The main advantage is simply to save money. Commission or mark-up charged by going through travel agencies can be at least 15 or 20% of the ticket value and sometimes much more. By cutting out the ‘middle-man’ you might be saving yourself around US$100 to US$200, for example, on a train trip from Moscow to Beijing or Vladivostok for instance.
The main disadvantages are potential language and communication problems as well as the risk of not being able to get a booking on the desired train or in the desired class if you don’t buy the ticket far enough in advance. This should not be a problem though if travelling outside the peak months, which are roughly May to September.
Where to Buy Tickets and How to Get There
Tickets can be purchased at Yaroslavski train station, located about four kilometres northeast of Red Square. The nearest metro station is Komsomolskaya, which is located just across the road from Yaroslavski train station. Komsomolskaya is on either the brown, ‘Koltsevaya’, line number 5, which is the circular line, or the north-east, south-west running, red, ‘Sokolnicheskaya’, line number 1.
When you are at the station you need to locate the building, which is in a sort of quirky looking, Russian art-deco style. It has a large clock in the centre of the building about half way up above the door. The lower part of the glass windows are partly stained glass. The writing above the four, white entrance swing-doors has ‘Railway tickets’ written in English in yellow writing on a blue background, as well as some other writing in Russian.
Walk into the building and up a few steps up into the ticketing area. In front of you, straight ahead, you will see a long corridor with offices off it. There may be a lady standing at the entrance to this corridor. Just explain that you want to buy tickets or something along those lines, in any language, and she will let you go through. Walk to the very end of the corridor to the room directly in front of you.
Once in this office, there is an information desk on the right-hand side as you enter the room. You could try and ask here for someone who can speak English or you can go directly to windows 19 and 20, which are on the left as you enter the room.
What Information to Provide When Buying the Tickets
This is a simple list of some information to have written down that will make life an awful lot easier when trying to communicate what ticket you want:
- Where you want to travel from and to
- Train number
- Date of travel and departure time
- Class of travel (e.g. 1st class (spalny vagon), 2nd class (kupe), 3rd class (platskartny)
- Upper or lower bunk (draw a picture or point up or down)
It is advisable to have a small notebook and pen with you to write down this information and anything else that might arise whilst purchasing the ticket.
Paying for the Ticket
Payment by cash (in roubles of course) is the easiest method. In theory payment by credit card (such as Visa or MasterCard) is also possible, but for some reason not all windows accept this method of payment. With a bit of persistence it should be possible though, even if they have to transfer you to another window that does accept credit cards.
Richard Milnes - Richard was born in London, England, but has since spent much of his life travelling the world and has visited nearly 50 ...
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