Arriving in St. Petersburg by train is convenient. All the train stations are located next to metro stations, so you simply need to step off the train and enter into the bowels of St. Petersburg’s underground system and find your way to the metro station nearest your destination.

Vitebsk (Vitebsky) station is the destination for trains from the Baltic States and Eastern Europe. Trains from Finland arrive at the Finland (Finlyandksy) station and Ladozhsky station, while Moscow (Moskovsky) station is the hub for Moscow bound trains. Long distance trains within Russia arrive and depart from Moskovsky and Ladozhsky stations. The train stations have ATMs (bankomaty), cafes, money exchanges (obmen valyuty), luggage-hold rooms (kamera khraneniya) and souvenir shops. There are taxi stands outside every station and the drivers there usually charge less than the ones waiting to pounce on the station platforms. If you are arriving from midnight onwards be prepared for city transport difficulties. The metro system will be closed for the night and during summer the bridges will be open – which depending on where your accommodation is might mean substantial delays.

Departing St. Petersburg by train: If you’d just like to get out of the city for the day, local trains (electrichky) cheaply connect the villages and suburbs to St. Petersburg. Electrichky to Gatchina, Lomonosov and Peterhof depart from Baltic (Baltiisky) station, from Finlyandsky you can visit Viburg, and Pushkin and Pavlovsk are covered by Vitebsky. There may be no toilets, but if you forgot to bring ice cream, band-aids or knife sharpeners a vender might be wandering the aisle with just what you need