Travel options to Russia
- By
- Aparna Patel
- |
- 22 Jul, 2023
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Flight to Vilnius, Vilnius to Minsk (Belarus) by bus, travel by train to Moscow.
It’s likely you will have to wait a long time in the queue at the border, the entire bus trip may take up to 8 hours, so it’s best to go far in advance to avoid missing the train.
Best to buy bus tickets in advance, however it’s also possible to try your luck at the Vilnius bus station: sometimes there are empty seats available when passengers don’t show up for the trip, can negotiate with the driver. Do check that the bus tickets were actually issued to you after making a purchase online, confirm with the bus operator if possible.
You’d need some sort of a VPN connection to access the rzd.ru website to buy train tickets because RZD seems to block access to its website from outside Russia.
The US State Department maintains a list of transportation options out of Russia, which include several bus options. To Helsinki they mention HH-Kuriiri, Skandinavia, Lux Express, Ecolines, and Sovavto. To Riga they mention Ecolines. To Tallinn they mention Lux Express. These companies seem to be selling tickets into Russia as well.
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In addition to Ecolines, it is worth checking out LUX Express. They increased their Tallinn – St Petersburg frequency when the air routes closed and at the time of writing this answer they have tickets available for the following days.
Another option is to travel by train with a connection at the same border crossing: get to Narva by train, cross the border on foot, then catch another train from Ivangorod. This would be on separate tickets.
Update: since August 18, 2022 this route may not work in the opposite direction if the traveller is a Russian national holding a visa issued by Estonia, since Estonia is placing restrictions.
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Train traffic between Russia and the rest of Europe was already limited because of corona related restrictions and AFAIK, the few trains running have now all been suspended because of the war.
I am not sure if it is the only operator, but Ecolines still operates buses from Helsinki and Tallin to St. Petersburg and from Riga to Moscow. The buses seem to be sold out weeks in advance The next free seat from Riga to Moscow is on August 21th.
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘
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