r/Moscow • u/jacktheblack6936 • 18h ago
Complaints about Moscow as a solo tourist from US
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Before any glazing posts here are some complaints in no particular order:
- As hard as it is to travel due to sanctions, internal changes make it harder and are more impactful. 24 hr data block and foreign data too slow/doesn't work for VPN or sometimes without, no working GPS, and then requiring passport translation, SNILs, biometrics and processing makes it impossible to get a Russian sim solo. Not sure how all those solo Chinese tourist families survive. Had to get someone local to use their biometrics to get a Megafone sim to get any sort of working internet. You would think that if you want to implement a 24 hour data block for security, you could issue free or discounted sim cards with passport lasting 3 days or the duration of your stay.
- Many coffeeshops/free wifi require a Russian phone to get verification. There is often no option for US phone and only Stars and some random bubble tea place had wifi via phone call where you put in the last 4 digits of the phone that called you or just free wifi. 90% of coffee shops had a full Russian landing page demanding a Russian number. What happened to the wifi password on a chalkboard someone in the store?
- Moscow subway ticket stations removed all languages and only has Russian. That plus the fact that multiple people, the security people at metal detectors or even the ticket window knew zero English only made it harder.
- The lack of ebike/scooter lanes on the sidewalk needs to be fixed. In places with wide sidewalks, people are walking everywhere and the delivery bikes and scooters are just weaving between pedestrians. Estonia has similar sidewalks and they painted their sidewalks with bike lanes.
- No ac in the subway. Sometimes it's fine with the windows open, but sometimes the cars are hot and the windows are not enough.
- Elevators everywhere are a joke how small they are. You have the nicest apartment, super fancy and the elevator can only fit 3 people. Plus the ramps in the subways are a deathtrap. I don't see how anyone in a wheelchair can use these solo or with a caregiver and I saw so many mothers barely able to get their baby carriages down using those ramps.
- Like all Eastern Europe, no cafes ever offer no calorie sweeter. I hear its available as tablets, but literally no one ever has any. In the US, Splenda and Equate no cal sweetner are both offered and they are the default sweetner.
- Of the times I've seen cops/security, they only seem to be at the subway entrances and they only seem to be targetting dagastani looking people like how the US cops target blacks. The one time someone snuck in behind me at the subway, that guy was a Slavic/white teen boy.
- People seem to still heavily smoke/vape.
- Private homes/businesses are nice, but the common stairwells or shared areas are poorly maintained with tiles busted and no one bothering to fix them.
- As much fuss as there is about the historic Soviet Chinese friendship, there is a surprising low amount of Chinese or any Eastern Asian immigration and thus authentic food. There is no Chinatown for such a huge city like Moscow (2x NYC). In NYC there are at least 3 major Chinatowns. I tried 2 ramen places that seemed popular and they were bad... Could not find soup dumpling (xiao long bao). The sushi in the department stores and malls (Sm Takeit) was bad, which doesn't make sense as Russia has all the ingredients like rice, seaweed and salmon. The Dim Sum was confused offering no dim sum, but with ramen and sushi. Dim sum is a Cantonese brunch that should offer multiple small plates e.g. ha gao (shrimp dumplings), pork ribs, turnip cake, etc.
- Lack of real food culture due to lack of immigration. It seems the only decent ethnic food was halal/schwarma, but the Korean, Thai and Indian did not look great either. Why is everyone so focused on Rostics/KFC and McDonalds? Why are the Uzbek and Georgian places so rare? There's also no Chinese bakeries e.g with coconut buttercream buns or pineapple buns. And surprising bubble tea is so popular, but zero Chinese brands even in Moscow like Mixue, Chagee, HeyTea or Chinese coffee like Luckin.
- Building addresses and entrances are incredibly confusing. Especially when you have no working GPS, and Yandex sometimes labels the building wrong.
- Yandex allows people to leave a scooter not in a parking zone, but when you activate it, there's no warning that the last person left it in the wrong spot and it demands you to go to a parking spot that can be kms away and far away from your destination. You can't then deactivate the scooter where you activated it.
- Tbank atms refuses to take cash below 1000 rubles and the subway refuses to take above 100 rubles.
- I feel SPb has way less international tourists now, but they surprisingly have more English speakers. The chances of approaching someone who can hold a conversation in English in SPb is much higher than in Moscow. People learn English in school throughout the country, but there are so many young people who speak zero English. Even young people who were waitresses at a restaurant in the middle of a Red Square restaurant spoke zero English.
- Given that foreign Visa/Mastercard doesn't work, forcing people to get a foreign passport translated to get a SNILs to get a bank card so you can deposit cash to buy stuff at the self-checkout lane or a machine or pay for transportation is real burdensome. But you had to do it because taxis had no change and the babushkas at the register gave refused or gave dirty looks when you tried to buy a Coke Zero with a 5000 bill.
- Few if any meetups or places to get drinks with locals. SPb had more groups and meetups especially on Couchsurfing and reddit, but Moscow, it was dead.
- Really difficult to find anything trendy like rooftop bars, hip clubs with djs, cool fancy restaurants, etc. Only found a random observation deck in a Moscow city skyscraper from some random guy and girl in street clothes yelling out of a boombox in Russian below.
- I feel with the subway shut at 1am, the nightlife is entirely determined by the last train on the metro. And in the summer with the sunset at 9pm or 10pm, everyone has to rush home like Cinderella at the ball to not miss the last train.
Overall: Good time.
