When in Russia, some visitors find calling home or long distance inside Russia very difficult. Below we explain some basic rules of telephone calls in Russia and provide a list of Russian city codes.

There are some ways to call home in Russia (for more information on this topic, please see the article “Travellers’ Tips”).

In bigger cities, there are payphones on the main streets, underground stations or big shops. Normally you buy can pre-paid cards for the phones in nearby kiosks and shops to call long-distance inside Russia or make an international call. Instructions on how to dial the numbers are written on the telephone.

In smaller cities you might not be able to do the international and long-distance calls from the payphones, as they allow only in-city calls. In this case you should use your phone in hotel or mobile phone to make a phone call. Note that the latter would be quite expensive.
If you call from the hotel, you may choose to use a state operator or so-called ‘alternative’ operators, e.g. those providing IP-telephone services. The range of these companies has been growing. In case you choose to call through these operators, you need to buy a special card and use an operator telephone number to activate the card, and then dial or tell the live operator the country code and area code followed by the phone number.

If you make an international call from Russia with the state operator, you should not buy cards. You may use any public telephone to call. General rules for international calls with this operator are given below.
First, dial 8 and wait for the tone. After that dial 10 - this means that you are making an international call. Then dial your country code followed by the area or city code and the telephone number.

8+10+country code+area/city code+telephone number

There are also some basic rules to call long distance inside Russia

In Russia the general rule for dialing long distance is, the total numbers of digits you dial when you call long distance inside Russia is always ten. Only a few big cities like Moscow and Saint-Petersburg have 7-digit phone numbers. As some smaller cities have 5-digit numbers, 2 extra digits are added to the area code.
If you call with the ‘alternative’ operator, you need to buy and activate the card and then dial or tell the operator the city/area code.
If you use a phone in the hotel or any other public telephone, you should dial 8 and then the city/area code and the telephone number.

Please find phone codes for some Russian cities below:

CITY CODE Abakan 39022 Akhtubinsk 85111 Alexander Gai 84578 Anadyr 42722 Angarsk 395 18 Arkhangelsk 818 2 Armavir 861 37 Arzamas 831 47 Asbest 34365 Astrakhan 851 0 Baikonur 33622 Barnaul 385 2 Belgorod 072 2 Berdsk 383 41 Berezniki 342 42 Biysk 385 38 Blagoveshchensk 416 22 Bratsk 395 31 Bryansk 083 2 Chaikovsky 34241 Cheboksary 835 2 Chelyabinsk 351 2 Cherepovets 820 2 Chita 302 2 Chkalovsk 83160 Derbent 87240 Dimitrovgrad 842 35 Dudinka 39111 Ekaterinburg (formerly Sverdlovsk) 343 2 Elabuga 85557 Elista 847 22 Essentuki 87934 Gelendzhik 241 Glazov 341 41 Grozny 871 2 Irkutsk 395 2 Ishim 34551 Ivanovo 093 2 Izhevsk (formerly Ustinov) 341 2 Kaliningrad 011 2 Kaluga 084 2 Kansk 39161 Kazan 843 2 Kemerovo 384 2 Khabarovsk 421 0 Kineshma 093 31 Kislovodsk 865 37 Kyzyl 394 22 Kostroma 094 2 Krasnodar 861 2 Krasnoyarsk 391 2 Kurgan 352 22 Kursk 071 2 Lermontov 87935 Lipetsk 074 2 Magadan 413 00 Magnitogorsk 351 37 Makhachkala 872 0 Mezhdurechensk 38475 Miass 35135 Michurinsk 075 45 Mineralnye Vody 865 31 Moscow 095 Murmansk 815 2 Murom 092 34 Naberezhnye Chelny 855 2 Nalchik 866 00 Navoi 436 22 Nerungri 41147 Nizhnekamsk 843 53 Nizhnevartovsk 3466 Nizhni Tagil 343 5 Nizhni(y) Novgorod (was Gorky) 831 2 Norilsk 3919 Novgorod 816 22 Novocherkassk 863 52 Novokuznetsk 3843 Novokuybyshevsk 846 35 Novorossiysk 861 7 Novosibirsk 383 2 Novy Urengoi 34549 Obninsk 084 39 Omsk 381 2 Oriol 086 2 Orenburg 353 2 Penza 841 2 Pereslavl-Zalessky 085 35 Perm 342 2 Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski 415 00 Petrozavodsk 814 2 Pyatigorsk 879 0 Rostov 085 36 Rostov-na-Donu (or Rostov-on-Don) 863 2 Saint-Petersburgh 812 Salekhard 34922 Samara (formerly Kuibyshev) 846 2 Saransk 834 2 Sarapul 341 47 Saratov 845 2 Simbirsk (formerly Ulyanovsk) 842 22 Smolensk 081 2 Sochi 862 2 Solikamsk 342 53 St.Petersburg (was Leningrad) 812 Stary Oskol 072 5 Stavropol 865 22 Surgut 3462 Suzdal 092 31 Syktyvkar 821 22 Taganrog 863 44 Tambov 075 2 Tomsk 382 2 Tula 087 2 Tver (former Kalinin) 082 2 Tyumen 345 2 Ufa 347 2 Ukhta 821 47 Ulan-Ude 301 22 Vladikavkaz (formerly Ordzhonikidze) 867 2 Vladimir 092 2 Vladivostok 423 2 Volgograd 844 2 Volkhov 812 63 Vologda 817 2 Vorkuta 821 51 Voronezh 073 2 Yakutsk 411 22 Yaroslavl 085 2 Yoshkar-Ola 836 2 Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk 424 00

Evgeniya Stroganova