Do I Really Need to Book Train Tickets in Russia?

21 Nov 2009

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	Do I Really Need to Book Train Tickets in Russia?

Solution First, you can't book train tickets in Russia at all, you can only buy them. The Russian Railways are afraid of tickets being bought in bulks and then resold at higher price (well, funny fear), so they don't pay any commissions to agents and don't do any reservations.

Anyway, whether or not you need to BUY your train ticket in advance depends on the type of your travel and the route you are taking.

If you are taking a direct train to a popular destination (like Moscow to St. Petersburg or Moscow - Rostov) and the trip is not very long, it is very likely you'll be able to find a train on the same day (I'd say 60% chance) or during the next two days (80% chance) at the train station without too much trouble. Keep in mind though there are likely to be queues (average 10-30 minutes) and that the sales assistants at Russian train stations don't speak English and are usually grumpy, so if you expect any help choosing the train, you simply won't get it.

However, if you need to be sure about the exact time and date of your arrival, it's better to buy in advance, which means at least 1 or 2 weeks before the departure. If you won't have this much time in Russia, you'll need to do it through a ticket agent.

For longer routes, the situation is a bit different.

If you don't have any specific schedule and don't mind stopping a lot along the way, I would say you don't need to book any train tickets at all. In the end, even if you are going from Moscow to Beijing you can get away with doing something like Moscow -> Kazan -> Ekaterinburg -> Novosibirsk -> Irkutsk -> Ulan-Ude -> Chita stopping in each city for at least 2 days to allow yourself time to buy tickets for the next leg of the journey. Chita - Ulan-Bataar (Mongolia) and Ulan-Bataar - Beijing (China) are going to be REALLY tricky ones, though, but well isn't adventure what you're coming for? :-) Again, you'll have to deal with local train stations ticket sales offices, which means queues, no service, no English, etc. But lots of experience :-)

If you want to make sure you have as much time as possible at specific location and don't have 2 months to travel to through Russia, we'd recommend buying at least the most essential parts of the route in advance. For example, even in March, which is not really high season, it's impossible to get Moscow - Beijing ticket earlier than 3 weeks before departure -- all sold out already. Well, only 2 trains a week make this particular route a real "hit".

Keep in mind that you can't buy train tickets earlier than 45 days before departure, but most good agencies will record your order and contact when the time is due to process it.

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02 Mar 2006 02:57 AM