Russia has excellent internet. Getting authenticated to use it is sometimes trickier.
Russia has excellent internet, particularly in urban centers like Moscow. If you’re American or Canadian or European, in fact, you might wish their internet was a little more broken. But you can’t change that now. All you can do is connect while in Moscow so you can continue seamlessly feeding Facebook and Instagram your personal information.
There are a huge amount of public and private Wi-Fi hotspots throughout Moscow, even in the Metro, where there were 500 million connections to the Metro Wi-Fi in 2015 alone. I have two concerns with relying solely on Wi-Fi hotspots though. First, the public wifi spots require “mandatory authentication of users in accordance with the Government Resolution № 801 of 08.12.2014”, which basically means authenticating your name and phone number with each connection. You may get creeped out by that or not, but it’s definitely a pain if you’re on the go. The second concern is that the single most valuable use of connectivity in Moscow is the ability to hail a Yandex Taxi or Uber. These car services have changed mobility in and around Moscow, and you don’t want to be tethered to a Wifi hotspot to use them. For that reason alone I recommend either a local SIM or pocket Wifi connection.
Protip: Beeline has a great deal going through the end of the World Cup: order a 2-week SIM card online—unlimited data, 30 minutes of local and international calling—for just US$11 and you can have it waiting for you at Sheremetyevo airport, or, if you’re arriving elsewhere, at one of their central Moscow branches.
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