Keep visa woes in perspective—it used to be harder to travel around here.
Russian law doesn't require you to carry your passport and registration card with you, but if you fail to provide a valid ID to a police officer upon request they have a right to hold you for up to 3 h for "identification purposes." These random passport checks are not common but still carry your passport with you at all times. This generally applies to more populated areas like Moscow due to the higher immigration influx larger cities; in other rural and less populated urban areas, passport checks occur quite rarely. It is also good to have a copy of your passport, visa, migration card and the registration form in case you happen to come across a dishonest/corrupt police officer. It's much harder to ransom a copy of a passport than it is the original, and you can always make another copy. Just remember that a photocopy of your passport is not recognized as a valid ID by Russian law, so having a copy may not always help.
Keep in mind that if you have no documents you can be held for up to 3 h but not arrested. If the worst should happen and you are detained by police officers, there is no circumstance that should lead to you being put behind bars and/or deprived of your belongings (such as mobile phone or any other): you can be taken to a police station, where you will end up sitting on a chair in a normal room while police "identify" you, but again, this rarely happens. Like most countries, you can be arrested if you are suspected of having committed a crime, but being unable to provide an ID is not considered a crime by Russian law and there is no penalty for such an infraction. No physical force can be applied to you while being detained unless you apply it first. If you happen to be stopped, just remember to be confident and remember that it is prohibited by law for a police officer to shout at you. Make no mistake: Russia is not a military country, and passport checks are around primarily to identify illegal immigration from neighboring countries. Western-looking, Caucasian people are very rarely asked on the street for ID.
One more useful tip to remember is that most Russian police officers speak no English at all, so don't assume the worst by immediately showing them official documents. Attempting to receive a bribe from a tourist works only if you feel threatened or nervous. In most cases, they will just wish you a farewell.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Russia
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Russia - updated Apr 2024
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Russia Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
