From: sharon@unixland.natick.ma.us (Sharon Machlis Gartenberg)
Subject: Re: St. Petersburg, HELP !!!***!!!
Organization: Unixland Public Access Unix  (508) 655-3848
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 17:54:23 GMT

kilborn4950@iscsvax.uni.edu writes:

>        First of all, you would be a fool not to take American dollars with
>you.  Rubles are becoming unacceptable even in some stores, but on the street
>everyone prefers hard currency that they know will have similar value tomorrow. 
I agree, of course, that an American should take dollars to Russia. There
was never an alternative -- you can't exchange your dollars for rubles before
you enter the country, and never could. The difference now is that there
are more options to exchange dollars for rubles legally than there used to be,
and the rate is based on economic forces and not a government decree.

I have just returned from 2 weeks in the ex-USSR. Almost all of my
purchases were in rubles, not dollars. There are hard-currency-only stores,
but I don't think there's anything in them that a one-day visitor would
want to buy that couldn't be found for rubles. I made no purchases in such
stores, although I did pay dollars a few times to street vendors.
 
>Dollar stores
>are an excellent way to avoid lines and shortages as well.  (i.e. the Beriozki
>next to and inside the hotel Pribaltijskaia.)

I did more shopping in Minsk than in St. Petersburg. A friend in Minsk told
me that the Beriozka (hard currency store) was much more expensive than
other stores with similar souvenier items. I poked my head in, and he was right.
There may have been more variety of food to buy there, but since I was only
there for 2 weeks, I didn't care (and my friend refused to let me buy him
anything). 

The store in the airline terminal in St. Petersburg, by the way, was
ridiculously expensive compared to prices in the city -- things were
literally 6 times or more the cost.    

>        As for the transportation system, it is good, but buying tokens, etc.
>can be complicated if not impossible.  I would recommend walkiing when
>convenient, and jumping on the bus without paying when it isn't.  The metro is
>great, but you had better speak Russian (Ostorozhno, dveri zakryvajutsia!:-))

Friends bought my metro tokens for me in Moscow and Minsk. I was really
impressed by the metro in both cities. In Moscow, the trains seemed to come
every minute, and some of the stations are like museums. In Minsk, it was
extremely hot when we were there, yet the subways were refreshingly cool.
Having had much experience riding the subways in New York, which are
very unpleasant in the heat, I was surprised.

A friend in St. P had a car, so I didn't see the metro there. However, an  
American colleague told me her mother and a friend were *arrested* in
the metro there, because they were confused as to how much to pay, and
apparently didn't pay the right amount. So if you don't speak Russian,
I guess it's wise to be careful.

There were bananas being sold on the streets when I was there, also
decent ice cream, and watermelon. It's ludicrously expensive for Russians --
more than half a day's pay for a kilo of bananas or 5 small ice creams for
a family. I can't see how this kind of situation can go on much longer, 
paying people in increasingly worthless paper. In just the 2 weeks I was
there, the ruble dropped from 150:$1 to 180:$1, and now I hear it has
plunged to 205:1. This makes it even less likely that anyone with goods
will want to sell them for paper money, continuing the spiralling drop
in production.  

Sharon                                         

 
-- 
Sharon Machlis Gartenberg
Framingham, MA  USA
email: sharon@unixland.natick.ma.us   or   uunet!think.com!unixland!sharon