Moscow for People with Disabilities: Life Without Frontiers

There are around 1.7 million people with restricted physical abilities (ограниченные физические возможности) living in Moscow, and a fair number among tourists visiting the capital.

Adapting the city‘s infrastructure for people with restricted physical abilities has become a priority in the capital‘s development in recent years.

In addition, opportunities in the city for disabled tourists (туристы с ограниченными возможностями) from inside and outside Russia have increased dramatically. Тhe first tours for people in wheelchairs (инвалидное кресло) in Moscow were introduced only in 1988. Even today this type of tourism is offered by only a few companies in the city. However, the largest of them — the Paratourism - Well Agency, the Parilis Charitable Foundation and the Invatour Foundation — are actively developing accessible tourism, offering people with restricted physical abilities individual and group guided tours around Moscow, the Moscow Region and other major Russian cities, as well as organizing trips abroad. In these trips everything is provided for the comfort of tourists requiring special conditions: transport, suitably equipped accommodation and eating facilities, and specially trained guides.

Of course, the majority of the problems faced by people with restricted abilities are connected with public transport. At the moment there are insufficient specially equipped means of transport available, but the whole Moscow bus fleet is planned to be replaced. All new city transport has a so-called low floor and is equipped with special lifts. There are also special social taxis for the disabled traveling individually

or in groups. The taxis are paid for by tokens (жетон) provided by the All-Russian Society for the Disabled.

Adapting the Metro is not a simple task, since it is practically impossible to convert the old sections of the system for the needs of the disabled. But all the new stations under construction meet the necessary requirements. The stations built in recent years (Dostoyevskaya and Slavyansky Bulvar, for example) are equipped with special lifts and passages for wheelchairs.

The organization of cultural leisure for disabled tourists, though not without its problems, has also shown progress. Moscow currently has 80 restaurants, 15 museums, 20 churches, 15 cinemas and 170 shops that are fully or partly adapted for their needs. It can therefore be said that about 25% of venues in the capital are specially equipped in one way or another.

Accommodation in a large number of Moscow‘s hotels does not now present any inconvenience, as they have rooms that are fully equipped for the disabled.

Mobile

In Moscow there are three main GSM operators: MTS, Beeline, Megafon. They often have offers that give you a SIM card, including 3G internet, for free or at least very cheap.

Even if you are only staying for a short time in Russia, you should consider buying a local pay-as-you-go SIM card, as it may be cheaper than just a few minutes of roaming.

Almost any European phone, and those from the U.S. which work on a GSM network (T-Mobile, or AT&T), carry the «tri-band» or «World phone» designation and had been unlocked, should work on the Russian standard (if yours is not one of those, a basic new candybar will still run you considerably less than $50 without a contract).

If you buy a SIM card from a shop you'll need your passport for identification. It only takes five minutes to do the paperwork and it will cost less than $10. You will

receive a number in the «mobile» area code, starting with 9, which has more expensive rates for calls to and from landlines (and from abroad; in compensation, the tariffs for calls to phones on the same network are usually reduced), and your card will be preloaded with a small initial minute allowance. Incoming calls are free (or at least are supposed to be, by law; some companies are trying to find ways around it).

Top off at the stores of your chosen company, at shops selling phones, or at newer automated kiosks which accept utility payments (they look like short, squat ATMs with large touchscreens, and display, among others, logos of the mobile operators); the latter charge a small commission fee and accept cash or (rarely) credit cards. Be careful when entering the number: it is possible to add airtime to any phone, not only your own.

For calls abroad there are different inexpensive pre-paid cards (e.g. Arktel), which you can find at many shops and kiosks throughout the city or in any post office.

Moscow Time

Moscow Time is the time zone for the city of Moscow and most of western Russia, including Saint Petersburg. It is the second-westernmost of the nine time zones of Russia. Moscow Time has been UTC+4 year-round since 27 March 2011, but will change to UTC+3 permanently on 25 October 2014. Moscow Time is used to schedule trains, ships, etc. throughout the Russian Federation, while airplane travel is scheduled using local time. Times in Russia are often announced throughout the country on radio stations as Moscow Time, and this time is also registered in telegrams, etc

Descriptions of time zones in Russia are often based on Moscow Time rather than UTC. For example, Yakutsk (UTC+10) is said to be MSK+6 within Russia.

In accordance with the 16 June 1930 Decree of the Council of People's Commissars, the Decree Time was introduced by adding one hour to the time in each time zone of the USSR, so that Moscow Time became three hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time.

Until 2011, during the winter, between the last Sunday of October and the last Sunday of March, Moscow Standard Time (MSK, МСК) was 3 hours ahead of UTC, or UTC+3; during the summer, Moscow Time shifted forward an additional hour ahead of Moscow Standard Time to become Moscow Summer Time (MSD), making it UTC+4.

In 2011, the Russian government proclaimed that daylight saving time would in future be observed all year round, thus effectively displacing standard time—an action which the government claimed emerged from health concerns attributed to the annual shift back-and-forth between standard time and daylight saving time. On 27 March 2011, Muscovites set their clocks forward for a final time, effectively observing MSD, or UTC+4, permanently.

On March 29, 2014, after the accession of Crimea to the Russian Federation the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol switched their time to MSK.

In July 2014, the State Duma passed a bill repealing the 2011 change, putting Moscow Time on permanent UTC+3.

Money

The national currency of Russia is rouble (divided into 100 kopecks). The coins (1, 5, 10 and 50 kopecks, and 1, 2, 5 and 10 roubles) and the notes in 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000 and 5000 roubles are in circulation. The Central Bank sets the exchange rate to foreign currencies on the daily basis.

The simplest and safest method to exchange money (usually Euros or US dollars) is to go to the banks‘ branches (some of them operate 24h), but standard working hours – 10:00 to 19:00. Currency can be exchanged in the hotels or to receive roubles in cash via ATMs (банкомат), which accept the cards of all the main payment systems (Visa, MasterCard etc.). You may use the cards for purchases in the cities, since many cafes, restaurants and shops accept them for payment. The main rule of safety at currency exchange in the Russia – do not use services of private persons. As a rule the ATMs of the most known banking establishments in the Russia can be found in hotel lobbies, underground stations and in large shops.