Russian Money

The national currency is the ruble (Rbl). Banknotes come in denominations of 10, 50, 100, 500 and 1,000 and there are 1,2,5 and 10 Rbl coins. There are 100 kopecks to every ruble and kopecks come in  denominations of 1, 5, 10 and 50. Officially, it's illegal to pay in dollars or euros. In places with a lot of foreign customers you still can see the prices written in Cyrillic "y.e" which means "conditional unit" and refers to the exchange rate between the ruble and the dollar or euro (or sometimes whatever the restaurant or shop wants to set it at) even though this practice was banned in January 2005.ATMs can be found at most metro stations, banks and large hotels. You will run across with some problems with receiving money if you are the owner of American express card: in the downtown the only place is ATM in the building of State Saving Bank on Dumskaya street, 1.

Credit card use is still in its infancy and not all establishments will take them, even if they have signs that say they will. Always have cash as back up.

American express travelers cheques are exchangeable at most banks but it is not very profitable for you: they charge 3% for the operation. The head office can be found in the White Night Business Center, near St Isaac's Cathedral: 23Malaya Morskaya. Most Russian banks also offer western Union money transfers. There are two very useful links  about exchange rate for you: www.xe.com and http://cbr.ru/eng/