St Petersburg

Old Apr 4th 2013, 6:14 pm
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Default St Petersburg

I am moving to St Petersburg in August and am looking for any information anyone can give me about what I can expect there and what the cost of living is like.

Audrey x
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Old Apr 4th 2013, 9:26 pm
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Default Re: St Petersburg

Originally Posted by Audrey_H
I am moving to St Petersburg in August and am looking for any information anyone can give me about what I can expect there and what the cost of living is like.

Audrey x
Hello from Canada.

We have not lived in russia, but have spent some time travelling to different areas in russia. Here are a few tips that we found helpful.

1. Learn the russian alphabet. It will be very helpful when trying to find your way around the city.

2. Bottled water - to drink and even brush teeth. The water in St. Petes contains "giardia"(?) a very harmful parasite. Use either bottled water, or boil water before making tea and/or coffee. Apparently the russian folks can drink the water because their system is use to the parasites found in the water. If you live there long enough you may as well, but IMHO I dont think its worth the risk.

3. Wash your fruit and vegetables very thoroughly before eating.

4. You will find that it will be difficult at times, to find russians that speak english. Certainly the younger generation that we encountered were very fluent in english and would come and visit to practice their english. Saying that you will also find the older generation generally speak little or no english. We found at the subway station, train station and bus station that no english was spoken and the announcements were all made in russian.....However we also found that most folks young and old in the service industry, did speak english....

5. Be careful where you take pics. Things may have changed over the two years since we visited, but we were taking pics in the subway and a guard came over and took our camera away and scolded us (in russian)LOL about not taking pics....We did get our camera back......


Hope you enjoy living in St. Petes. Remember to buy some warm clothing.....

Happy travels

Last edited by willmore; Apr 4th 2013 at 9:44 pm.
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Old Apr 4th 2013, 9:40 pm
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Have only been once, in the 1990s and it was still very rundown with the change from communism to capitalism, museums were being closed and replaced by shops aimed at western visitors. Do go to the Hermitage, it will takee several visits to get round as it is so huge. As has been posted, avoid the tap water unless it is boiled, people we stayed with would boil a couple of pans in the morning and allow them to cool so they had water to amke things like orange squash. Shopping, unless it has changed a lot may be very strange, when we were there you went round the shop, chose what you wanted, went to the cash desk and paid for it, then went back to the stall where the assistant would wrap it for you, however some shops were changing to a more western style of shopping. Do take a river trip on the Neva, nice way to see the city and you also need to visit Pushkin's monument. Do learn the Russian alphabeyt and the production of the letters, and remember that russian words are pronounced exactly as they as spelt. Once you maser the letters and their sounds you will find that the notices you see begin to make sense and many words are very similar to English, difficulkt to realise that when you are faced with a notice that is spelt, in Russian, 'cton' is, when the Russian letters are vocalised becomes 'stop'.
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Old Apr 5th 2013, 2:44 pm
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Default Re: St Petersburg

Learn Cyrillic and as much Russian as you can before you go. If you have already learned German, Latin or anotrher inflected Indo-European language that will be easier. Woe unto thee if thou art a monoglot ! I would not like to have to learn Russian as an adult as my first foreign language !
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Old Apr 5th 2013, 3:02 pm
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Default Re: St Petersburg

Originally Posted by scot47
Learn Cyrillic and as much Russian as you can before you go. If you have already learned German, Latin or anotrher inflected Indo-European language that will be easier. Woe unto thee if thou art a monoglot ! I would not like to have to learn Russian as an adult as my first foreign language !
I learnt Russian as an adult, although I did have French 'O' level, I got a 'A' pass at GCSE and was going on to take 'A' level but the course was stopped. It actually is a very structured language, however if you didn't do English Grammar when at school, as a good many recent scholars didn't although it is now being taught again, then you could struggle for a while. The only real difficulty is the verd 'to go', which has manay forms depending on whether you are going on foot, by car, by train, by ski etc, ASTR 8 different forms.
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Old Apr 6th 2013, 3:54 pm
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Default Re: St Petersburg

Originally Posted by Audrey_H
I am moving to St Petersburg in August and am looking for any information anyone can give me about what I can expect there and what the cost of living is like.

Audrey x
I've lived in SPb for 27 years.
Are you going to be studying there or working? What sort of info are you looking for?
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Old Apr 6th 2013, 4:05 pm
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Default Re: St Petersburg

Originally Posted by mohctep
I've lived in SPb for 27 years.
Are you going to be studying there or working? What sort of info are you looking for?
Like the use of the cyrillic letters for your user name.
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Old Jun 10th 2013, 5:49 am
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Default Re: St Petersburg

You lucky, lucky people in Saint Petersburg. And here's me in England, oppressor of the world.
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Old Aug 25th 2013, 2:03 pm
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Red face Re: St Petersburg

Originally Posted by mohctep
I've lived in SPb for 27 years.
Are you going to be studying there or working? What sort of info are you looking for?
"Monster"
There is an academy/uni (naval i believe)for the teaching of russian language (don't know if just that, my fiancée works there and she was forced to sign documents swearing she wouldn't reveal secrets) in St Petersburg, for foreign students, I know Angolans and Thai citizens are currently there, could you possibly tell me the name of it, if you know or can find out, I simply can't remember, it's crucial I know. I saw a picture not long ago of one of the students alongside a docked warship (but that doesn't really mean anything) could have been Kronstadt.
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Old Aug 25th 2013, 9:05 pm
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Default Re: St Petersburg

Originally Posted by Johnbristol
You lucky, lucky people in Saint Petersburg. And here's me in England, oppressor of the world.
Do you honestly believe that there is no oppression in Russia, either of people there due to their sexuality, or people of former Russian states?.
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Old Aug 26th 2013, 4:23 am
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Default Re: St Petersburg

Originally Posted by scot47
Learn Cyrillic and as much Russian as you can before you go. If you have already learned German, Latin or anotrher inflected Indo-European language that will be easier. Woe unto thee if thou art a monoglot ! I would not like to have to learn Russian as an adult as my first foreign language !
No - two more cases than German plus the Cyrillic alphabet on top like a little cherry.
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Old Aug 26th 2013, 10:58 am
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Default Re: St Petersburg

Did I say it's non existent, that I "believe" it doesn't happen, or anything in reference to Russia being oppressive or non oppressive in any way? You've mistaken me for the common Brit, downright stupid.
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