Russia - data and voice cards needed.
 

I'll be going to Russia (St Petersburg & Moscow) at the end of March for 8 days only.

I would like to get:
1) A prepaid data card for my Ipad.
2) A prepaid voice card for calls to Hong Kong.

Any suggestions on the Russian operators?

Thanks. :o

Megafon has the best 3G coverage, but there is no unlimited Megafon internet tariff "working" in both cities. That means that you, for example, can buy unlimited internet sim with 475 Rub (16 USD)/month fee in SPb, but you will get 7 Rub(0.23USD) / Mb , using this sim in Moscow.

Beeline has "All included. Unlimited" tariff in both cities. It is unlimited internet working everythere in Russia with daily fee 33-35 Rub (1.16 USD) depending on region. 3G coverage is good, but not perfect. The sim costs app. 10 USD

MTS internet tariffs are almost the same as Megafon*s but the coverage is worse.



As for calls to Hong Kong...40-60Rub (2USD)/min. Better use skype.

All companies have small offfices near any subway station.

Great! The Beeline 'All included, Unlimited' would seem perfect for my ipad. For US$1.16 per day + US$10 for simm card, it sounds like a super deal, especially for a tourist!

Don't they require a minimum charge or minimum period?

Thanks for such great advice!

10 USD wil be on the balance. :)

I just checked something last weekend and seem to find a better solution . Beeline and MTS have some extra paid internet options, which can bee connected on any tariff. They are working in both cities.
"Superbit" from MTS includes 100 Mb/day high speeed internet. Next traffic will be 64 Kbit/s this day. The fee is 199 Rub /month on SPb tariffs or 299 Rub/month on MSK tariffs. USSD to connect
*111*628# . Description in Russian:
SPb ???????? ? ????????? ????????. 3G ???????? ????? ????????? - ?????-?????????, ????????????? ???????

MSK ???????? ? ????????? ????????. 3G ???????? ????? ????????? - ?????? ? ???????????

"Unlimited internet" oplion from Beeline. Connection fee 50/150 Rub on SPb/MSk tariffs . Daily fee 9.95/13 Rub.The first 3000 MB of traffic per month are provided at maximum speed. At the end of the threshold of 3000 MB of Internet access speed is reduced to 64 kbit / s.
Pay attention - the phone numbers to connect this option differ in SPb in MSK!!

Description in Russian:
SPb
?????? ?????-????????? ? ????????????? ??????? ????????? ????? ??????
Msk
?????? ?????? ? ??????? ????????? ????? ??????

It looks like google translates good from Russian and you will not have any problem.

So, you can choose.

By the way, startkits include ordinary sim, but it takes 15 min to change or cut microsim in any office. Free, of cource.

Thanks for the precious info, Peterburger. Our pages about Russia are really old and outdated, it would be great if you could help me in updating them. ;)

МегаФон has a number of 30MB/day data bundles:

Moscow data
RUB5/day
Activate: *105*450#
Deactivate: *105*450*0#

Non-Moscow data
RUB30 + RUB5/day
Activate: *105*800#
Deactivate: *105*800*0#

National data
RUB30 + RUB10/day
Activate: *105*650#
Deactivate: *105*650*0#

Interesting information.
I maybe on the Transmongolian railway in some days time.
Though I might not think of it a sound idea, both for technical (coverage, though from the maps at large scale it does not seem as bad as I thought, at least in 2G) and, more importantly, idealistic reasons (if it must be a trip where you somehow try to loose, and gain, the sense of time and space, so be it), what would be the best choices to get data along the line, where possible?

Thank you!

Sleepy

I know only about the bundles and charges, not the coverage etc. In the above bundles, National = Moscow + Non-Moscow. Therefore if you're only outside Moscow, just buy the non-Moscow bundle. Even better, you might want to get a SIM card from a non-Moscow branch of МегаФон so that you're not domestically roaming.

Beeline have just introduced Data Roaming which works in 260 countries (every place I could think of, including West New Guinea and South Korea). This is exceptional coverage, and the rate isn't bad, at least for email. Usage is unlimited, after 7MB from the 3G networks you are throttled to 16KBps for the rest of your unlimited 24hrs. Cost is six euros (249 Rubles) per 24 hr period.

Details here (what we do without Google Translate?)
????? ???? ????????? ????????? ? ?????????? ???????? ????????? ????? ??????

I have two Vodafone Ireland cards when I travel, but they have just cut back their Rest of World countries to only a handful. Now Beeline will fill that void.

So if you purchase a Beeline card when in Russia (or on Ebay) you will have the likelihood that wherever you go you will have basic Internet. And IMO that is priceless...

After my journey, a quick update.
In Moscow I entered a peripheral mobile phone shop where nobody would speak English and me no Russian, but just using few keywords (and handing only the photocopy of my passport) for 500 Rubles I got a Megaphone SIN with 100 MB/day for 30 days in all Russia (everywhere they told me).

This turned all to be true and all the buying procedure lasted no more than 15 minutes. Everybody in the shop quite amused by this strange(r) buyer, but also very competent and to the spot.
As I got out of the shop the connection was already alive and kicking, with all necessary bells and whistles. If only it were always like this!

The coverage was quite good along all the Russian part of Transmongolian railway line. Almost always at least edge connection was available (with inevitable holes all along, but not so many to get "desperate").
At the border with Mongolia I made a very long VOIP call home. Sometimes calls by standard service have poorer quality...

The main problem was keeping the phone charged, since on the Chinese branded wagon only 48 V DC was available. Strangely some chargers would work, others would not. I have some theories for which would and would not, but I leave it to another place!
Therefore, what I needed to economise was electric power, rather than traffic (I shared the load among many phones and batteries to ease the "pain").
Here as it will be in China, GoogleMaps proved to be invaluable to follow our advancement in the trip!

Cheers,
Sleepy

Just a short update:

Yesterday I straighlty walked into an MTS shop here in Moscow and got a prepaid SIM card (data only) with a data allowance of 4GB valid for 30 days for just 400 Rubels (€ 8 ). Had to show my ID and 5 minutes later I could plug the SIM into my phone and immediately start using the Internet without any additional activation procedures. I think there is some geographic limitation as the data allowance can only be used in parts of Russia, but except for that a very easy process.
On that occasion I had my first completely machine-translated face-to-face conversation as the salesperson did not really speak English. How stupid of me to ask if they spoke English when they have Google Translate including voice recognition at their fingertips. Worked like a charm!
http://abload.de/img/1476521_6220263845852hiyax.jpg

Russian networks have national roaming within the same network, a bit like the US networks used to do until a few years ago. You pay roaming charges if you use your SIM card in a region other than the one where you bought the SIM card. A few more expensive tariffs and data bundles (including some suitable for short-term visitors) have no national roaming surcharges.

That's actually why I was close to desperation when I edited the WIKI site about Russian data rates.
They have all kinds of regional and national data. It is really similar to the US. You get a number based on a local region with the appropriate local code.
This may or may not lead to surcharges using it outside of the region even for data, calling outside or being called from outside even on the same network.
Furthermore the rates differ (even on same network) from region to region.

Nevertheless, I just took Moscow and St. Petersburg, reedited the data and had it checkd by a Russian friend. This is what I've made of the mess:
http://prepaidwithdata.wikia.com/wik...ian_Federation

I use MegaFon's Вокруг света ("around the world") tariff, which doesn't have national roaming surcharges and is designed for those making international calls, even though I have cheaper solutions for such calls. You can add data bundles to this tariff, for example Internet 24, which costs RUB 24 for 200MB per day anywhere in Russia. Although my MegaFon SIM card is registered in Moscow, I used this data bundle also in Sochi.

New Rate for tourists from Europe
 

Beeline announced a new bungle for guests travelling from several European countries, US, China and South Korea. For 500 RB ( 7 USD) you get for 7 days
-2 GB of mobile Internet
-100 minutes of calls across Russia and home to countries: Germany, Finland, Israel, India, Spain, Italy, Canada, China, the US and South Korea from the area where you purchased the SIM card.
Description in English https://spb.beeline.ru/customers/pro...ls/welcome-en/
Unfortunatully, "area where you purchased the SIM card" means you can not use the bungle calling home outside Russian domestic region. Be careful!

But there is Customer support in English.

I have recently been in St. Petersburg. I needed only to be in the city, so I had no problems with "roaming" in whole Russia.
In any case, at the arrivals exit hall of St. Petersburg airport there are 2 shops. One of them is Beeline. It proved to be the one offering the cheapest offers (I checked both).

250 Rbs for 5 Gb 4G data, imprecise and big (for my purposes synonym of unlimited) voice time to Russian numbers. Valid for whole Russia (so they told me). All lasting for 7 days.
5 minutes procedures. I was on-line immediately. People at the shop very efficient. They seemed to know (and most likely did knew) what I needed and did not want to be asked too many questions. :-) Occupied to sell SIMs "by the dozen" to informed travellers.
Worked as a charm. No hassles, no doubts, no problems, no bad surprises. Out of the airport with all services on in 10 minutes. It has never happened to me in any other part of the world.
DL in the whereabouts of 30 Mbit/s.

Sleepy

Most likely people from shops near Airport, Railway Stations and some busy Streets in Centre attending some sales training to to effectively provide SIM cards to foreign tourists. As for coverage in SPb , no difference what net to use.