Learning Russian at 78: David’s St Petersburg Chronicle

David lives in the UK and travelled to St Petersburg in the spring of 2025 on a regular three-month tourist visa, which he applied for in person after going up to Edinburgh twice. He was 78 years old. He did not go for the Hermitage: he went to sit in a classroom and learn Russian.

What he sent me is less a list of tips than the story of a man who spent decades being told one thing about Russia and then went to find out for himself. There is plenty of practical detail in it too: what he could and could not carry in cash, what happened to him on the Estonian side of the border, and why in the end he came home. If you are thinking of entering the same way, read it alongside Leo’s chronicle, Michael’s five hours in the Narva queue and Mweru’s week in St Petersburg.

What follows is David’s own account, with his own words and his own photos. I have tidied it up and added the headings so that it reads more easily, but everything in it is his. Thank you, David.

Approximate route of David’s journey. The dashed line is the way in through Finland and Estonia; the solid line is the crossing at Narva and the road on to St Petersburg; the dotted line is the way back out to Tallinn in 2026.

Sixty years of going places

I have done a lot of travelling in the course of my life. It started when I sailed to New Zealand on my first ship as a 17-year-old deck boy in the British Merchant Marine, in 1964. Since then I have backpacked extensively in a lot of countries, worked as a volunteer with wild animals in Namibia for two long stretches, and spent four months backpacking around New Zealand in 2007.

In 2012 I was living in Krakow, and I decided to take the 21-hour overnight train from Warsaw to Kiev. I liked Ukraine and I was shown a lot of kindness there, so I decided to learn Russian, with a view to maybe living there, because all my Ukrainian friends in Poland spoke Russian and I hoped to be able to travel around on my own, off the beaten track so to speak.

I went back to Kiev in 2014, just after the Maidan, and of course things felt very different and I did not feel as comfortable. But I carried on teaching myself Russian with the help of my Ukrainian friends in Warsaw.

So I decided to take a trip to Russia, with the specific purpose of improving my embryo Russian language skills. I enrolled on a Russian course at a school in St Petersburg and travelled there on a three-month visa at the beginning of April 2025. Sorting the paperwork out was not quick: I had to go up to Edinburgh twice to organise it, and if you are about to do the same it is worth reading how applying for a Russian visa in the UK actually works, and what British passport holders need before they start.

What I was apprehensive about

I spent time in the British Armed Forces, in the Royal Marines Commandos, when I was in my twenties, and after passing the Commando tests I qualified as a parachutist. Accordingly, I was subjected to a lot of military conditioning. “Our job is to kill commies,” and similar nonsense. At the time I was gullible enough to believe that the government and the newspapers told the truth. My face is going red while I am writing this. My only excuse is the naivety of youth.

The point is that I was a little apprehensive about how Russian people would receive somebody from the UK, a place where the papers find something negative to say about Russia on a daily basis. I genuinely did not know what sort of welcome I would get, and if that is the thing keeping you from booking, it is worth reading what the situation is actually like for visitors rather than going on the noise.

The cash: dollars or roubles, never euros

Something worth mentioning here is that I had to take as much money into Russia as possible, because I knew my bank cards would not function there.

This next part matters, because getting it wrong could cause somebody real trouble. Estonia, or any other EU border point with Russia, will not allow you to take euros into Russia. Travellers carrying them will either have them confiscated or will not be allowed to cross. You must take either roubles or US dollars. I took some pounds as well and was lucky to get away with it, because the UK is technically not a member of the EU, but euros are a definite no.

Then there is the question of how much. It is generally believed that you can take only the equivalent of 10,000 US dollars into Russia, and that is the figure Russian customs works to at the border. The Estonian side is set in euros: you can carry up to the equivalent of 10,000 euros before you have to make a written declaration to Estonian customs before travelling. At the rates when I looked into it, 10,000 euros came to about 1,005,606 roubles and 10,000 dollars to 867,500. Whichever way you work it out, it has to be in roubles or dollars.

What I did not do was carry a large amount of money around daily. The day after I entered Russia I put most of my cash into a Sberbank account and obtained a Russian card, so I never actually carried a lot of cash around.

Narva, and the hearing-aid act

I travelled to Estonia via Finland and then took the bus from Tallinn to the Narva border crossing point.

At the border I had a pretty rough ride off the Estonian border officers, and they threatened to confiscate my pounds. Anyhow, I was prepared for this, and I had put my hearing aids on so that I could play my “silly old guy” act. I did a lot of twiddling with them and pretended to be a lot deafer than I really am, and kept asking them to repeat what they were saying. In the end they either got tired or took pity, and let me go through with all my cash. It was unpleasant, and I thought: jeez, what is going to happen at the Russian checkpoint?

Answer: check visa, X-ray luggage, all done with smiles and best wishes for my stay in Russia. It was the friendliest reception I have had anywhere in the world. Even the policewoman gave me a smile and wished me a happy trip. I have to admit I was pretty overcome by it all.

Two things worth knowing about that crossing. Nobody on either side, Estonian or Russian, showed the slightest interest in the photographs or videos on my phone. I mention it because I have seen it claimed online that the Russian guards go through every picture you have, and that was not my experience on either trip.

The other thing is what you carry. You can take a laptop, but only one, and the same goes for your mobile phone, one only. As I understand it flash drives and memory cards are not allowed either and can be taken off you.

Anyhow, I crossed the bridge over the Narva and slogged up the hill to the bus, feeling so happy to be in Russia.

I walked to my hotel so I could capture the moment

When we arrived in St Petersburg I was pretty overcome again. I had done it. After a lot of messing about, and visiting Edinburgh twice to organise my visa, I had actually made it to Russia. I have got to say, I felt pretty proud of myself.

I was so pleased that I decided to walk to my apart-hotel rather than take a taxi, so that I could really capture the moment.

My hotel was super: YES Marata, on Sotsialisticheskaya Ulitsa. If you are still deciding, there is a guide to the best areas to stay in St Petersburg, and being able to walk everywhere really does change the trip.

The school, and a teacher who laughed at my jokes

My school was excellent and I had a teacher who was very good and who I liked a lot. I am an experienced teacher of English as a foreign language myself, so I know what to look for in a teacher, and she was really great with me. Lots of patience and lots of laughs.

Everybody. Yes, everybody

Anyhow, on to the main thing I want to say. Despite being able to get by in Russian I sometimes got into a pickle on the Metro, or when I was looking for specific locations in St Petersburg. But everybody, yes, “everybody” I met was unbelievably welcoming and friendly to me. From big broad-shouldered men to beautiful young Russian women, all of them were helpful and really caring towards me.

As soon as they realised I was from the UK they were all over me like a rash, asking me questions about Britain and about Liverpool. I doubt that Elton John ever had as much attention.

One lady serving me in a milk bar announced the fact that I was British to the whole queue, and held everybody up for a minute or so while she asked me questions. It was kind of her, but I felt really embarrassed about that. If your Russian is thinner than mine was, you can get by on apps and a bit of Cyrillic perfectly well — people will meet you more than half way.

I went back to stay

Anyhow, my three months flew past and I returned to the UK with the firm ambition to start a new life in Russia. After arriving home I got to work applying for a three-year temporary residence permit.

At the end of February 2026 I returned to St Petersburg again, with the intention of travelling on to Vladivostok, then to Japan, and finally back to Russia to live permanently.

In St Petersburg I began attending Russian/English clubs to start making a circle of friends. This was fairly successful, but after a short time I started to realise that it was not as easy to leave the UK as I thought it would be. I had grown up there. My children had grown up and still lived there. I had many years of memories of beach holidays in Wales and camping holidays in Scotland. I began to realise that I had taken David out of the UK, but I was never going to be able to take the UK out of David.

One thing had changed since the first trip, and unlike the first time I found I could not get a Russian SIM card for my phone until I was registered with Gosuslugi. This was a problem, because I could not even call a taxi and I could not use the maps on my phone to negotiate my way around. Fortunately, because I had some Russian and because I already knew St Petersburg fairly well, I was able to resolve it, but it was a really difficult situation, and had it been my first time in Russia I do not think I would have been able to resolve it without a lot of help.

A kidney stone made the decision for me

Fate took a hand in my decision, and in the early hours of one morning I received the very painful news that I had a kidney stone problem again.

I had experienced a Russian hospital at first hand on my previous trip. The ambulance staff and the hospital staff were really great, but basic hygiene standards were grim, and I did not want any medical procedures carried out there. So I headed back to Estonia and had two kidney stones removed in Tallinn. If you are travelling at my sort of age, get travel insurance that genuinely covers Russia before you go, and then check it again. I had arranged cover for the trip, but when it came to the crunch the company told me they did not cover the Russian Federation, even though their own website said they did. That is why I ended up in the public system. The second time I travelled I used a Russian insurer instead, though in truth that was to satisfy the conditions on my three-month visa, the one I needed in order to go to St Petersburg and collect my three-year temporary residence permit from the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Home in Yorkshire, and still missing Russia

I have now settled in my dream home in North Yorkshire and my travelling days are over. I am also in the process of adopting a homeless Doberman. I have had five homeless dogs and one of them was a Dobe. He was a wonderful dog.

I still maintain contact with the friends I made in Russia, and I hope that when all this sanctions nonsense is over they will be able to visit me, so that I can show them Yorkshire and Scotland and repay some of the hospitality I was shown in St Petersburg.

I miss Russia and the Russian people very much. This will sound silly, but I feel a very strong connection to the Russian people. The thought that I will never visit again is one I continually push out of my mind. Of all the many countries I have visited in my time on this beautiful planet, Russia was without doubt the friendliest.

I should be ashamed to say this, but whenever I see videos of the Russian anthem being sung I find I have tears in my eyes. I saw one yesterday on YouTube. A man in what I think is Red Square in Moscow just randomly begins to sing the Russian anthem, and within a minute there is a whole crowd of ordinary people singing with him. A policeman comes across to see what is happening, and he joins in. Unbelievable patriotism and unity.

Okay, Irena, I have rambled on long enough. Good luck and God bless to all.

Have you travelled to Russia recently and want to share your experience? Tell me about your trip here and I will publish it in this section, with your name or anonymously, whichever you prefer. Chronicles like David’s are the ones that really help the people who are still planning their trip.