How to rent a flat in Moscow?

Renting a flat is a general problem in Moscow. Its hard to find a good house with the specifications in your mind, with a good house owner. Specially knowing little Russian, its a hard thing to do yourself where most of the agents and house owners do not know English.

To rent a flat, you need to find some agent phone numbers from your friends and colleagues. There are some Russian agents even knowing Turkish. In Russia, usually flat owners has his/her agent and the renter has his/her own agent. When the flat is found, 1 months renting price is given to these two agents as commision also. Usually flat owners want a one month price as deposit as well. So when doing contrat, three months renting money should be with you.

The flats in Russia is mostly rented with furnitures, so you don't need to buy or have many things for a new home. Also in Moscow, the flats are rented very fastly. In one week you should search detailly and rent the house you like' directly. Other day this flat can be already rented.

On the internet a popular flat searching site is : http://www.cian.ru/

How to buy a car in Russia as a foreigner?

As a foreigner, most of us are usually afraid to do new things which we don`t know, such as buying a car. We are mostly afraid of the diplomatical and procedural things. Instead, it is not such a hard thing and i can say that it is even easy after buyig it.

Firstly you have to decide which car to buy, as well as deciding buying a brand new car or used one. I would offer to buy a new car beacuse there is not much price difference. You should buy from the offical sellers in the city. The others sellers are mostly more expensive and they dont give a trustfull image to you. You have to give an order 3-4 months before to get the car with your specifications. or you can buy the car waiting in the saloon which will not fully satisfy or be over your expectations.

For foreigners there is a different place for car registrations. It is located near Tsaritsno Metro. To do prodecural thing you can find somebody(some Turks working in Moscow long time as driver for example) who would help you in such things with some money. Also in this process, payoff to some people is needed to get your things fastly done.

While driving car you have to carry 4 documents with you.
1) The translation of your driving license in Russian and the original driving license.
2) The OSAGO document, which is the govermental insurance of the car.
3) The registration document of the car to your name.
4) Ownership document of the car.

Also you may carry the private insurance document with you.

Buying car and registering is the only two steps firstly to buy a car. If you have money and will to have a car, i would offer you to buy a car and not to wait for it. Your life really changes in moscow after having a car...

Turkish Restaurants in Moscow

As a Turkish person who is devoted to delicious food, specially Turkish kitchen, its the main problem to find good Turkish resturants in Moscow. The list below is all restaurants i know in Moscow, in the order i like the foods there.

• Pasha Resturant : the restaurant has a nice internal design, with quality service and delicous food. Especially mercimek soup, i would advice you to try. The only disadvantage is that the location of the restaurant is far from the city center and the prices are a little expensive. For one person like 700-1000 rubles. Metro: Preobrajenskaya Ploshad.
• Bosphorus Restaurant : located in enterance of old Arbat street, has a large menu of Turkish foods. In the base floor you can also watch Turkish leauge or uefa matches. Has good mezes. Suitable for to take your guests, with nice internal design also. One person price 500-800 rub.
  
• Sikidim Restaurant: located in shopping center Atrium near Novokuznetskaya metro. The food is similar to home made food, where you can choose your food, looking to daily prepared foods. The portions are large and you will feel fed after your meal. Only the internal design and place of the restaurant is a disadvantage. Price for one person 500-800 rub.
  
• Kebap House : Located in old Arbat, prepares all kind of kebaps.The kebaps are not very delicious and internal design is classical Turkish Kebap house. The place is easy to go and have a kebap. Can be tired sometimes. Prices 400-600 rub.
  
• Kebap House in shopping centers : Can be found specially on old Ramstores and new Auchans at the food court; Sevastopolskaya, Kiveskaya Evropeski, Universitet ramstore... For to get Turkish taste, you can try mercimek corbasi, lahmacun, adana durum and ayran. Also a few house meals are serviced. Price for a meal would be 250-500 rub.
  

St. Petersburg

St.Peterburg, different form other Russian cities has european architechture and calm, modern life. The city of the 'Peter the Great' is really touristic, with large number of sightseeing places and beautiful nature. By the canals covering the city, the city gets the name of 'Veneize of the north'. These canals give the city feel of romantism and freedom.

The main and famous street of St.Petersburg is Nevsky Prospekt. Named by the old general Nevsky, who is one of the founders of St. Petersburg in 1400 s. You can find many restaurants, shops, cafes on this street. Also there are some restaurant, bars ath th streets crossing the main street. I have tried some Italian restaurants which have delicous pizza ad pasta, and compared with Moscow prices, the prices are cheaper.

The list of places to see can be find on internet or on some small touristics books more detailly, so i dont mention them here. It would take time like 4-5 days to see these all these places. I would suggest to go in spring or summer, where the wheather would be better. Also there are 2-4 hour bus tours of the city where you can see different parts and sightseeing places of the city in a fast way. Also a boat tour on the canals should be done to feel the St. Peterbourg soul. Every part of the city has some historical and architecthrually well designed buildings. There are houses of famous writers, palaces of famous Russian tsars an tsaritsinas. Seeing so much nice buildings, you fell being impressed and think how all this city and buildings can be designed such fascinatingly.

After seeing the St.Petersburg, I understood that the real place to see by the tourists in Russia is not the Moscow but St. Petersburg. And If you come to Moscow, you should also have a small St.Peterburg trip.

Hermitage Museum - St. Petersburg

Maybe one of the most famous and must to see places in St. Petersburg is the Hermitage Museum. Normally i am not very interested in museums, but having seen Hermitage my ideas had changed.

It is one of the biggest museums in the world and i would highy recommend to see it. It is a palace of three floors where each floor consists of different rooms. Mostly paintings of different artists from different countries and times gets the largest area. Especially i was suprised to see so much Pablo Picasso paintings in this museum. Museum contains also old things from the time of tsars in Russia. Most of the things are related with the Peter the Great, who is the founder of St. Petersburg.

Just walking at the museum, without looking to pictures carefully would take nearly two hours. If you try to look detailly everything and read the information about it, one day wouldn't be enough i guess. In general the Hermitage Museum is a nice, interesting, need to see place and if i find a chance would like to see it again. Take this place to your list if you are in Russia also.

How to go to St. Petersburg from Moscow

This weekend i had a three day trip for sightseeing to St. Petersburg with my friend. To go to St. Petersburg you have three options: train, plane or car. The most convenient way is going with a train, where you will get to train station easily in Moscow and would be able to sleep all night in train so will be rested when you reach to St. Petersburg.

You can buy train tickets from agencies at different parts of the city with some commision or directly from the train station. St. Petersburg trains gets off from Leningradski Vakzal which is located at Metro Komsomolskaya.There are different trains which gets off nearly every 30 minutes from Moscow at night. Two options for vagons are having a coupe with four people in a closed room or in a open vagon. Both of them are sleeping, but coupes are a little more comfortable, where less people and quite to sleep. Price of coupes are nearly twice as plascards. If money is not some concern for you i would advice you to go with coupe, but plascard is also comfortable, no worry. St

When you reach there the taxi drivers would understand that you are a tourist and would say high prices. dont directly accept and say some less price. The city is not so large and distances are not much.

There are different hotels where you can find on internet, but i can advice you Azimut Hotel which is not very far from center, big one and comparely cheap to other hotels.

In general travel to St. Peterburg from Moscow and returning back is very easy and you can do it without any afraids in mind. Also St. Peterburg is a quite and secure city as i observed. So have a nice trip...

Club Famous Moscow

Last week i had a change to go to Club Famous in Moscow. Before i didnt heard or read about this club, but by the party my fitness club enjoy, i find the opportunity to see it.

Classifying moscow clubs as low, middle, high level in quality, prices, people, face control etc.. i can definitely say that the club is at high category. At the enrty of the club there is a strict face and dress control. There big man in blacks waiting you friendly at the door...

Th interior design is a large hall, where tables and lounges are located aroud the main are. it is kind of two floor place where there are balconies and coaches located at the sides. It the middle as a second floor, like a podium which shows done, singers make live performance, dj cabinet.

The music is club music and atmosphere is energetic, nice girls and boys in fashion, with people dancing on different sides freely. The shows in the club are really well prepared. At the night i was there' 5-6 blonde russian girls made a dance and singing show (all may be claasifed as model catergory:)). After them two different singers made a live performance. The prices are a little expensive. For example calian was 4000 rub (150 dollars), which is quite expensive..

The most interesting cene i met at the exit of club at night. 4 taxis were wainting for clients. 3 porche cayenne and one maybach. This should be the 'Russian Luxury', i felt.

If you like high quality clubbing, you can try this place sometimes.

Some web sites about Moscow

Daily i follow some sites about Moscow and Russia in Turkish mostly for news, events, new places. And sometimes sites in English i look as well. These are the best and would rather good sites to follow up. Take these to your favorites...

http://www.turkrus.com/

http://www.moskovalife.com/

http://www.moskova.ru/

http://www.gazetem.ru/

http://www.waytorussia.net/

http://www.expat.ru/

Learn Russian

The most hardest part starting life in Moscow would be the language. Most of the people, specially if they are over 30 would not know English. So in any case you would need to learn Russian. Upto learning basic Russian at least, you would not feel yourself comfortable. So i advice you to focus on this and try to learn the first parts as fast as you can. Otherwise you would regret not learning Russian in time. Be sure you would need it.

The first hardness of learning Russian is the Cryillic alphabet. I would firstly advice to repeat and memorize the mapping of letters with latin alphabet. In one week you would be able to memorize it.

Firstly try to memorize the basic phrases and words such as good morning, hello, my name is.. with 100-200 basic daily words such as water, street etc.

There are plenty of different Russian books for Foreginers which may be in English, in Turkish or purely in Russian. You can find them in the big book stores in Moscow. I would advice to buy 4-5 good books. First book should be the serial lessons books 1,2,3 like payehali. Other one should be a short story book with some vocabulary at back or on everypage. Other one can be some other basic book, a mixed one. And also you should have a dictionary.

The main point is making as much as repats as you can. Everyday, maybe before sleep you can read and repeat 30 minutes. Also it would be beneficial to follow some cources, which provides you to follow a schedule. otherwise you could just on daily hurry, leave the language learning to to later, where later never comes.

In six months you will get the basic Russian, but dont forget that when you dont repeat your Russian will get worser. Also try to talk with people, just dont be afraid. But it doesnt matter how good you speak, the old seller lady at the magazine would not understand you and get angry when you want 'bez gaza vada' (water) even after two years had passed. But just try to make practice as much as you can, as well as basing on it good gramatically book studies...

Moscow Blog from a Turks Perspective

Living nearly two years in Moscow, i have decided to change the format and information in my blog. From now on, i will try to share my observations, experiences, ideas and the things i like / i do not like about Moscow, Russia and Russian life.

One of the most diffuculties in starting a new life in Moscow was not having a guide front of me, limited informations. Where to go, where to live better, how to solve your daily problems, which restaurant, parks, cafes, cinemas i can go etc. Although web is full of information sometimes its better to have a small rodamap, advicer with you..

Hope this blog will be a small roadmap for new comer foreigners, specially to Turkish people coming to Moscow. Even though every experience is a persons own treasury, sharing such information is usefull i believe.

Any comments about it are welcome...