I live in Moscow. There's plenty of Americans and other Westerners visiting here regularly for business or tourism with no problems. Just don't try to smuggle any weed in, Americans keep getting into trouble for that.

I'm neither American not Russian.

Although I was initially a bit surprised, it makes sense. I mean, I suppose there are plenty of Russians in America living a totally normal life.

> I mean, I suppose there are plenty of Russians in America living a totally normal life.

Yep, and vice-versa.

How do they tackle the credit card / wireless payment problem? Such as, how do you buy a train ticket these days as a tourist.

There are a few options:

- Bring some cash and exchange it here.

- Open a bank account here and transfer money there (yes, there are some ways).

- Bring crypto wallet keys along and use crypto ATMs.

- Exchange through a friend/relative with accounts on both sides of the iron curtain.

Are there any real-world crypto ATMs in Russia?

Yeah, there's one less than 5 minutes from my flat, and I live a little outside of the centre. I've used crypto very little in recent years, so not a lot of personal experience to share, but I know some people who use them (or just the P2P market places of sites like Binance).

I suspect the ATMs will give you a worse exchange rate than what you'd get on a P2P exchange online.

Thank you. I appreciate your response, and the additional color you provided to another commenter.

The exceptions to this rule can be pretty severe.

What?

What's unclear? Most Americans are fine in Russia; the exceptions are unpleasant. I wouldn't worry too much as a nobody, but if I had any sort of high profile, Russia has plenty of motivations to play the tit-for-tat game right now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittney_Griner

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Gershkovich

No, German