edit

Introduction

detail of house in old samara

detail of house in old samara

© klaerchen

Samara, the administrative center of the Samara Oblast, is a city in the southern Russia Volga Region and is one of the largest cities in the country with well over 1.1. million inhabitants, though declining. It is located at the confluence of the Volga and Samara Rivers.

Top

edit

Weather

Its location in the south central region of Russia means that Samara has a typical intercontinental climate with cold winters and warm summers. The latter runs from late May to early September with average daytime temperatures in the 20-26 °C and nights in the 13-16 °C range. Winters from December to February see average highs of -6 °C to -9 °C, with nights plummiting to -12 °C to -16 °C. The alltime records are much more extreme though, ranging from 40 °C to -43 °C in July and January respectively.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Avg Max-9 °C-7.5 °C-0.9 °C11.5 °C20.9 °C24.1 °C26.1 °C24.2 °C18.1 °C8.3 °C-0.1 °C-5.7 °C
Avg Min-15.7 °C-14.6 °C-7.7 °C2.3 °C9.6 °C13.6 °C15.9 °C13.9 °C8.7 °C1.5 °C-4.6 °C-11.4 °C
Rainfall46 mm35 mm33 mm39 mm32 mm58 mm64 mm52 mm45 mm52 mm54 mm51 mm
Rain Days107775887791010

Top

edit

Getting There

By Plane

Kurumoch International Airport (KUF) has a range of flights, with destinations including Prague, Dubai, Frankfurt, Moscow, Yerevan, Tyumen, Anapa, Krasnodar, Sochi, Dushanbe, Yekaterinburg, Tashkent, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Tel Aviv, Surgut, Baku and Omsk, among a few other smaller/regional cities.

By Train

Trains run regularly to Moscow and east towards Chelyabinsk, Ufa and Yekaterinburg.

By Car

Samara is located on the M5 motorway between Moscow and the Ural Mountains.

By Bus

Buses travel as far as Nizhny Novgorod, Perm and Moscow, and even Yerevan.

Top

edit

Getting Around

By Public Transport

The metro, trolleybuses and trams together form a comprehensive public transportation system in the Samara metropolitan area.

Top

edit

Drink

Drink original Zhigulyovskoye beer in Na dne bar or in posh U Vakano restaurant.

Top

edit

Sleep

Top

edit

Keep Connected

Internet

Russia is a huge country, and excess to the internet varies a lot. The main cities and tourist places have (free) wifi excess at lots of places, like restaurants and cafes (McDonald's is always a safe bet). Internet cafes are present in larger places as well. Rural areas and especially if you venture into remote and/or mountainous areas have little excess at all. Most travellers will find connections though when using their phone or tablet.

Phone

See also: International Telephone Calls

The emergency number is 112. The country code for Russia is 7. Russian phone numbers have an area code with three, four or five digits (according to their province), followed by an individual number with, respectively, 7, 6 or 5 digits, always yielding 10 digits in total. The three digit code 800 is used for toll-free calls. Mobile phones always have three-digit "area" codes and seven-digit numbers. Calls within any one area code may omit the area code (except in Moscow). Inter-area code calls within Russia: 8 (wait for tone) full Russian number including area code. The international access code for dialling outwith Russia is the sequence of 8 (wait for secondary tone and then) 10. International calls to Russia, as always, replace the plus sign (+) in the international phone format with the local international access code for the country you're calling from, followed by Russia's country code of 7 followed by the individual Russian phone number including area code.

You will require a SIM-unlocked GSM 900 / 1800 compatible international cell phone when buying a Russian SIM card. If you do not have your own international cell phone, it's best to buy a cheap cell phone with some value on the card. Foreigners can purchase a local SIM card by showing your passport. BeeLine is considered to be the best in terms of reliability and connections quality. However Megafon's services can be a bit cheaper.

Post

Russian Post is the national postal service of Russia. It's English version is currently under construction, but mainly involves the track&trace system. The domestic post is reasonably reliable, and sending international mail is fairly reliable but slow, taking at least a few weeks to European countries, longer to the USA or Australia for example. The delivery of mail sent from abroad to Russia is highly unreliable, and people or companies tend to use foreign adresses, from where a private carrier sends it to Russia. Alternatives like poste restante are non-existent with Russian Post. Most cities and large towns in Russia have a Central Post Office (Glavpochtamt), which also sells stamps and envelopes, and usually has fax services and Internet availability, though the latter mostly not in smaller places. Also, many hotels have postal services, including mail boxes. Post offices tend to keep long hours, usually from 8:00am or 9:00am until 8:00pm or 9:00pm Monday to Friday, and closing earlier during weekends. The main central post offices in the biggest cities keep even longer hours. For sending parcels, you can also try services by DHL Russia and FedEx Russia. For all mail you can use the regular alphabet, though maybe include the country's name in Cyrillic. For sending post to Russia (or trying to receive it) note that addresses should be in reverse order: Russia, postal code, city, street address, name.

Top

Accommodation in Samara

We have a comprehensive list of accommodation in Samara searchable right here on Travellerspoint.

Samara Travel Helpers

We don't currently have any Travel Helpers for Samara

This is version 9. Last edited at 14:41 on Nov 21, 17 by Utrecht. 12 articles link to this page.

Creative Commons License
Except where otherwise noted, content of this article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License