then I made pictures of the map and wrote down directions with street names in both English and Russian, in case I get lost I can show the name to someone and they can just point the direction.
5-b) Just to make sure that I would find something I liked and would be able to get it if there is a language barrier, I went to the websites of these restaurants I chose and looked at their menus, prices and if they accepted international cards (you never know, I don't wanna end up washing dishes in a Russian restaurant somewhere). One of the places was a kind of cafe and they even had pictures and descriptions of the dishes. I then took pictures of the dishes I liked with their Russian names, so if I go there and they speak 0 English, I can just show them the pictures and voilá.
It will depend on how much time you have and what your priority is really, but for me, I will try to see as much as possible in a couple of hours without getting lost so I decided to see if they had any free walking tours. I am a big free walking tour fan because they are usually very entertaining (they are working for your tips after all, so they aim to please and make it fun) and you can usually get information from the guide about places to eat, things to do etc.
Now, I am not sure how true that one is, but I heard that you should not smile a lot in Russia. They think that 1- you are stupid for smiling a lot without a reason 2- you are flirting with them. This is what I understood after reading about this, however, I have no idea if it is true. If it is, then I will look like a moron because I am always smiling but that is ok.
So these are my advice if you are going to spend 2 days in Russia or a couple of hours, to ensure that you can get past the language barrier if you don't know any Russian, like me, and to know what to expect a little bit.
Please note this is what I am doing to prepare for my 14 hours connection there, so I have not tested these tips yet nor am an expert in the subject. I might write a post about it afterward to compare the expectations with reality. Stay tuned!
If you have any tips for me or tried something similar, let me know! :)